To add to the list... hardocp.com mini-itx.com slashdot.org (of course) For all the people who have read this thread what is holding you back the most from jumping on this project? Is it the price? or some other factor? At the moment, it is because I just ordered 10 zalman fanmates, along with a $20...

Ralf Hutter wrote:Just gotta suck it up, I guess, and pay the price. Fortunately, for me at least, I don't use anywhere near as many 120mms as I do 80mm. I have dozens and dozens of 80mms but only five or six 120mm fans.

What do you do with dozens of 80mm fans? Did your employer let you silence the server farm?

I have a generic one. It's a squirrel blower, basically. They're not as quiet as a box fan for the airflow you get*, and they are setup to blow air out of the case. If you mount it at the bottom of your case, where your cards are, that means you are removing the cold air from the inside, which isn't...

Just to complete this thread (and to thank Mike and 'Gyoza for putting up with my whining), I ordered a B+K Precision 732 today for $192.91. It's a cute little sound meter with a wind-resistant afro, a 1.5 (reported) dB accuracy and a 30 dB (reported) minimum, and a sleek styling reminicent of a den...

Not yet. At least, that's how it feels to me. But maybe coming soon. I think first people need to figure out that the vast majority of them don't need Hyperthreading 3.05 Ghz processors. Then they will figure out they need quiet PCs. So let that first one be your road marker. How do I know this? I ...

Wow, that Pulsar 30 is a nice unit. It still doesn't go as low as I'm looking for, though. I guess I'm just being a perfectionist: 30 DB is low enough to get relative readings from different sources. It doesn't say the shape of the sound, but again... probably being too picky. Anyway, thanks. Looks ...

For those playing along at home, this is what we are talking about. http://www.cybercom.net/~seishino/caselayout.jpg I don't understand people's fear of nonparallel arrangements. I can't imagine that a fan would have proper bearings to be mounted vertically or horizontally, yet would balk at the pro...

Hmmm, so you take air from underneath the case, flow it through the HDD enclosure, make a U-ie up to a 120mm fan above the HDD, and out over the CPU / 9700? Why not mount the 1st internal fan to the end of the HDD enclosure, aim it at an angle at the CPU / vid card, and use the 2nd internal fan to b...

Well, the G4 guy is a guy, an industrial artist who strangely doesn't have a website (I assume you want a link to the guy's website). He had the case custom made by talking to the people who run that site, not by ordering it straight from them. I'm sorry, but you'll have to do some digging at mcmast...

<sigh> I wish I could have it that easy. Unfortunately for me, I need to find a bigger enclosure for my rubber boxed hdds. At 7" x 4.75" x 1.75" each, they just wouldn't fit. LOL! I suppose it would finally be quiet enough if you mounted the rubber in foam-lined tupperware, mounted the tupperware i...

Mine is the "Thumbtack" computer in the picture boards. The picture of the machine there is pretty out of date: The cables are cleaned, Pax Mate lines the case, all fans are Panaflo, and the CPU is now cooled by a Thermalright Sk-7... and the HDD enclosure now has the fan mounted to the opening, and...

Ummm, well, no actually. If you look at the specs sheet , (acrobat), at the bottom you will see the fan quite clearly. It uses a rather deep 60 mm fan, which blows air down the length of the case. On the other hand, they are selling used in other places for 250 dollars, so it might not be a bad pick...

*BUMP Sorry, I'm really interested in spending a considerable amount of money to get a professional grade sound meter, and have little or no idea where to turn. Does anyone have links, or references, or anywhere I can check out? (sorry about the bump... didn't want to fall off the front page with no...

My two HDD's are mounted in a gutted AT PSU, surrounded by sound absorbing foam. It works really well, actually, but it does require its own fan to keep cool (had one overheating incident without it). As a pure suspension it would be OK, but it really seems to shine as a full enclosure. There is a s...

I'm wondering why you couldn't just use 2-sided foam tape to stick the fan to the case and do away with all the attachments. Wouldn't this work well? Could the tape stand up to the heat inside a case? It depends on the location, actually. My CPU fan is (gasp) stuck to the bottom of the PSU by doubl...

Damn... Now, if you just get a thick copper sheet and drill holes directly down lengthwise and get convection air current movement and glue 1/2 dozen cheap aluminum heatsinks and measure the the positions of all the circuits on your board oh no I've gone cross-eyed

What's so extraordinary about a water-cooling unit? I'd tend to believe more people have water-cooling rigs than know the difference between a panaflo L1A and M1A. Yes, you can get a new P4 3Ghz with a Radeon 9700 Pro with the kind of money spent silencing your current computer, but how quiet would ...

When I near the draw maximum for a PSU, they start complaining about 7v mods. It's not like they immolate themselves, they just don't boot, or have a hard time using another resource. Removing the mod fixes the problem. I wouldn't worry about using 7v mods. I wouldn't want to switch things around li...

... maybe. I had a similar system, with no graphics card but two floppies that would konk out if I used a 7v mod on any fans. But other than that it was happy. So yes, I would say a strong Probably, assuming you don't actively try to kick the PSU in the teeth. And if it doesn't work, you can always ...

Castration bands? By the hundred?

You must really hate your cows...

On that note, the earplug idea intrigues me. Perhaps an extra-narrow screw running up the middle of an earplug would be enough to firm a fan to the case, without any hard contact between fan / screw / case?

Lower wattage PSU isn't going to help you with the noise. Its how much you consume that heats up the PSU. I would recommend sticking to at least 300W no matter what your config is unless you plan to dump the PSU in a year or so too as silent PSU do cost extra. Good precautionary advice about overdr...

I dont see any reason it shouldnt be really easy. Agreed. In a pinch I've removed metal grills with a pair of needle-nosed pliers. It's not difficult, it just requires a little gusto. BTW, if tin snips are what I think they are, you can forget about a review from me. They're those things people use...

If you don't need a tracked shipment with guaranteed delivery then we are happy to via first class mail for under a buck. See in our FAQ: http://www.siliconacoustics.com/firstclassmail.html You should probably advertise that a little more! You don't know how many times I've needed to get a tiny, ch...

They are the L1A's? I don't know of the vibration you speak, it is possible you did get a bad batch. The 7 panaflos I'm using (in various boxes) are all quieter than my Vantec Stealth by a wide margin... ...That is not to say they are perfect. There is certainly room for a quieter, higher CFM air-mo...

I'm looking for a portable sound meter to measure ambient room noise and computer noise on site. Mike's cute little devil would be an ideal formfactor, but sensitivity to room noise would be very nice. So far the only thing that seems to suffice for capturing an ambient baseline is a combination osc...

Don't let this comment short circuit this discussion: there is very little information about silent CDVD drives. However, are you sure you didn't just trip a fuse? I'm willing to bet if you poke around the board with a multimeter, you will find a chip with one line in, and one line out, that has a r...

grills stamped from the aluminum / steel of the case create large flat sheets of impedement directly in the path of the airflow. There is no reason such a thing should stay. Flat wire grills can be a problem, as they put themselves closer to the source of air than raised wire grills (where the feet ...

I can't take credit for this find, it was on slashdot today. Which means that half of you saw it anyway, but I thought it would be good for the archive. edisk They seem to come in quite a range, with 2.5 and 3.5 drives. Access Time - 250 to 39 usec I/O Rate - 1,500 to 25,000 IOPS Operating System In...

Just got my hands on a Radio Shack Nibbler. I'm cutting a grill right now with a nibbler and with a pair of diagonal pliers, and the difference is pronounced. The nibbler makes clean, slow, professional-looking cuts, with little metal shards left over. The diagonal pliers make quick, easy cuts with ...

I'm sorry if we don't sound very useful... whether or not a PSU mod will do well is very particular to the system you are on. Plus, I think most of the people here are pretty fearless when it comes to mods... I know I would have just coated that sucker in glue on the theory that glue is nonconductiv...