I agree... that's why for the last 10 systems I've built I only used ANTEC SX 840s or SX635s ...... the case makes avery big difference.
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming. WOW-- What a Ride!"
My actual biggest complaint is cheap power supplies. I've had more weird unexplainable problems due to cheap power supplies than any other component. I find that buying a quality power supply can make a system so much more stable.
I have been very impressed with the enermax offerings. But one thing seems to disappearing in the atx case world...The Removable MotherBoard Tray. It is getting harder and harder to find a case where you can remove the mobo tray. I was going to upgrade my case when i upgrade to athlon xp and kt266a but there a very few cases that offer the removable tray. So i dropped a new power supply in and moded my old case with a few vents and fans and all is well.
I actually bought a good case for my wife's computer( which is forever getting corrupted with viruses and other problems ). I installed two extra fans plus the power supply fan. That case was cooler than me on a summer night. BUT....she said it sounded like an airport.The computer is in the kitchen but it was LOUD. I actually had to uninstall two of the fans to make it bearable.I never noticed any differences in uptime on Windows ME ( but who can keep that OS running more than a few days without rebooting)Any ideas how to install the xtra fans and not get horrendous noise. Are all fans created equal?
p.s. I'm getting ready to build my first RAID system. Anyone know where I can find a good tutorial for this.
You have about 3 dif. options I can think of to tame the noise.
The easiest is to eliminate extra smaller fans alltogether.Niosy little buggers they are!
To have effective cfm's small blades must move fast and have a aggresive blade twist as to Scoop more air per turn.Higher rpms at this and wolla-noise due to air resistance or that high pitched wine.Also avoid cheap bearing fans,you know those $2.00 special sale 80mm ones.Do away with these all together and have one lower cfm(as to reduce noise)80mm good brand fan at the front for intake.Pay special attention to the dba level of fan and buy one of the lowest you can find.Run one 120mm or so fan on the side,make a blow hole on the side right across from the gpu of video and cpu fan.This larger fan will spin slower and yet blast fresh cool air on the whole mainboard and cpu.The lower front will cool HDD's and eliminate certain hot air pockets.
Or you could just replace the fans you have with some lower dba fans at a better quality.It does make a big noise dif.I have a 80mm radio shack fan that screams.But then I have another brand 80mm that is practicly silent!I would change the psu fan if old aswell.I know it isnt loud by itself but when you get a bad or louder fan in harmony with a new good fan the sound is errrie.
The third would be useing trim pots or potentiometers.The are basically variable resistors inwhich change the value by two methods.The one you want is linear.This will change the flow at a mathmatical value(for volts change)so the rate rpm change will be steady through out the knobs turn range.The other type is more for like what you hear which works on a dif. scale.I could go more in depth but dont need to.At any rate it is a coil of copper wire inside and the knob you turn moves a wiper over this wire which in effet changes the length between the two contacts of eltrical flow so this in turn means it change the resistance.Boom variable speed control.
Its easier to do this than all that though.You can get fans with them outfitted with speed controls already from any good pc hardware site.I just thought it good to note what the speed control is.Check www.coolerguys.com for some good quiet solutions includeing thse fans and even HDD coolers.There a big help for stability on 7200rpm IDE HDD's.The best 80mm they have is a variable speed Enermax.Its 80x80x25mm 1000 to 3000 rpm speed rates.Includes gold grill finger gaurd.39.8cfm of air at a noise level of 32.6dba.That is on high speed not low!Is 3pin and comes with 4pin adapter.$9.95.I think that is a good choice right there.Good Luck!
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