Well, heres some pictures of what i've come up with based on the know-how gathered from these forums. The system here is:
- MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum with Blue Zalman Northbrige, trimmed to fit
- AMD Athlon 64 3000+
- XP-90 with 90mm Nexus
- Nexus 4090 PSU (120mm fan)
- Nexus 80mm Exhaust
- Nexus 80mm Intake
- Gigabyte Geforce 6600GT Silentpipe
- 160GB Western Digital in Cooldrive 6 (Fan disabled)
- 80GB Seagate ST380021A on foam at bottom of case
- 200GB Western Digital 2000JD (SATA), Hard mounted but quiet anyways
- HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4040B LG DVD Burner (Noisy, almost never used
As for CPU temperatures, I tend never to see my idle temp, at a guess its around 35-40C. When loaded, folding@home for SPCR for example, depending on ambient conditions and how the CPU's sensor is feeling, load temps are between 45 and 50C, highest i've ever seen is 53C during a heatwave of 32C room temperature (yeah, im not american...I dont have AC or experiance hot weather that often, ok )
The blue zalman northbridge heatsink kicks ass, certainly a lot better than the original cooler on the k8n neo2. I had to trim down to size 2 of the fins to make it fit properly with my graphics card, this wasnt very difficult at all. You may notice that one of the hard drives is [shock, horror] HARD MOUNTED!! Well, its one of the newer batches of western digitals and its very very quiet. So that doesnt matter.
The side panels on my case have these retarded holes that let noise and air out of the case, not the best kind of thing for a silent computer. I covered these with 2 spare motherboard anti-static bags and some sticky tape. Woohoo, less noise! Some parts of the case have a tendancy to resonate, so when the case is on, I stick the whole thing on top of a base of foam to dampen any resonance to stop it getting through to my desk.
Overall it works very well, the whole thing is so quiet that I cant usually tell if its on. The whooshing sound that all hard drives seem to make is clear only with your ear close to the case. The three fans that are hooked up to the cooldrive 6 fan controller / hard drive cooler / blingifier are set to 1000rpm (Fan below graphics card), 1250rpm (80mm next to CPU) and ~1300rpm (92mm on the XP-90).
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the wonderous advice! Without you, I'd still have vantec "Stealth" fans which are complete CRAP. And now for the pictures. All are 640x480 and below 100kb, but you can click on them for a bigger version . If any of you here need image hosting, www.uploadthis.co.uk is my website and you are all very welcome to use it!
And now for the images! Please excuse the un-cablegami'd wiring. My case has nowhere to hide the damned things.
The lovely Nexus 4090 PSU
My DIY Hole covering
Some of the mess at the top of my case (Cooldrive and DVD burner)
Three nexus fans in close proximity
The graphics card / Northbridge cooling Nexus fan of doom!
The lovely passive 6600GT from the side on
My case, complete with nasty ass wiring and a white tube
Handle on top = easy to carry =