Owner: Hush Mini-ITX not so quiet - with the wrong parts

[The Quiet Finn]

Hi,

I recently bought the fanless Hush Technologies Mini-ITX with EPIA M10000 & 40GB Seagate 3.5" 7200.7 drive. My first surprise was that it was actually 7200.7 and not a 'Cuda IV as I thought it'd be.

Otherwise it's a very high quality PC, as the reviews state. But, the 7200RPM HDD vibration was even worse than I thought, based on Mike's comments in his review
(see Improving the HDD Damping on the page)

My observations:
-with the stock Hush method - alu plate from HDD to case wall - the whole case makes a loud, low frequency rumble that I can hear to the next room!
I stuck felt pads on the Hush's feet and that helped a bit. It stopped the table from shaking! But still the whole case vibrates a lot when you place your hand on it. It makes the top lid act as an instrument - moving air, making the rumble.

Next I did the "HDD on double sticky pads only" mod Mike suggests. It worked, dampening a lot, but heavy disk usage brought the S.M.A.R.T. temp up to 55C!

So I reverted the change back to Hush original - and HDD temp dropped to below 40C even under heavy load.

IMHO - a 7200RPM 3.5" disk spins too violently and is too hot to work well in a closed Hush case. Therefore I'm waiting for my girl to give green light to a system wipe - and I'll install either an FDB 2.5" laptop drive, or the 3.5" Samsung Spinpoint SV80 5400RPM in it. Then it should be possible to fully decouple the disk and make the Hush as silent as it should - could - be.