SPCR

It seems like the vibration in my case seams to be coming from my ssd which doesn't seem right. Aren't they supposed to have no moving parts? I already have a very quiet system but the quiet bug has caught me. Here are my specs:

Silver stone ft02
Icy cool gelid VGA cooler on 4870
Prolimatech megahalems on core i7 with two nexus 120mm
Crucial m4 64gb ssd
Samsung spinpoint hd403lj( surprisingly vibration free)
Two sticks of 4gb ram gskill
Seasonic x-650
All fans controlled by 8 fan controller (using 7 right now)

I've turned of all my fans to eliminate the noise. I also unplugged my CDROM but I still get a low frequency hum as if something is vibrating. When I touch the side of my case it comes from the hd area and yes I tried having only the crucial hd on.

Any ideas? Should I be worried?

Obviously it's not coming _from_ the ssd. Most likely it's being transmitted from elsewhere and perceived near the hd bays because of the cage.

Have you tried running it with the PSU unmounted? Perhaps laid on a surface nearby?

It could be coil whine perceived as vibration or can you feel it as well? Also, have you tried disconnecting the ssd and see if the problem persists (I really doubt it`s the ssd, unless an insect was somehow caught inside )?

Take the ssd out of the case and leave it connected in your desk, and see outside if it vibrates (i doubt it will), but here you can start looking inside the case whats transmitting or creating the vibrations.

Alu frame cases can amplify the least expected source of vibration. Just keep unplugging things and tell us the result. Assume nothing when dealing with the devil.

Solved. not my SSD. It's my samsung harddrive. The damn thing is inducing vibration throughout the whole case; even my motherboard backplate was vibrating thought it was the icy cool fans. The m4 is also vibrating because it's close to the samsung. No wonder I couldn't pinpoint it exactly. I think i'm just going to have to learn to live with it. I can't afford a large capacity ssd right now.

Sucks though because my computer system is damn near silent right now (samsung unplugged) and side panel off.

I guess my last p180 build was too loud to notice the hdd, had better damping, or had better hard drive mounting.

Anyways thanks for the help guys.

isolate the offending HDD from the chassis.
i find the foam packing blocks hard drives get shipped inside, to be clutch in eliminating unwanted vibrations.
(or there's always suspension)

Yeah I actually got some of the packing material and shoved it between the case and the hdd. Better but that low frequency buzz is still audible. I'm going to try the suspension method when I get back from my overseas trip.

Thanks again guys.

I guess my last p180 build was too loud to notice the hdd, had better damping, or had better hard drive mounting.

It could be, vibrations are more likely to transmit through an aluminium chassis though I wouldn`t expect that from the FT02 which is based on a fairly thick frame. Either way, since you`re only using one drive it shouldn`t be too hard to suspend it. You could do that in the existing hdd cage after removing all the caddys. Flemeister already posted a link that should guide you through it.

Yep that's my plan. I'll use the ft-02 side bracket to mount the ssd. Given that suspension sometimes results in higher hdd temperatures, cooling shouldn't be a problem since I've undervolted one of the large 180mm fans to always be on.