Quieten my MCE box - 3 Q's

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I’m determined to quieten down this damn MCE PC I have in the living room and have isolated the three main areas the machine can be silenced.

1) I’ve removed one of the three include Cooler Master Cavalier 4case fans (one of the small 40cm fans behind the CPU location) so there are only two fans running apart from the CPU fan – an 80cm fan and a 40cm fan. This should be adequate yeah?

2) The stock Intel HS/F is one noisy beast – this is the single major point of noise and really needs to be replaced. I was wondering though if there is any way to perhaps alter the fan speed so it only runs as quickly as it needs to? If not, then I’m more than happy to go for a quieter solution – the only restriction being the case it has to be mounted in. I only have about 3-4CM above the existing stock HS/F and about the same amount of space to the rear – both the sides and the front are about as close as they can be so I cannot accommodate anything bigger in those spaces. Can anyone recommend the best solution to this requirement? Its using an MSI 863 PE Neo2-P motherboard and

3) Thirdly, my 200GB (IDE) WD Caviar is currently vertical mounded on the inside side of the case and its giving off a terrible “hum”, even though its working fine. Does mounting them vertically make them noisier? If so, I have one spare 5.25” bay – can someone recommend a method of housing this drive quieten the damn thing down, or maybe even a quieter drive (and I will sell the drives I have spare).


Thanks for all the help,
 
Replace the case fans with something like Akasa ambers, and if you can get away with it, 7V mod them.

I'd get a Zalman CNPS7000b on the CPU - it's silent when running slowly and is a great cooler for low-profile situations.

You could get a silentmax enclosure for the HDD. :)
 
Such as?

Coolermaster Cavalier 4 case,
P4 3GHZ (HT) CPU,
MSI 865 PE Neo2-P Mobo,
512MB RAM,
1 x 20 GB IDE HDD (OS)
1 X 200GB IDE HDD (Content)
1 Pioneer 108 DVD-RW
TV Tuner Card,
7.1 sound card
Radeon 9550 Fanless GFX card


In terms of performance its more than enough, I just want to quieten the damn thing down a little now.

Thanks for any suggestions
 
Cheers (I'm sorry you said the case in the first post :( )

You may want to slow the case fans down with a resistor or fanmate control. Also change the CPU hs with with what p4radox said if it fits.
 
p4radox said:
Replace the case fans with something like Akasa ambers, and if you can get away with it, 7V mod them.

I'd get a Zalman CNPS7000b on the CPU - it's silent when running slowly and is a great cooler for low-profile situations.

You could get a silentmax enclosure for the HDD. :)

Unfortunately, the zalman site lists that CPU cooler as incompatible with my motherboard. :(
 
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