tschanrm
100+ Head-Fier
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- Dec 10, 2003
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flecom, that would have to be a 1ghz via or centrino (if you can afford the desktop motherboard that is) for it to be totally fanless. Right now I have my system about as close to fanless as possible without spending basically any money at all. This is only because I have a bunch of old processor heatsink lying around from old projects. I placed two old P2 heatsinks on my psu and another old k7 heatsink next my cpu on the via northbridge. I have my athlon 1700 undervolted to 1.1v and underclocked to 1.1ghz. I then use 1 undervolted slot fan for the whole entire case at 5v to keep air circulation (there is no video card fan or cpu fan, or psu fan). CPU sits at around 49 idle and psu is 45 idle. So it is possible to build a near fanless setup cheap, but you have to know what you're doing.
About wrapping a hdd in foam and aluminum foil.....not the best idea if it is a larger hdd, 80 gb or higher, or one that is more than one platter I'd say (you'd have to check the energy consumption for whatever hdd you would want to use to be for sure). Hard drives are designed to help dissipate some heat from their casing by using the system chassis as one large heatsink. When you don't physically attach the hdd to the case, the hdd gets hotter than normal, but its still at a safe temp. Wrapping it in foam then aluminum only helps to trap that heat next to the hdd. Most hard drives only rate themselves up to 55 c or so, so by wrapping it in foam then aluminum you may be running the hdd pretty close to borderline temperature which means borderline data loss. My recommendation is to start with a quite drive like a samsung spinpoint or seagate 7200 series, that way you don't have to use any noise insulation stuff at all. Sorry, back to OP's topic.
As long as the case is totally fanless, as in no fans at all, I'd say 1,600 isn't a bad deal. But since in the specs I see 2 120mm fans, this means you'll probably still hear it, unless they are premium nexus or papst fans (they might be because they cost $20 a fan, and the system is 1600). Also, Hitachi HDD's are not very quiet, Look into either a large samsung spinpoint, or the segate 7200 series as I mentioned above. Shoot back more exact specs, most importantly the fan mfg. and I'll be able to tell you if thats a fair price.
About wrapping a hdd in foam and aluminum foil.....not the best idea if it is a larger hdd, 80 gb or higher, or one that is more than one platter I'd say (you'd have to check the energy consumption for whatever hdd you would want to use to be for sure). Hard drives are designed to help dissipate some heat from their casing by using the system chassis as one large heatsink. When you don't physically attach the hdd to the case, the hdd gets hotter than normal, but its still at a safe temp. Wrapping it in foam then aluminum only helps to trap that heat next to the hdd. Most hard drives only rate themselves up to 55 c or so, so by wrapping it in foam then aluminum you may be running the hdd pretty close to borderline temperature which means borderline data loss. My recommendation is to start with a quite drive like a samsung spinpoint or seagate 7200 series, that way you don't have to use any noise insulation stuff at all. Sorry, back to OP's topic.
As long as the case is totally fanless, as in no fans at all, I'd say 1,600 isn't a bad deal. But since in the specs I see 2 120mm fans, this means you'll probably still hear it, unless they are premium nexus or papst fans (they might be because they cost $20 a fan, and the system is 1600). Also, Hitachi HDD's are not very quiet, Look into either a large samsung spinpoint, or the segate 7200 series as I mentioned above. Shoot back more exact specs, most importantly the fan mfg. and I'll be able to tell you if thats a fair price.
