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etldan
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Quiet Revisited: The Quiet Case Debate

Sat Sep 07, 2002 4:10 pm

..."Sure, I'll sell you a silent case for $100. It's the FANS that make noise...." har har :wink:

I'm looking for a case for my soon-to-be-born XP 2000+ system for audio production. I already have an Antec Power Supply, so I don't need a PS in the case.

I'm not one for fancy colorful designs -- a straight beige case is fine with me. I'll probably be putting in some quiet Panaflo fans to replace wh


So my question:

Has anyone had any experience with the Evercase E4252W005A (Beige) cases? They're available at Newegg for $24 -- some folks have complained about the noise of the side fan and from the pictures I can't tell how easy it would be to replace.

Alternatively, can anyone suggest a nice simple, well-made case? I'm not too picky about what I want -- screwless is nice but optional, and I would prefer a mid-tower unless there's a big advantage of getting a full-tower for improved air-flow in a system with three hard drives, CD-RW, and three or four cards.

Thanks!

Dan
 
JustAnEngineer
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Sat Sep 07, 2002 7:41 pm

Water cooling can be very quiet. Of course, the price tag is rather loud. ($399 direct or $349 from MWave+ $35 shipping).
 
Doc Oc
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Sat Sep 07, 2002 8:03 pm

Just tonight, I replaced my three year old AOpen bigtower with two nameless 80x80 fans and a Dragon Orb III (from a more recent upgrade) by an In-Win H500 desktop case with two 12dB Papst fans for intake and exhaust, and a 19dB Papst fan riding the Alpha PAL8045.

There's still an audible noise, but it's quieter than most of the other computers I've heard in my time. The Alpha and the Papst aren't cheap (altough I live near Germany, so at least the Papst's should be cheaper than in the USA) but compared to a good watercooling kit, it's still a bargain.

I'm very content with it. Aside from slicing my noise production down to a third of what it was, I also lost 4 degrees celcious on the CPU :).
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. (Groucho Marx)
 
fink
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Mon Sep 09, 2002 3:44 pm

The only solution I found to computer noise in an audio recording environment was to enclose the computer case in a wooden cabinet lined with 2.75" acoustic foam - top, bottom, sides, front and back. For airflow I used ducted intakes pulling air from the underside of the wooden case, which was on 2" castors for mobility. Exaust was out the rear top, but shielded with a foam filter ducted to point downward. I used 110 V AC fans 120-240 mm in size - super quiet and high airflow.

I mounted the SCSI CD-ROM/burner in an external case for access, although now I would probably use an external firewire option.

The 110VAC fans were probably the biggest improvement over 12V fans, they move enormous amounts of air and are quiet. But, they are bigger and more difficult to place and you have to wire in a relay controled power strip to turn the fans on when the comp turns on.

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