After 8 years (after first joining SPCR and seeing the Shuttles reviewed on Tech Report/Sudhian) and discovering Vantec Stealth fans were NOT stealthy at all, and then descending into silent OCD (quieter fans let you hear defects with all the other defects and when everything is silent, things start overheating or I heard coil buzz) with building a powerful *compact* system I've finally reached the end of my road:

2x Noctua 120mm fans (forget which ones they are, both different)
Scythe Kozuti CPU fan with 80mm fan unplugged
socket 1155 i5 2400 3.1 GHz quad core sandy bridge
Asus P8H67-I Deluxe mini-itx mobo
Silverstone SG05 mini-ITX mobo with 450w PSU
Sapphire HD6850 1GB video card
8GB RAM Corsair 1333mhz
120GB SSD (was OCZ Agility 3 but it just died 6 days in tonight so going to exchange tomorrow for a more reputable brand)
2TB 7200rpm Hitachi (yes it's silent enough) 3K7000

Tada!

A little big PC Good setup, by any means.

What exactly prevented you from removing the 80mm fan from Kozuti? Surely its presence there somehow affects the temps - not a big deal, but there should be some difference.

What is the VGA fanspeed in idle & under load? I'm asking as I have a similar card (5850 Xtreme) with a cooler transplanted from 5830 Extreme - both fans spin at <1100 w/o load. This is quiet enough for me, but I'm just wondering if 6580 Xtreme is any better in this regard.

For a new SSD go Crucial M4. A reliable and quick drive. Surely not as impressive on paper as SF 2281 drives, but equally fast in real life and will not bonkers.

This one is really important for me - could you please check your mobo bios for OC options for your i5 2400? Specifically, can you bump the clock from to 3.1 GHz to 3.5 GHz by changing the multiplier for 4 cores (w/o Turbo)? I'm asking because I can do that on my P67 + i5 2400, and I'm just wondering if this can be done on a H61/H67 board. Mind you, this is regardless of the Turbo technology. I've started a thread on this - clik me! - see it for more details and explanation. Your feedback would be most appreciated!

no overclocking options, chose not to overclock.

been too lazy to remove the bottom fan, not removing it because i'd have to maneuver out video card too. i may do that.

is there any harm in running both it and the noctua on top blowing down?

dunno about video card under load as i never got a chance to play before the ocz ssd died.

Get a Crucial M4, seems much more reliable than OCZ or Intel 320. Remember to get the latest firmware.

Oh and welcome back!

i disassembled the whole thing to reseat cpu heatsink (kozuti) and took out the 80mm fan while i was at it.

it idles at 40c now with the 120mm noctua blowing onto it at 1300rpm and the 1300rpm 120mm noctua sucking air in from case front. definitely not quiet but the fan characteristics aren't unpleasant and it's a dull hum.

I'm having a hard time keeping this cool. It idles at 45c and on load goes to 75c with the Noctua fans on full 1300rpm (not loud though) all the time.

I don't think that the thermal grease stayed applied properly the hours spent getting the heatsink on properly. I have clean and reapply the grease I think or try a different cooler (I hear the Scythe Shuriken obstructs the PCIE slot) such as the Samuel 17.

On an upside, this is the best onboard sound I've ever heard where I haven't missed the lack of a discrete sound card--there has been no interference at all either from front panel or rear.

...aaand the replacement brand-new-out-of-box OCZ Agility 3 failed 6-7 days after last exactly like the previous. BSODed and disappeared from BIOS.

Very nice Which model Logitech keyboard, is that, rei?

it's an inexpensive k360. although i've swapped it for a k800.

Think the new Corsair SODIMM DDR3 RAM was the cause of my weird random crashing.

Replacing with 2 G.Skill SODIMMs seems to have cleared the problem--knock on wood.

256GB Crucial M4 SSD is definitely better than the OCZ Agility 3...better in that it doesn't BSOD.