I thought you guys maybe interested... <BR> <BR>I recently bought a Shuttle Small Form Factor SV25 as I wanted a PC I can stick in a file cabinet of my desk and it fit the bill. <BR> <BR>Initial setup was a P3-1.13Ghz Tualatin, 1024MB RAM, 80GB Seagate Barracuda IV (yeah!), Toshiba SD-R1202 DVD/CD-RW combo, and floppy. It had a low-profile heatsink with a 60x60x10mm CPU fan spinning at 4800RPM. The CPU fan was incredibly noisy and high-pitched. Today, I finished completing a bunch of mods. <BR><!-- BBCode ulist Start --><UL><LI>installed rounded cables<LI>removed the floppy<LI>cut out stamped fan grille<LI>swapped out 60x60x25mm Bi-sonic case fan for same sized Vantec Stealth<LI>used case fan as a cold-air intake (rather than exhaust)<LI>used Zalman Fanmate-1 to lower CPU fan to 3600RPM</UL><!-- BBCode ulist End --> <BR> <BR>All this quieted down the system a LOT. I've been running my SFF PC at 100% CPU load the past two hours and it's max temps (105F/41C) are within 10F/6C degrees of pre-mod IDLE temps (according to BIOS readings). HD temp is 95F/35C according to SMART readings. The system is by no means silent, but it's much quieter than my P3-1Ghz desktop, which is a noisy beast. <BR>
[addsig]

I wonder if the part where you switched the fan to intake really helped the temps. Did you try swapping directions to see which performed better?

I was always under the impression that if you can only have one fan, point it out. get that heat out

EDIT:

BTW, sounds like a sweet rig.

When I first got the PC, I tried both ways, and the fan as an intake cooled the system better. I had it as exhaust, ran the PC at 100% CPU utilization for a few hours, checked the temps through Via's hardware monitoring software, reversed the fan, ran 100% CPU util for a few more hours, and then checked the temps again. As intake, the temps were ~10F lower.

This maybe due to the layout of the SV24/25. The PSU of the SV24/25 is mounted in the FRONT of the case with the exhaust actually blowing hot air into the case. IMO, not exactly the best layout. Apparently, Shuttle agreed, as the layout of the case is different for their newer SFF PCs. The PSU is in the back exhausting hot air out of the case as "normal" cases do. If the PSU was exhausting hot air out the back, and I had the (rear) case fan as an intake, it'd probably just suck the hot air right back in.

Over the weekend, I added an ATI Radeon 7000 PCI and tried the fan as intake and exhaust, it now seems to work better as exhaust. The PCI cards in the SV24/25 fit into a riser slot and it restricts airflow a bit by sectioning off part of the case. Overall, temps are much higher now. I've also noticed that as exhaust, the Vantec fan is louder than as an intake.

One thing I plan to do to help keep the system cool is to cut a hole in the side of the case where the PSU exhaust is, and either make a small exhaust duct or put in a small, slow 5V fan to help exhaust the hot air.

I may also try to run the PSU fan at 5V or 7V, but I don't know if I want to cut open the PSU.

Sorry to try and bring this back from the dead but I have an SV24 which I've used on and off for the past year. Since I started reading in here on all the great mods to quiet things down and recently built a failry quiet machine myself I wanted some help on quieting this monster down. It's great as a SFF machine but it now seems so much louder than my Sonata!
Hoping someone here has some info on how they were able to quiet this one down. Thanks a ton!
-TBM