What are your system specs?

[Forsaken]

I'm actually in the process of designing/configuring a new system.

I recently bought a new computer (November of last year), and am not as happy with the case (Its a NZXT Phantom, like DarkImmortals), as the build quality isn't that great, and even with sound dampening material, it still is louder than it should be.

The new case is going to be made of aluminum (internal/back) and tiger maple (exterior). The design concept I'm working on will aspects of both of these cases http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?Idx=349 & http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?Idx=367, with extra care in venting in certain places (Because wood will retain heat).

Features of the case I have planned:
- Front audio controls, with a wood cover to fit over the X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series sound card (cut to fit the controls and input).
- Front USB input, with a wood cover (cut to fit the USB inputs).
- Top USB input, with a wood door that can be flipped for when not in use (To minimize dust that gets into the USB inputs.
- 10x hot swappable drive bays, with easy install (Basically tearing apart a Zalman case), with wood with dampening material to further dampen noise. Cover ventilated through the side to allow air to be sucked in to cool hotswap drives.
- Locks for the bay door, hotswap doors, and the side panel.
- Wood side panel that slides out when unlocked. Fan placement will have the the plastic covered, to retain the looks of the case.
- Restart/Power placed on right side of the case.
- Wood top vent (Similar to the GS1000 Plus by Zalman).
- Wide feet of wood, with heavy duty rubber to help absorb vibrations and sound.
- Dust filters over ventilation (inside).
- Bottom mounted easy install roller PSU.
- Wire management (internal) compartments.
- Sound absorbing pads on the inside of the case.
- Few other things.

Haven't figured out all of the hardware yet, as I've been busy drafting the case, and figuring out what I'll use. I actually own both of the Zalman cases (The MS1000 is used as a FreeNAS system, and the GS1000 is unused due to front to back heating cooling issues, and the quality not as good as I would have wanted).

 

[raytrails]

Basically they some as any other sata hard drive. So make sure to pick up a sata cable and a power converter if you need it (molex to sata assuming you dont have dedicated sata connectors)​

Plug in and off you go... just never run a defrag program.​

It might be worth mentioning that a mounting bracket of some kind also is necessary because of the smaller size of the SSD's.

 

[Paul B]

My next upgrade will be an SSD for the boot disk

 

[Slavik]

Most of the times the pre-installed sound dampening materials do jack all because the companies do not install them as they should be done.

I run a thermaltake mozart tx with 8 (yes 8) Noctua NF-P12's and when turned all the way to lowest on my fan controller I can sleep with my PC on. By increasing the ammount of fans but running them at lower RPM I can shift just as much air through my system as running 3 or 4 higher rpm but noisier fans, but I have the benefit of next to no noise.

Likewise, ati graphics cards at the current generation are near on silent, even at ~70% speed, though it idles at 40% and is un-audiable.

One of the biggest noise contributors is "small fans" the types run on northbridge chipsets... find a mobo with a LARGE passive cooling system and just get a lot of airflow through the case.

 

[Slavik]

It might be worth mentioning that a mounting bracket of some kind also is necessary because of the smaller size of the SSD's.

The bigfoots are named such as they are 3.5" format

 

[raytrails]

The bigfoots are named such as they are 3.5" format

I stand corrected

 

[Paul B]

One of the biggest noise contributors is "small fans" the types run on northbridge chipsets...

You're not wrong there.
I removed mine from my old system as it sounded like a dentist's drill

 

[hescominsoon]

Inspired by this thread http://xenforo.com/community/threads/what-operating-system-do-you-use.1589/ - I'm curious... what are your system specs (desktop/laptop)?

For me (desktop):

Antec 902 Case
Asus M4A77TD Motherboard
AMD Phenom II x6 (1055t) CPU
Kingston DDR3 1333 RAM (2gb sticks x2)
XFX Radeon HD 4770 GPU
Corsair 450W PSU (need a new one, higher W's )
Western Digital 1tb Black Hard Drive

Which is a lot better than the Dell Dimension 3000 I used to have

amd phenom(not the II) 2.3 ghz quad.
Windows 7 pro
8 gigs ram
160 gig 7200 seagate hdd
Antec case
liteon dbd burner
radeon 5830
silverstone 600W psu

 

[Forsaken]

Most of the times the pre-installed sound dampening materials do jack all because the companies do not install them as they should be done.

I run a thermaltake mozart tx with 8 (yes 8) Noctua NF-P12's and when turned all the way to lowest on my fan controller I can sleep with my PC on. By increasing the ammount of fans but running them at lower RPM I can shift just as much air through my system as running 3 or 4 higher rpm but noisier fans, but I have the benefit of next to no noise.

Likewise, ati graphics cards at the current generation are near on silent, even at ~70% speed, though it idles at 40% and is un-audiable.

One of the biggest noise contributors is "small fans" the types run on northbridge chipsets... find a mobo with a LARGE passive cooling system and just get a lot of airflow through the case.

This was added when the system was built, the problem is the actual case, and how it tends to rattle due to vibration.

Fans are quiet, unless I'm running lots of CPU intensive programs (I tend to run PCSX2 [ps2 emulator, as I prefer keyboard for certain games], Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and a few other programs all at once), and even then they're not all that bad.

The NZXT Phantom has some of the best airflow I've had in my cases (Not a fan of Coolmaster or Thermaltek). The fans that are installed are quiet (They were replaced in the build process).

Normally, I do not buy systems, but this was given to me as a present for helping my stepdad with his home network.

I'll be honest, the main reason I'm making my own case is for two reasons: 1) it'll match my USB thumbdrives that I got this last week , 2) I'll have more control over the build quality, aesthetics, and exactly what I can and cannot do with the case. Its also being built to specifically match the office I'll have when I move into my new place.

 

[Slavik]

This was added when the system was built, the problem is the actual case, and how it tends to rattle due to vibration.

Been there, done that

I also found that some hard drives "resonate" at the right frequency to turn a PC into a gunfight. The thermaltake shark + a wd caviar 160gb was one such... monstrocity... in any other chassis the hard drive was fine, in the shark it made the sides of the case vibrate in such a way that it sounded like a midget inside was trying to escape by sawing through the case...

Swapped in another drive and it was fine... but it was so bizare... I still have that hard drive lying on my desk.. works fine... but in that one case it was horrible.

 

[Forsaken]

Been there, done that

I also found that some hard drives "resonate" at the right frequency to turn a PC into a gunfight. The thermaltake shark + a wd caviar 160gb was one such... monstrocity... in any other chassis the hard drive was fine, in the shark it made the sides of the case vibrate in such a way that it sounded like a midget inside was trying to escape by sawing through the case...

Swapped in another drive and it was fine... but it was so bizare... I still have that hard drive lying on my desk.. works fine... but in that one case it was horrible.

Yeah the harddrives were suppose to be quiet ones, but these aren't all that quiet in this case. Barely doing anything, and I can hear them.

 

[Erik]

Recently upgraded to 12GB of RAM and installed a 128GB SSD. The SSD's are really nice and do a lot to improve a system, but if you want to really get them to last a long time you will have to do a bit of setting tweaking, as they literally degrade with each and every write.

 

[Forsaken]

Recently upgraded to 12GB of RAM and installed a 128GB SSD. The SSD's are really nice and do a lot to improve a system, but if you want to really get them to last a long time you will have to do a bit of setting tweaking, as they literally degrade with each and every write.

If you're on Windows, you can do this:

http://www.vista4beginners.com/Move-user-files-folders-to-another-partition

Most people don't realize you can do that (I couldn't find the better guide, but that one required registry editing, and not everyone is comfortable with that).

 

[Kier]

It might be worth mentioning that a mounting bracket of some kind also is necessary because of the smaller size of the SSD's.

My SSD is just jammed into an empty space, they are basically bomb-proof

 

[Kier]

^ mmm... dusty.

 

[buonchit]

^ mmm... dusty.

 

[Slavik]

^ mmm... dusty.

The current insides of mine... haven't dusted it in a year or 2....

 

[Paul B]

6 x 120mm fans!

That's a lot of fans

 

[Slavik]

6 x 120mm fans!

That's a lot of fans

Theres 2 more you can't see in that pic 3 if you include the one on the heatsink.

Run them all at lowest RPM setting. More fans at lower speed = more airflow and less noise

 

[rellek]

Guess I'm a little boring with my Late 2009 21.5" iMac? Not too special... C2D 3.06 GHz, 12 GB RAM, 500 GB WD HDD... and 2 TB for Time Machine and 500 GB for music (it's just-in-case, I use like 100 GB on this...).

But it's enough for me. I'm a decent person