LIKE DAMAGE AND DISSONANCE, I TOO find myself turning into an old man when it comes to my tolerance of noise. Just the other day, I opened up my window and told those "young whippersnappers" out on the street to "turn down that racket."

OK, that didn't happen. But I'm definitely more bothered by the constant drone of a high-powered computer system than I used to be. Recently, I upgraded my system and removed a 760MPX board with dual Athlon MP 2000+ processors. I still had a use for this setup, so I put it into an Antec SX-630 enclosure which I had in reserve.

Unfortunately, it was loud. Very loud. Something had to be done, but I didn't want to blow a lot of money on the problem, money that could be better spent on... faster computer parts. I decided this would make an interesting experiment. How much could I improve the noise level of this case without shelling out a lot of cash? Read on and see.