Completely Silent Cooling solution

[hkdl]

I came across this on Slashdot. Thought it might come in handy for HTPCs also, I honestly haven't taken an in depth look yet so I'm not sure what exactly is involved.

http://inventgeek.com/Projects/IonCooler/Overview.aspx

[sub]

Or if you dont have much time on your hands, like me, you can always just buy a tranquil PC - as shown at top right of page. Its really nice having an absoluely silent PC, and the 2GHz Pentium Mobile processor in mine is plenty grunty...

(it is an interesting article though)

[weisguy]

That article was an interesting read, hkdl. I hit Slashdot every morning over breakfast but I missed that one.

I have found myself becoming more noise-conscious with each machine I build. I've got my current desktop machine pretty darn quiet (very scientific eh?) but not zero like that guy. I use a fanless power supply, the Antec Phantom. I fell in love with it before I bought it, and I've got to say it is everything the reviews say it is:

http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=24500

To be clear, there *is* an "emergency" fan built into the power supply which is supposed to turn on if it ever gets too hot. Mine never has. Be warned, though, the sucker is HEAVY since the body of the power supply is basically a giant heat sink. Antec recommends removing it before transporting your computer and I'd have to agree.

For the chassis I use a Zalman CPU cooler, also highly recommended, and a single 120 mm case fan. To control the Zalman and case fan, I have an Ultra Fan Commander cranked down to the lowest possible setting.

http://www.ultraproducts.com/product_det...ductID=368

All of this is sitting in an Antec Quiet Computing case which is also designed to keep things down... the rubber gromits built into the hard drive mounts do an acceptable job of keeping the hard drive noise from transferring into the body of the case.

I'd be interested in other creative ideas for keeping the hard drive noise from bleeding out of the case. With everything else practically silent, the hard drives are now the noisiest things I've got...

-wg