making an antec 1080 case quieter

[Matt Garman]

I've got two computers built with the Antec "Performance Plus" Case [1].
It's a great case, but I recently realized that these two computers are
pretty loud.

I was wondering if there are any relatively cheap and easy ways to make
these computers quieter ("cheap" meaning costs less than buying new
cases).

I haven't done any testing to determine what causes the noise; I *know*
it's not my harddrives, as I can't hear them at all. I'm guessing that
most of the noise comes from the power supply fan(s) and case fans.
There are three stock 80mm fans in the case (two in back, one on the
side). I also added an 80mm fan to the front. All these fans are
running straight off the 12V line (i.e., none of the "fan only" power
connectors).

I'm assuming that the proper thing to do is to hook my fans up to the
lower voltage connector and do temperature testing to make sure nothing
gets too hot. But that's a fair amount of work I'm hoping that
there might be some suggestions along the lines of "use xxx fan, it's
quieter" or, "with your setup, you don't need all those case fans",
something to that effect.

I'll work on one computer first; it has the following components:

Asus A7N8X deluxe motherboard
Athlon XP 2500 w/Barton core (not overclocked)
Vantec AeroFlow HSF
nVidia geForce4 ti4200 128 MB AGP video card
Western Digital WD1200JB IDE hard drive
Fujitsu 36 GB SCSI drive

Those are all the components that might influence heat and/or noise,
anyway.

Thanks for any feedback!
Matt
email at: http://raw-sewage.net/index.php?file=email

[1] PLUS1080AMG:
http://www.antec-inc.com/pro_details_enclosure.php?ProdID=91082

 

[Guido]

Go here:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/index.php

Be sure to check out the forums on that site.

 

[DaveW]

The ideal solution is to hook some of the case fans up to the power supply's
"fan only" connections. Then they'll run slowly (quietly) until the
temperature begins to get too hot. That's what I've done. And it's NOT
very much work.