I would leave it if heat is your only concern. Negative airflow through the case should cool the drives just fine. There was a very long thread about the benefits of negative airflow recently you might want to check out. I dont feel like searching it out right now. I had my raptor in the Vantec cool...

http://www.coolerguys.com/noisedampening.html

Looks like another source for Nexux fans. Not sure if this has alredy been posted.

I have both of my drives mounted in vantec heatpipe coolers and stacked on top of each other using some wide popsicle sticks to separate them. Then I took the assembled unit and set it on a block of foam in the back of the case by the PCI slots. I took out a couple of slot covers from the case to en...

Just use the antec rails on the disktwin. I did that with some of the vantec heatpipe hard drive coolers and it worked fine

Id have to agree with you guys about the case being pretty good overall. I personally had no problem figuring out what screws go where or how to install the CD drives, but Ive built many many systems so I am somewhat used to proprietary designs. The front door does feel pretty flimsy, but it does wh...

It defenitely works. Im currently running my 2.4C @ 3.0 with the voltage at 1.525 which is the lowest my MoBo will go. I just finished re-encoding about 4 DVDs to DivX without a hitch. When I run at 3.3Ghz however, It will reboot occasionally without warning even with the voltage increased to 1.7V. ...

For seek noise, suspending the drive will come close to eliminating the crunching. Whine at idle is really unfixable other than enclosing the drive in a product like the smartdrive. For the same price as an enclosure, you could get a quiet drive like a samsung spinpoint which is probably a better wa...

I find that you will always end up with beveled edges after a good lapping, but the edges dont contact the cpu so no biggie right?

I bought a $10 3M wet sanding kit at my local auto parts store with paper from 250 to 800 grit. I also bought 2 sheets of 1500 for final polish. I got some glass from my local hardware store who had some scraps lying around for a couple bucks. Less than $20 total and works as well as any "lapping ki...

I think its more of a manufacturing issue than QC. The bases are machined perfectly flat initially, but the process of soldering on the heatpipes and nickel plating warps and tweaks the base. After they are finished, it would be near impossible to machine lap them again without costing us a lot more...

lap it. its sounds like you have a concave base. my xp-120 was pretty heavily concaved and ive heard of many others having the same problem with their thermalright xp series heatsinks. Dont worry about RMAing it...youll want to lap that one too.

If its not overheating yet, then you are ok. The difference between too much and the perfect amount is no more than 5 degrees.

I have both of these drives as well. My samsung (JVC) and Raptor are both very quiet at idle. It sounds mostly like wind noise. The raptor seeks are very noticeable whether suspended on foam or in a mounted zalman heatpipe cooler. The samsung sounds the same whether seeking or at idle(low whooshing).

check out the Arctic-Cooling silent copper 2 TC. Its very quiet and sells for around $20. There are reviews on this site of the AC coolers. It wont run that much cooler than the stock HSF, but much quieter. Your temps are well within safe range BTW. Link to review: http://www.silentpcreview.com/arti...

At idle, my raptor is about as quiet as my JVC spinpoint which is in turn quieter than a standard WD Caviar Drive. It has a sort of hissing sound like airflow but is not particularly loud or annoying.

The idle isnt too bad, but the seeks are quite loud. Silencing my raptor has been a losing battle and I wouldnt reccomend it if you want a silent PC. Its not an obnoxious sounding seek, but very noticeable in a quiet system. The thing is REALLY fast though.

From what little Ive been able to find, the smartdrive 2002 enclosure seems to be a better enclosure. You can find a lot iof info about the smart drive but little on the xilencer. As MikeC has said, the really good stuff tends to get priority on the reviews so that tells me he isnt too impressed wit...

WORD...off to newegg I go

I just inherited a dual 1Ghz P3 board with some horrendous 70mm fans that I will be making a silent file/VPN server out of. Im pretty sure socket A coolers will fit a 370 socket but I just wanted to make sure. Will they fit?...thinking of going with some of the arctic-cooling coolers.

I dont doubt the silent drive as a good choice, but Im also wondering if any of the other enclosures have any benefits over it that would make them a better choice. I know its not going to be silent, but a considerable reduction in seek noise is what im looking for.

Reduction of seek noise by half sounds like it would still be a signifigant change. Any other opinions??

My idle noise is actually very quiet. Its just the seeks that I can hear. Can you give me an idea of how much the seek noise was reuced with your smart drive?

Ive got the drive decoupled on a block of foam but the seek noises are still very noticeable. Ive enabled AAM with the hitatchi feature tool, but that didnt help much. Ive also tried suspending the drive in a 5.25 bay with foam behing the drive bay cover but that wasnt any better. Ive decided that a...

It fits...thats my exact setup. p4p800e-deluxe with xp-120 with 5v nexus. Works great and very quiet.

EDIT...not using a sonata case, but the heatsink does not go any higher than the top edge of the motherboard if that was your concern

Youre right..I was thinking of memory voltage. 1.65 V on the CPU

For what its worth, my P4 2.4c is running at 3.3Ghz at 2.65V. Idle temps are 28c and full load is 40-42C. Im running an xp-120 with a nexus at 5V and I cant even hear it. Im overclocked and overvolted and still dont need a lot of cfm to stay cool and VERY quiet

The hitatchi feature tool does work on WD drives. At least it did on mine.

Id go down to the auto parts store and buy a 3M sandpaper kit for color sanding. It has 400, 600 and 800 grit wet dry paper. I also pick up some 1500 for final sanding. That costs about 10 bucks. You can usually find some glass for cheap at your local hardware store. You only need a 10" x 10" square...

Im from Southern California actually. I guess Ill have to be less specific to avoid confusion from now on...spoken with sarcasm...

I just used a sharpie as a guide coat. Easier to apply and doesnt make a mess like paint.