quiet ATX mid-Towers

[Greg Pavelcak]

On Fri, Jun 18, 2004 at 07:39:25AM -0700, zera holladay wrote:
> Under a kind suggestion, I am re-submitting this
> e-mail with a different subject.  The old message was:
> 
> Hello, I am looking for a very quiet ATX mid-tower and
> I was wondering if anybody has a suggestion or
> recommendation.  My hard disks produce the most
> decibels at the most annoying frequency -- it?s not a
> bad fan.  I am an EE student using FreeBSD, so a quiet
> computer is very important to me.
> 
> -Zera Holladay
> 

It seems that noise is an issue for more and more people now-a-days. If
you go online and google for "quiet computer case", you'll probably find
some places that make cases with noise reduction in mind. Antec, for
example, makes some. Note that you'll pay a premium: probably over $200
for a quiet tower.

If you think the hard drives are the main culprits, you might just try
getting some rubber washers between them and your case to reduce
vibration. That might be difficult in the 3 1/2" bay, but you can get
kits to convert your 3 1/2" devices to 5 1/4" for a couple bucks each
and add rubber washers to your heart's content.

Finally, you don't say what kind of drives you use, but if your pc is
generally only being accessed by you and not several people
simultaneously, then you can pass on high RPM SCSI drives. They are
incompatible with noise reduction goals.

Also, I don't mean to play list-cop, but I don't think this is a
-hackers topic, so I have responded to you directly and moved the thread
to -chat to keep it on the lists for additional replies.

Good luck.

Greg