I couldn't peg what was making so much noise in my HTPC so I went out and bought a new cooler - the Zalman CNPS700B-Cu. It's a great cooler as I have one in my main rig already and the best thing about it is that it has a variable speed fan which you can adjust on the fly.

So after spending a couple hours installing it, rewiring the case, and tying up loose ends, the case was still noisy. I bumped the graphics card cooling down to 5V from 12V and that did make a small difference, but not what I was expecting. So then I found it.

The damn case fan. The 12cm fan in the front of the case was making all the noice. I replaced it with the Thermaltake fan off the old cooler inside the case (the XP90) and hooked it up to 5V and while it doesn't move as much air as the other fan, it's whisper quiet.

The HTPC is now the quietest PC in the room (as I originally designed it) thanks to the removal of the stupid fan. But now I've got an XP90 sitting around and I'm not sure if it'll work on a Sempron 3100 board or not. Maybe I'll put it in my server. Then again, I really don't need to screw with that one. It's running fine, but I have a feeling if I mess too much with it, it'll be pushing it closer and closer to death.

So now the HTPC is sitting at 41 degrees celsius, and quiet as ever. Thanks to a three year old fan replacing the damn new one Silverstone bundled with the case (which other than that, it's a GREAT case).

URL: ZALMAN