hey all

I decided to stop constantly buying the 'next' good cooler or fan that comes out every few months to quieten my computer. So I coughed up the money for a Zalman TNN-300.
Well Id probably do a mini review sometime once its finished but lets just say im extremely happy with the silence.
Anyway the only noise I have is my raptor 150gb... first let me make it clear im not changing this drive unless theres a faster storage device available. After using a raptor I will never go back.

Currently the raptor is hard mounted directly onto the drive plate, the temperature can go up to 50oC. The noise and vibrations are travelling throughout the case making it sound almost like a fan in itself.


First I tried out the rubber plugs that come with the case.

Doesnt matter about noise reduction the hard disk temp went up to 56oC

Next up I drilled and rigged up my fek pro that I was using in my previous case.

Sadly the hard disk temp went up to 56oC

I tried suspending with stretch magic string.... 56oC

Lastly I tried a mod in this forum with gel packs.
Inside an aluminium box measuring 152mm x 114mm x 76mm - 1.5mm thick. I used only 2 gel pacs measuring 10cm x 16.5cm underneath the drive with this on top.

Although this mod was the quietest the disk temp did reach 56oC, but it took the longest to reach max temp.
Im not sure if to buy more gel pacs to find that it still reaches 56oC but just takes a little bit longer (Could fit in 7 or 8 more gel pacs).

Anyone got any suggestions?

I was thinking of this old spcr mod

You could suspend, and use an undervolted 80mm fan blowing at the Raptor. Or, get some heatpipes, and find a way to transfer the heat to the case (good luck!).

I have 2 HDs in mine, both with Zalman coolers, and had to use a 12cm Nexus at 6V blowing out to get 35c, after dremeling a back hole.

With your gel pack in the aluminum box mod, try fitting as many gel packs as you can in there. You want it really snug and tight fitting. It sounds like you're using a lot of small gel packs -- see if you can get two big gel packs that overlap your drive and sandwhich those in there. One of my gel packs covers the bottom and folds up to cover the sides, and the other one on top covers the top and the sides, and they're big enough that they have good contact with the drive and the aluminum. It's important to have that contact since the aluminum box is effectively a large heatsink in this situation.

My drives, while they aren't 150gb Raptors, idle at about 32-34C and peak at maybe 38C... 40C max. My enclosures sit at the front bottom of my case (i ripped out the hard drive cage) right behind the front intake vent (no fan) so the negative pressure created pulls air (albeit not a lot of air) right over the top. If I were you, I would try and make that enclosure work, it certainly makes the most difference in terms of quieting (dare I say silencing?) mods.

Edit: ohhh... you're using that case. If there's any way possible, try getting a 120mm 5v Nexus in there. I don't see that happening, though. It would still be best to try to get rid of the heat the HDD is going to create... perhaps stick in the enclosure as above and get some heatpipes to bolt down to the top of the outside of the aluminum box to carry the heat to the case itself?

carefull with the gelpacks. i believe bluefront used to use this method of dampening, and after a few months noticed either a leak or condensation on the packs which could fry out your hard drive.

since i read that, i wouldnt personally feel safe using this method of dampening.


first thing i would do is try to find a way to keep it cool. under 50C. mabey get that zalman HD Heatpipe cooler, see if that helps.

another thing you may want to consider. use an internal notebook hard drive for the operating system, and put all your programs on the raptor in an external hard drive enclosure. having the raptor in an external enclosure will, if nothing else, keep it from overheating, and also eliminate noise caused by the entire case vibrating.

you could also try some of the internal hard drive enclosures that dampen and cool the drive. like the "Smart Drive 2002c". i've seen reviews that show it actually cools down a hard drive to temps lower than just leaving them hard mounted normally. so it should lower your temps, and it will definately eliminate any vibration.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

in the end, you may just have to live with the noise. thats the tradeoff for better performance. sometimes you just cannot have your cake and eat it too.

A little airflow will go a long way. I concur with the above suggestions to use an undervolted fan. Maybe you can homebrew a foam-lined tube and stick the fan and hard drive enclosure within that tube. Perhaps that could reduce noise while providing sufficient cooling.

Thanks for all the replies!!

I forgot to mention I do have a 92mm nexus fitted to the back, it turns on when the cpu its 35oC at a very low speed (using motherboards fan control).
Although Im unsure if to mod the fan grill at the back its very restrictive, but taking a holesaw to the back of a £400 case with 5mm or more thick alumimium. ugh

Because the case has only one 5 1/2 bay which is ocupied by the cdrom.
The two 3 1/4 bays cant take anything bigger than 5 inches wide because the case will not close with the psu built onto the side panel. So that rules out a zalman, smart drive and my fek pro.

The gel pacs were small and only 2 of them, like I said I could fit 7-8 in the box. I do know the box did feel quiet warm and was transfering some heat to the 'ledge'
I feel my way to salvage the situation is to buy more gel pacs, a few bigger ones and a few more of the current ones I already bought. Throw in a few Silica gel packs.... and pray.

If that fails I will either decide to live with it or buy a laptop drive.

Airflow is worth looking into, i need to think of a good spot to place a second 80mm fan blowing on the raptor. Negative pressure and airflow is king when I used the fek pro + raptor in my old 3700BQE case it was at the bottom of the case infront of the intake and the max temp was 40oC

Or as suggested, I could buy and rip apart a ZM-2HC2 heatpipes and see what it will do or workout how I can fit an old ZM80-HP heatpipe to the disk and other end to the case.

Lots to think about and lots to try, and I thought buying a zalman TNN would stop me from my insane modding.

lol, all that money for your fancy case, and it ends up having more vibration and just as many fans in it as my standard case.

mabey you should think about using lower power consumption items so you can actually use the case as it was intended, fanless and silent.

Maybe, but cause im using an undervolted A64 3000+ the idle cpu temp hovers around when the fan switches on for a minute then off.

Zalman never specified I couldnt use a raptor with a their supplied rubber grommets. Seems its limited to a single platter drive or laptop drive. If it wasnt for the high disk temp I wouldnt have the fan.

The fan was only put in to help the raptor. I do not hear the fan, I did hear my old two 120mm nexus @ 720rpm.

It must be said when I did have the raptor in the alumium box with the gel pacs, I had what i always wanted a PC thats what I would call parallel to a TV or even a digital tv reciever; its just another electronic box that sits in the corner making no noise and no one notices. I was in bliss until the hard disk temp reached 56oC

Aris, there's no way a thick heavy aluminum case can have more vibration than yours. And it doesn't need as many fans. Just one.

Storm, since you don't want to mod the case, you could put the Nexus blowing towards the Raptor from below or in the back reversed to draw air in. I also think that running it all the time would be better.

Get a laptop drive in there.....IMHO that is the only way to keep an internal drive cool without any complicated mechanism, and without a fan. You might find the much lower heat output of a laptop drive will keep your case cool enough to run fanless much more of the time.

I think the first thing you should do is upgrade your hot/cold packs. Seriously... you only tried it with two and they're small enough that you could fit 7 to 8 in there. That's missing a lot of surface area to dissipate heat. You want them to completely cover the drive. I've been using my two enclosures with hard drives and gel packs for, hmm i dunno anywhere from six months to a year, and no problems. No leaks, no condensation, and the HD's little "breather holes" are covered. My case temp, right now, is 32C and my primary drive is 36C.

If that doesnt work, then I'd take the more expensive upgrade to the notebook drive.

Notebook drives? The guy says he's addicted to Raptor speeds. Maybe if he RAIDed...umm...five 2.5" drives?

good call. believe in the power of the gel pack!

OK ive ordered 6 more gel pacs, ill give them a try.
If that doesnt work ill think about the other suggestions.

I will either decide to live with the raptor or sell it on ebay and buy 2 X hitachi 7k100 100GB notebook drives and raid em. (only have 2 sata ports)

Thanks everyone you have gave me alot to think about.

ehhh, I would have gone with two large gel packs over eight little ones, but the difference (hopefully) is negligible.

The ones im using are 10cm x 16.5cm yeah a bit small, but the only larger ones I could find are 12cm x 26cm too big for my box.

I did get gel pacs suggested by someone in this forum. There called Chillerz you can cut them to size. They come flat and you have to soak them in water to fill them out, problem is their site says its a one way system the water goes in but doesnt leak out. Well that claim is BS *avoid*

*Update*

;( sniff I finally took delivery of more gel packs, I was able to fit five in total in the aluminium box. 2 bottom, 1 each side, 1 top. I still reached 55oC, but it did take a very very long time to reach that, probably 12 hours.

Im gonna sell the raptor probably get £150 for it, and buy two Hitachi 7K100 100GB and raid them. (put them in the gel pack/box also)

Thanks for the help

PS. I left my pc on overnight with the hard disk silenced in the box... I didnt know it was on and I had a good night sleep while it was on. This is exactly what I always wanted, if you are tired of the constant upgrades to the latest silent case, fans, PSU, heatsink and want to go straight to silence get either the TNN 500 or 300. I have spent more over the years on silent parts than I have on this case.
This has been the best silence purchase I have ever made.