I think the best and long-run cheapest(for OEMs) solution would be done in software; it could monitor the probes already built into all the parts we care about, and adjust the voltage to hit a target temperature. If that ever happens, though, it's a long way off

This is indeed an L1A. I'm going to order some more kinds of fans and some Zalman fanmates to toy with, now that I've gotten my feet wet with fan manipulation :) (I hit the blades twice trying to find the optimal placement while the fan was in motion....fortunately only one of those times did I get ...

As I said before, this is stock cooling(on a regular desktop 2800+). The board unfortunately does not allow me to do any undervolting although it has some pretty decent integrated graphics and sound. I couldn't find enough information when I got it and took a gamble...oh well. http://www.newegg.com/...

I moved the velcro to two corners of the heatsink and played with the fan until I found the optimal side. It's stable there, but it runs too fast, I'm pretty sure of it now. There is still a whine but even so, it seems like an improvement over the stock fan. And now that I have the velcro technique ...

The story is a little more complicated than the title suggests. This is a mATX system(in a roomy desktop case) which was using the stock cooling. It was decent when idle but got much noisier under load. However, I had gotten a 80mm panaflo with it and wanted to try replacing the cpu fan with it, but...

I was considering getting a bunch of cables for my new build and tucking it away in the wardrobe of my dorm when I went to school again in Sept., but this thread, strangely enough, convinced me NOT to try it off the bat. What I realized was that I was possibly going to "over-solve" my noise problem....

I'm wondering if running one at very low speeds and somehow venting it all directly into the case would enable an otherwise fanless operation

Actually, now that I've looked a little bit more at Shuttle's option, I think I'd go with the SN85G4V2. They added the ICE system to that one, making the PSU the only significant noise source. I'm not brave enough to try modding the fan in there :oops: but I imagine I could do something to dampen it...

Yeah, I'm going for it all :lol: I've been looking at barebones kits...the closest match I can find is the new Soltek EQ3801. It has all the features I want, and the SFFtech review of it gave it a rating of 51dB at 12" using noisy parts, but I don't know what that translates to at the 1m and silent ...