Here's my latest try at silence, based on the thought that total power load should be equally divided between PSU fan and case fan.

Alas, the case is ducted/divided so PSU takes its own load plus the CPU, and the case fan takes HDD:s plus graphics.

In this setup I have put the 120 mm fans in the PSU and case on constant low speed, and the two 80 mm fans for CPU and graphics are variated via Speedfan.

Pics:

There's a divider from the ODD cage, slightly down, then lining up with the uppermost PCI slot in the back. Some cabling has to go through this divider, as well as the RAM sticks.
The bottom case fan blows inward across the HDD:s (in stretch bands), there's a little divider here as well to direct flow to HDD:s.

Here you can see the front intake through an open cover in the ODD bay.

No air is at this point filtered, not sure how to attain that for the upper part. (Used to have filters on bottom fans).

Temps for : idle / 20 min of Furmark
Ambient 24 / 24 C
Case (MB) 33 / 40 C
PCI (Outlet) 28 / 37 C
PSU outlet 35 / 44 C
CPU 52 / 69 C
HDD 28 / 28 C

The bottom inlet fan works wonders for HDD temps.
PSU fan should probably also be variated, or set a bit higher (CPU temp @ 69 is not that good, but the 80 mm fans were still drowned out by the 120 mm fans @ low, even when ramped up).

Also tried a setup where the PSU fan was variated, and the CPU fan at constant low - roughly the same figures came out, but at higher noise levels.
Putting the CPU fan @ zero made the PSU fan ramp up even on idle, so semi-passive seems not work, unless i duct the HS and/or get a larger one (Ninja e.g.).

/d

Interesting, though I think you could use some cable management (for airflow and for better looks ), and a more "secure" way of soft mounting your hard drive (say, in the 5.25" bay from both sides?).

You could take a piece of mesh (similar to the screen used on windows) and stretch it across the 5.25 bay opening for a filter.

Its never a good idea to add the CPU's heat to the PSU, you should open up the exhaust hole at the rear and duct the CPU straight out the back. 52/69C is a bit warm for the cpu, dont you think?

I too am currently trying to mod an ancient P4's generic case to make it more quiet, so we'll see how that turns out

Looks good but I agree with speedkar9 that you shouldn't have the CPU heat being exhausted through the PSU, even if you have the PSU fan on a fixed speed. It looks like you could cut out an exhaust hole on the rear panel near the CPU, so maybe see if you can do that and duct the CPU heat out that way.

I recently modded an Antec NSK4000-II to house my brother's ancient P4 system with 2 x bottom 120mm intake fans, with reasonably good results. You might want to consider trying a second bottom intake fan for the GPU area only and separate the other intake fan from that area entirely, so you have a GPU-only compartment and the front intake fan pushes air past the HDDs and towards the CPU and PSU.

More details on this please, with pics (in another thread?) if possible, Thanks JamieG.

And yes I agree that the OP could do a bit better in terms of airflow in the case with a bit of elbow grease and a rotary tool.

I haven't had time to take any photos yet. I'll update my PC systems thread in the general gallery once I get a chance. Let me know by PM if you want more info in the meantime.

(Third try at posting... see if it'll stick this time)

@speedkar9:
HD mount is my first try with this type of suspending, will try repositioning it in 5.25 bays (used to have a Sunbeam tray, but the rubber bands snapped after a year or so).

Cabling will be tidied when setup is final, as for now I think it won't impede that much, or is it a major factor?
Mesh intakes I've tried, do you by any chance have o good way of making a frame for them - up till now I've just taped them in place.

As for PSU taking all the CPU heat, it's my way of cutting down on fans. Do you propose that adding a case fan on the rear panel would be more silent?

Finally, for temps I'm pretty OK with them, been running the CPU at idle 50+ for years - in my older setup load temp would only reach 64, so perhaps that extra case fan could help a bit.

/d

Suspend that hard drive horizontally, you can use regular clothing elastics (never rubber bands) as I've done here.

Cable management has a big effect on airflow in your case, make sure they are kept cleanly out of the way so they won't get caught in fans or capture dust.

Adding a rear case fan to rid of the CPU's heat will help the CPU temps, but also keep the PSU from running hotter (and thus ramping up making it louder), increasing its longevity.

@speedkar9:
HDD horisontally OK, is horizontal important, or just how it's most easily mounted?

Will do on the cabling then.

The rear fan I'm aware will lower temps, question is will it add sound? (Sort of the question: are two fans better then one noisewise, if total air flow is kept constant? I'll answer it myself - if there's room in the the case, go for bigger and/or more fans).

The drives should be mounted horizontally or vertically (steadily), but not on any angle.

Two slow turning fans would be quieter and cooler for your system, and saves your PSU from ramping up to cool the hole system.

Read this sticky,
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=19297