As the unofficial see-katana-do guy I can pretty much tell you how he'd suggest you mod it..
First off, the case is a natural for 120mm fans for intake and exhaust so first up just get out a hole saw and start goofing around ala this
post or that
article. Key here is stamped steel grills are evil so you needed to get rid of them anyway! =)
I'm assuming two 120mm's in and one out is all you really need since you don't seem to have a huge number of drives but don't ask me, I honestly have no idea how large that case is. Pick out the standard panaflo L1a fan or perhaps a pabst NGL if you are feeling fancy. For more deliberating on fans hit the
forums hard =) Balance out intake so that it's stronger than the exhaust from the fan and psu such that you have a positive pressure in the case.
From there, take that bezel and make a nice hole infront of any planned 120mm fans. make it pretty, make it ugly - doesn't matter. Personally I go for looks myself but suit yourself or your spouse as the 'case' may be. Use
Modder's Mesh or equivalent to act as a grill.
Most important is to not use bare screws on any fans attached to the case. Instead, use
isolators or such as a decoupler to keep the fans' vibration from the case - Silicon Acoustics is not the only place that sells them. Keep in mind you need 4 per fan so they add up fast if facing bulk purchases. This is prolly the single most effective way to quiet your pc considering it's ease of installation.
Once you have the giant fans set up, get a controller for them so you can control their speed/noise. PWM's (a random bit of electronics kit) seem to be very popular in fan collers but they cause the fans to "click" at low voltages. The only safe options 'current'ly seem to be the
Zalman ZM-MFC1 or the
Sunbeam Rheostat. Both options have their plus and minus' so choose carefully.
Any other holes not used, just seal up. The idea is to eliminate that fan farm that's standard on the tower and use the least number of the largest fans you can get and spin them as slow as possible.
If you have only a few drives then a creative way to decouple them at the bottom front of the case would help alot. I mean the options are endless, foam, rubberbands, readymade smartdrive enclosures etc etc ad nausium, that's what the
storage forum is for!!!!
Keep in mind if you have the dreaded WD drives your best bet is to use an enclosure like the
smartdrive 2002 if you cannot part with the capacity/performance. If you have an ibm 180gxp or maybe a maxtor, decoupling them to keep them from vibrating against the case should work. the super micro has a ton of room to play with and you could place them in front of the intake fan.
the next step is the psu... now I'm really not sure what came standard as they had a few setups but might want to replace it with that new 120mm fan version of a fortron/sparkle like the one at
XP Director one of the many aftermarket fortrons or a seasonic... again check the forum that pertains; lots of ideas there. If you have a quality psu as is, then you can mod it with isolators and switch out the fans with panaflos etc etc. Read
more if you dare.
For cpu use a giant copper cooler like a thermalright 800 or 900 or zalman flower bother with an 80mm + fan. Use passive cooling for the northbridge and graphics card,
Zalman has more than a few nifty solutions for passive cooling.
One last thing that comes to mind is to dampen the case by using an acoustic foam like
Melamine Foam. The basic idea is that the sound that eminates from the components inside the case will bounce around until it either gets absorbed/passes though the walls or escapes from holes. If you simply add a sheet of foam to the inside if main left panel the sound will bounce around until it hits the acoustic materal which absorbs it at a MUCH greater rate than the case.
Now you can go hog wild with foam, adding it to every bare bit of case you can attach the stuff to. Then you can start getting into different types of foam, some that bounce the sound and is thin or really thick/egg shaped for the areas that can act as super absorbers or the thinish stuff that can fit behind the mb tray etc etc adnausium (detect a trend here?). Guess what
forum 'covers' that area! Overall Airflow will not be hampered if you use the stuff properly nor will temps suffer.
Anyway, as far as I can read katana man, any case you can mod a 120mm fan fore and aft to is a case you need not replace, merely mod out a 'bit'.
As for why do I know this.... well I've been building my first quiet pc on the advice of this board for the last month or two and a certain katanaman was spaming his experiences in great depth at the same time.
oh puns clearly denoted in ' 's
Cheers!
-Liq'd
ps this post took way too long to write as katana beat me to it...I like to post while wroking on other things - it can take hours at times. =)