Terminology

[Erssa]

HD silencers can cost quite a bit. To me it would make more sense just to buy a new more silent HD, if your HD indeed is loud. Quick way to test this is to unpulg your HD power cable while in BIOS.

I guess the most silent HDs atm are Samsung Spinpoint P80 and Maxtor DiamondMax 10. Most people here would probably recommend Seagate, but they just aren't as quiet as p80 and DM10, nor as fast as DM10. Some people wouldn't recommend Maxtors just because they have bad experiences with them before, but as you already own Maxtor I wouldn't see an issue here.

And about fans, I really suggest you read this http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=16393

I wouldn't worry about the case duct. The reason why Antec has postponed the release of the case is probably because they made some changes to it, I'd suggest the ducting could change a bit.

Personally I wouldn't consider buying a new mobo, since you are currently running a agp graphics and s754 cpu and you most likely don't care about overclocking anyway since you bought a SFF in the first place. But if you decide you want a new mobo DFI LANPARTY UT nF3 250Gb Athlon 64 is the only real choise if you don't want to change you cpu and gpu at the same time. Upgrading from you system to a s939 system would be a waste of money at this point, since your comp is pretty good anyway. I wouldn't consider upgrading before AMD has socket M2 dual cores out.

 

[IceWindius]

 

[IceWindius]

After modding my Sonata for project "Night Wind" i've never had a quieter computer ever. I love it!

 

[Erssa]

Btw your Night Wind link in SPCR doesn't work anymore...

 

[Mosad]

Yea... i dont plan on upgarding until Dual Core becomes the standard and SLI follows suite... so thats that for the mobo... HD wise - in the Bios.. what were you referring to? could you describe that in more detail....

as for fans and silence, i looked at your link and they neglected what i have come to know as the leaders, although quite expensive, in the pack: silenx. 11dba and 14dba... many people in other forumns swear by them:
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc/viewCat_Z.asp?idCategory=3

As for my GPU - thermaltake heatsinks.. you think i can go fanless?


Overall... 11dba case fans + other silent fans and components = silent case. dead silent. no?

 

[Erssa]

As for the BIOS part. I meant that when you boot your computer press del, or whatever gets you to your BIOS. Then while in there unplug your hard drive powe cable and listen to the noise difference. Then you can just plug it back in and boot the computer. It would give you an image how much noise it produces. Changing all the fans in your system won't help if the HD is the noisiest component. Even a low noise hard drive can be the noisiest component because of the resonance. Low noise HD and soft mounting is the key for silent systems.

I wouldn't count on that 11dba rating. But I guess they are pretty good, but with that kind of rating they must have pretty low airflow.

As for the GPU, maybe. I still think you wouldn't hear the fan of vf700 over your hard drive noise.

Dead silent case is pretty impossible to make, but you really silent isn't that hard if you just pick out the right parts. Of course it just depends on what your tolerance for noise is.

 

[Erssa]

Originally posted by: Mosad
as for fans and silence, i looked at your link and they neglected what i have come to know as the leaders, although quite expensive, in the pack: silenx. 11dba and 14dba... many people in other forumns swear by them:
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc/viewCat_Z.asp?idCategory=3

Btw, here's an explanation why silenX is neglected there.
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=455

It's just plain disgusting to decieve like this... I wonder how many of those people on the other forums work for SilenX aswell...

Products could be good, but personally I wouldn't buy from a company with this kind of behavior.

And like I said before I wouldn't count on those db readings...

 

[Mosad]

Thanks for the response... The link you have up there isnt working. I actually went into my shuttle recently and took out an extra vantec dual fan i had in there... silenced it up quite a bit - i have narrowed down the main problem to my PSU... are you familiar with the SN85G4v1 Shuttle PSUs? if so, any advice?