It could be coil whine perceived as vibration or can you feel it as well? Also, have you tried disconnecting the ssd and see if the problem persists (I really doubt it`s the ssd, unless an insect was somehow caught inside )?

I think he refers to the Air Penetrator version of Silverstone`s fans, essentially a regular fan with a grille added which focuses airflow. If I`m not mistaken, later revisions of the FT02 include those. Now, any of those cases should do the job with ease so you might as well pick the one you like t...

You can build a very quiet system in either of the three cases mentioned so far. The Solo might be at a slight disadvantage, being more cramped and also lacking a little in airflow compared to the others though it does have a handy hard drive suspension system. I like the layout of the new p280 case...

It's better not to take the task away from the PSU. The PSU knows, how much airflow it needs.

Agreed. That`s especially true if the gpu is a significant part of the load, in which case the temperature of the cpu does not necesarilly correlate to that of the power supply.

The push pins on the stock cooler can be extremely fiddly. They work well enough the first time you install it but after that they can wear out making the cooler useless. I would also recommend a bolt through cooler. If you need something compact, there are models which are basically copies of the i...

I think it`s a bit risky to leave it as it is. While the main components are probably ok (otherwise the psu would increase the voltage fed to the fan) others might overheat. There`s simply no way of knowing for sure since there are usually no sensors on capacitors, tranformers etc. I'd rather not ta...

If the ambient temperature is high enough, the position of the psu can make a difference even in systems with a moderate power draw. Besides, the same can be said for most parts talked about over here: most pcs don`t need a thermalright hr-02 cooler for example, yet most of us are glad such things e...

If you can fit the drives without them touching the cage I think you`re good to go. Not sure whether it will make a difference in practice or not, but I think that with the drive hanging from the top of the cage you`re increasing the tension in the cord so perhaps the first method is better.

Maybe you`d also like to take a look at the Lian Li PC-A04. IMO it`s got a very nice layout (psu at the bottom, relatively unrestricted twin intake fans, removable drive cages that you can also rotate) and should fit any gpu and most tower cpu coolers. http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06....

The only annoyance this board has is the POST beep that you cannot turn off. My old Gigabyte mobo was lacking a speaker and I have been getting used to starting my PC with no noise whatsoever. Perhaps you could fool the motherboard into thinking that an external speaker is connected, thus disabling...

After following several threads on coil whine over here, I`ve come to the following conclusion: it`s a hit and miss affair. Having said that, it seems that some models are more likely to display it than others. For example, Idon`t remember many users complaining about Enermax units though this could...

Yep, it seems like you found the culprit. I don`t think that touching the stick had anything to do with it, especially if it`s covered by a heatspreader. Faulty ram seems to be a fairly common issue, something also reflected in my personal experience.

It might seem obvious, but is the chipset the updated B3 version? Either way, it could be a sata controller issue though I would certainly also take a closer look at the ram.

I would alse look at the Enermax eco/liberty eco series which seem to have a fairly good price/performance ratio. Of the psus you`ve already looked at, the Seasonic is probably the best. The Antec CP is also well regarded. However, it has a different form factor: it only fits in certain Antec p18X c...

I have a different experience. My previous system (C2D 4300 OC'ed to 3GHz) has been delegated to serve as my parents' general computer. I've moved the system to a new case with the PSU at the bottom. Temps are exactly the same as they were while the PC was housed in my Antec Solo. The heatsink is a...

IMO, I don't think there's any reason to move the PSU to the bottom location apart from marketing. It has just become a hype. Thermal gains are negligible. The "convection theory" falls apart if there are any fans in the case. IMO they`re far from negligible, especially when dealing with higher amb...

You certainly don`t need a more powerful psu to run this system, even if you factor in (normal) ageing. The best way to determine if it`s at fault is to test with a different psu.. Sata power connectors can sometimes make poor contact, this could explain the hdd issue. The rest could be a motherboar...

How about the pump and hard drive? Do you think they could be part of the problem? Some people try to soft mount their pumps in order to cut down on noise. The same goes for the hard drive. Most of the Lian Li cases I`ve used were somewhat prone to increased vibrational noise and rubber grommets do ...

Measuring power consumption could indeed help determine if the temperature reading is bogus. Still, I somehow doubt this is the case. I think that even with the large FFT option checked, there could be some variation in cpu utilization. Perhaps some unnecessary data in the cache prevents the cpu fro...

Good point, I had forgotten that easy tune can save the settings to bios. On the other hand, support for non pwm fans is not very consistent, out of the 4 GB models I own, only one is capable of this (a vanilla 780g board). You can do a lot worse than Gigabyte, I just think that Asus and their subsi...

While Gigabyte motherboards have been pretty reliable for me, I`m not a big fan of their (lack of) fan control options. I also don`t like the sata 3 port placement in this particular model, they`re too close to the video card. Models by Asus or Asrock seems to be better rounded overall with faster b...

Hello, I think you should start by identifying the sources of noise. Disconnect all fans except perhaps the ones on the cpu and gpu (you can temporarily stop them by pressing on the fan hub). Once you`ve determined which are the worst offenders you can start planning your upgrades. The amd stock coo...

Perhaps you should first try attaching the drives to another system to determine whether they`re really dead. A faulty of overloaded power supply could indeed be responsible for this. It could be the pico psu or it could be the power brick (the pico psu doesn`t filter the 12v line). I doubt you woul...

Are those machines networked? If they are, you don`t need one external backup drive for each since you can copy the data through the network. If Seagate`s software cannot do this, a batch file using the xcopy command (and the appropriate switches depending on your needs) will do the job. Back to the...

I would certainly recommend it, in fact the one I used was of a friend of mine bought on my recommendation. While the display is nothing special, at least it`s matte, something that`s very very rare at this price range.

I have got my hands on this model though it was equipped with a previous generation core i3. I didn`t really stress the machine so I can`t speak of the noise levels under load. It was very quiet when idle though, in spite of the 30+ ambient temperature. The noise signature was excellent for a laptop...

Resting my drives on open cell foam did the trick for me as well, at least when it comes to vibration. I have also discovered that it`s not necessary to completely enclose a drive in order to deal with airborne noise. Most of the noise get emitted through the top: The bottom and sides of a drive con...

I think the exterior is tastefully done. Perhaps I would incorporate the odd into the main unit to reduce cost/complexity. While there would be an increase in height, the footprint should remain the same. The ideal setup is to have a NAS or a server hidden somewhere where the noise won't bother anyo...

The 96+ % efficiency figure at 230v looks almost surreal, It`s amazing how far we have come. The other thing that caught my attention is the 80+ efficiency at 40 watts, I think it`s the first time we see such a figure in a atx psu.

Thanks for another excellent review.

Beautiful!

Yep, that`s what I though when I saw this too. Not boring at all.

Judging from the fan speeds it must be a very quiet build. Are you able to make out any disk drive noise?