I first started getting interested in silent computing a few years back. i was running a cooler master 341 and a generic psu. cheap flimsy panels, noisy fans, no space for extra hard drives... it was a terrible mess that rattled away for a long time before i finally got sick of it. at the end of '09 i saw a deal for a mini p180 and a corsair 400cx for $125 shipped. i had been researching cases and other parts for a long time while living with the noise of my pc, and decided that it was finally time to say goodbye. the quality was excellent, certainly living up to the hype of the p1 series cases.
The change in noise from just a case swap and a new psu held me over for most of last year. it couldnt end there though. i had caught... the silencing bug. i tried to deal with it at first by running the case without the 200m fan. however, the gaping hole that it left open still let noise escape; the lone tricool fan on low wasnt quiet enough for me either. the low noise areas that i inhabit tend to make any noise noticeable, and im close to the point where any noise is too much noise. something had to be done, and thats what im sharing with you today...
Main Specs
- Antec Mini P180 - mods shown later
Corsair 400CX - fan swapped with scythe s-flex sff21f; soft mounted
3x Hitachi 7k1000.c 1TB
1x Hitachi 5k3000 2TB
1x Samsung F4EG 2TB
1x OCZ Vertex 30GB
ASRock 880GM-LE
Muskin Silverline 2x4GB (stock: 1.5v; 1333mhz; 9-9-9-24) (running at: 1.48v; 1310hmz; 8-8-8-22)
AMD Sempron 140 (stock: 1.35v; 2.7ghz; single core) (running at: 1.425v; 3.32ghz; dual core)
Scythe Mugen 2 rev. b
Thermalright HR-05
you probably look at the 8GBs of ram and a single core cpu and end up with a confused look on your face, but i assure you, there is a purpose. i have one piece of software that loves memory, but is still single threaded. very frustrating, but ive never found a piece of software thats better.
i went with sempron and a cheap motherboard since im still waiting for bulldozer, so i didnt feel like wasting cash on anything that'd be replaced before long anyways. the power consumption of the sempron is decent, so this system will probably be relegated to a server/ media streamer down the road. for now though, its just a snappy little web browsing machine, as ive moved my x4 and its video processing tasks into a different build, in a different part of the house.