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ive had my a64 box for about 3 years now, assembled it myself. i remember it being very silent when it was new. now after about 2 hours it sounds like a jet engine. i want to know the trick to cheap and effecient cooling, how does dell keep their systems with x1900 radeons and due core chips cool while sounding near silent. i know theyre not watercooling them, and whatever theyre using has to be dirt cheap. i count 4 fans in my case, the stock amd fan/heatsink on the a64, 2 80mm case fans and the fan on my ati 9800. and i have the thermaltake p.s.u. that is silent purepower or whatever... the thing was 80 bucks. if its no hope making this silent, is it possible that mid atx cases are quieter (the ones with 2 cdrom bays) than full towers? (4 cd bays) id love a new case cause this p.o.s rattles, the door lock is broke and the plastic door constantly falls off, and its **** ugly lol.


any replys appriciated

blaino

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If youre after a quiet case, I suggest the Antec sonata II. This does however come with a PSU...

Regards,

Korrupt

Well, what Dell uses it very quiet fans in combination with ducts. The air from the videocard is sucked through a duct and out the back of the case by a very quiet fan (it doesn't need to be powerful because of the ducts) and the CPU air is also ducted out seperately by a quiet fan. Then the PSU has very quiet fans as well and the intake fan is very quiet. In addition, the HDDs are mounted on rubber things so that they dont rattle the whole case, dampening the sound. THAT is how Dell makes quiet computers. If you want to make your own quiet computer you have to either:

A) Watercool or
B) Get a case that is designed to be quiet like the Antec Sonata-II and get a whole bunch of vantec stealth fans or other VERY quiet fans.

Load up your computer with quiet fans and it will be fairly quiet (as long as there aren't too many fans). The reason I recommend the Antec Sonata-II is because it comes with ducts to get heat out of the case more efficiently and so that quieter fans can cool the case just as much as much louder, ductless fans.

well ive done my research on the sonata II case and it looks nice. the 80 dollar price tag is a wee bit much, and i want to get away from the whole door thing. any other ducting based boxes out there without a door? or one with metal hinges and brackets at least? (heavy duty to frequent disc drive acess) im gonna look through the major brands for their boxes, but if im spending more than 29 bucks it would be great to hear an owners opinion lol.

thanks