First off, gotta give a BIG thanks to everyone in this forum for all the fantastic advice. The willingness of this community to help each other is certainly unparalleled and definitely welcome..

Anyways, here are the specs:

Lian Li V1000 case.
Antec Phantom PSU.
Asus A7N8X.
AMD Athlon Mobile 2500+ @ 2.4ghz.
1Gig Kingston memory.
Silicon Image 3112 SATA controller.
Samsung spinpoint SP0812C 80G.
Gigabyte GV-N68128DH 6800 w/ passive cooling

Here are the cooling/silence mods:
Cut out rear case fan vent.
Removed rear vent cover.
Reversed rear fan to use as intake.
Removed front fan filter.
Suspended hard drive w/ Stretch Magic (credit goes to AlpineCarver for posting this one).
Zalman 7000AlCU modded w/ nexus 92mm.
1 x Nexus 120mm fan (rear).
1 x Globe 120mm fan (front).
mCubed T-balancer.

Stats:
For the CPU, I'm currently idling at 47C and hitting 53C on load at an ambient temperature of 72F.

Hard drive temperatures stay constant at 30C.

These operating temperatures are probably out of the comfort zone for a lot of people, but I'm willing to run the risk for the sake of silence.

Case temps are typically in the mid thirties.

VGA temps vary between 66-70 on idle and ramp up to 83 on load.

I'm currently able to run CS: source at 1600x1024 (wide screen) w/ full settings, 2x AA, and 16x AF at 70+ fps which is the goal I was trying to attain. Thus, I hafta say, I'm very happy with my results!

Hopefully, this will give other current and potential V1000 owners some idea of whats out there.

Images:

I can't believe that you idle at 50C. I put an XP90 on mine and it will idle anywhere from 28 to 33C.

I do enjoy your wiring though! How did you get everything so neat and tidy? I have the exact same case as you by the way, only in black.

haha, yeah, 50C is relatively high, but I can cope w/ it. All I can say about the wiring is 'buy lotsa clips!'

Oh yeah, i'll PM you about the fan (can't seem to find it ),

Thank you very much! You are living proof that the Zalman 7000 fits on this mobo/case combination... I measured it with a ruler but since I came up with only a few mm clearance I did not dare to get one. Now I will though!

Have you ever run the Zalman stock fan with the T-Balancer? Wondering if it works OK with PWM...

Welcome, just glad I could help!

If you needed to know about the zalman, i wish you'd have asked; I'd have shown you the pix right away... I was assuming all the v1000 guys followed each others posts... haha.

Now i just gotta figure out a way to cram a Zalman 7700 in there

Unfortunately, by the time i got the t-balancer, I had torn apart the zalman already; couldn't help myself.

Good luck.

Good luck with that

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I suppose the zalman fitting would depend on your socket position in respect to the mobo as well. I only managed to clear the case by 1-2mm.

1-2mm is enough I have exactly the same motherboard so if yours fits, mine will too.

what are the idle/load temps on that 6800 Gigabyte?

Updated with new stats.

Does the Antec Phantom cause the rest of the case to heat up? Or does the V1000's isolation chamber help any?

Here's an obscure thread describing my experiences w/ the phantom and V1000.

There was another thread around where davidstone28 outlines his thoughts on the silverstone fanless PSU in his V2000.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

silencery: Mind I ask, why did you choose the Zalman over the ThermalRight SI-97 solution? If I recall correctly, the SI-97 outperforms the Zalman 7000-AlCu by a respectable margin. Moreover, you can pick and choose your fans. I have a 92mm Nexus on my XP-90 and it works great -- I can't hear it over the 120mm Nexus I have for intake.

Also, what difference did you notice by turning the rear exhaust into an intake fan? Similarly, I've found that the GPU generates plenty of heat, in which the V1000 dissipates quite effectively via its prolific perforations. However, I find that the heat emitting from the case is mostly, if not only, due to the 6800. Has relying solely on the passive exhaust worked for you?

Sorry for the bombardment of questions. Thanks.

daba, glad to answer your questions.

The only reason I purchased the zalman over the thermalright was because it was readily available for retail pickup here. When it came time to get the HSF, i was really fed up w/ my existing setup and was impatient. I eventually swapped the stock zalman 92mm for a nexus 92mm, and I'm MUCH happier with it.

Here's another obscure post from way back when describing my experience w/ reversing the rear fan. Overall, it's been positive for me, and I think you're right about the ubiquitous holes; heat is always eminating from them. I don't know if its a good idea to run my box this way in the long run, but I've run every sort of stress test you can name, prime95, folding, 3dmark, game benchmarks, etc. and the box is still rock solid. I won't be turning the fan around.

Ultimately, I think i'm probably pushing it with temperature limits since air in the machine is grossly stagnant. The passive video and PSU are HUGE sources of extra heat. Like I said before though, I'm willing to risk it for the sake of silence, and I can finally claim I have a machine I'm satisfied with. I would say that the decision to go this far would be up to you.

Glad you ended up getting the nexus'. They're truly great!

Oh yeah, teejay's idea about the Arctic Cooling for VGA is probably a safer bet than using a passive video card. My personal goal was just to reduce the total amound of fans in my system (down to 3!)

Just to add my 2 cents: I tried reversing the back fan but did not like it. CPU temps hardly went down and case temps went up. The biggest problem was that even more hot air remained at the top of the case resulting in a hotter gpu (~5-7C). Before I sealed the hole between mobo and hdd sections it also influenced hdd temperatures. I think in my case it was because the case fan sucked in the warm air from the psu: I run a Nexus fan in my Zalman which leads to pretty warm air emanating from that unit. Anyway, back to "standard" setup for me. The VGA Silencer does help a lot with case temperature IMO.

Any idea whether the SI97 would fit on the Asus A7N8X-Deluxe? Or since previous posts proved that the Zalman fits that board: does anyone know if the SI97 has less overhang than the 7000?

teejay -- According to my roommate, the SI-97 will fit the A7N8X Deluxe. Not sure if it will fit with the V1000 though.

Out of interest, what did your cpu idle at before overclocking?

before I made a bunch of cooling upgrades, it was idling around mid 40s i believe. I didn't leave it at stock clock speeds for very long, so I can't honestly say I know the real figure.

If you'd like though, i'd be glad to check it out for ya.

isnt that a BTX case ?
Why such a strange choice ? OK the heavy PSU in the floor position helps stability, but fitting long 5,25" units like a removable hd and/or full size PCI cards looks difficult

No its not a BTX case. It differs significantly from the ATX standard layout but its not BTX.

yup, what he said.

Silencery, I see you use the T-Balancer. I'm just wondering about the stock ADDA fans, are they 3 or 4 pin? I think I saw somewhere that the front is 4 and the rear is 3, can you confirm this? If this is correct I'll probably replace both with Nexus ones.

Yup, the stock front fan is a 4-pin molex and the rear stock ADDA is a 3 pin fan.

The t-balancer works best with 3 pin connectors.

Cheers ! I've now decided to just replace the front fan with a PAPST 120mm 4412FGL.

parisjohan,

Don't buy a 4412FGL for a tbalancer! The papsts are notoriously noisy as far as vibration goes. While they're good fans, they just don't seem to work as well with the t-balancer, even with the attenuation modules.

IMHO, Nexus 120's are much better suited for a t-balancer. In fact, I think they're just better fans overall.

Of course, all of this is moot if you're not even getting a t-bal

Damned , just ordered 2 4412FGL (one to put on my XP-120 and one for the case front) but was considering the Nexus ones. Typical, I guess I'll just have to change the order then ! Thanks for the advice anyhow!

I'm definitely getting the T-bal, so I clearly want to have fans that work well with it. When you say that the Papsts don't seem to work as well with it, do you mean that there is some kind of connectivity problem, or is it just that you consider the papsts to be too noisy compared with the Nexus'?

By the way, do you reckon I should change the rear stock ADDA fan for a Nexus as well, or does it do it's job properly? I've heard different opinions on this so I'm not sure what to believe !

paris,

Here's a snippet from the mcubed site:



In my personal experience, the 4412 doesn't work well with the t-bal's PWM. Granted, you can manipulate the PWM signal the t-balancer is putting out, but it just never seems to be very smooth. For me, I always heard a very slight pulsing noise, which annoyed the hell out of me.

The nexus's and even the ADDA's react much better to PWM put out by the t-bal. IMHO, i think the nexus is a much better choice than the stock ADDA's for noise, but of course, they also spin considerably slower... It really depends on how far you are willing to or need to go to acheive your goals.

Oh yeah, is that 120mm fan listing thread still around? That's a good reference to look up. Additionally, daba and teejay might be able to provide valuable insight as well.

If you've got more questions, i'd be glad to answer

Silencery, thanks a bunch for all the details !

Well, after that, it seems pretty clear that I will have to go with Nexus. I'm just a tiny bit concerned with the fact that they seem to be moving less air than the Papsts, but that will probably not be that big a problem... I mean, silence is the ultimate goal here !

Another small issue I have is that the Nexus has "solid corners" (as opposed to the Papst) which implies a connection problem on the XP-120:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article186-page3.html

However, that can easily be fixed with some simple moding so I should be OK I guess !

no problem, just glad I could help

Like i said, you should decide for yourself if the higher temperatures are worth it to you. If you'll notice from my original post, my temperatures are probably a bit higher than some people would be comfortable with. Everybody will probably get various results though, so if you can, i would recommend experimenting.

You'll definitely have to mod the corners... I had to do the same for my nexus fans w/ a dremel