Just to show I'm not a complete troublemaker, I offer the following report from
the field.
The short version of the lead-up: My Freevo started in a standard beige-box.
But it was loud. So I bought an Antec NSK2400 HTPC case. Nice case, comes with
a PSU that has a variable speed fan (hardly ever winds up enough to be heard),
twin 120mm exhaust fans (move a lot of air very quietly) and rubber grommets
for mounting the hard drive(s) to isolate noise.
Once I got that case, suddenly I could hear the CPU fan. I bought a Zalman AlCu
'flower' with a 92mm fan and variable speed control. Wound it up to about 1700
RPM, moves air and can't be heard. Great!
But now I could hear the GPU fan on the G400 card! I thought about
disconnecting the fan, especially since it was starting to squeal and sound
like it was on its last legs. But I was afraid there wasn't enough airflow to
keep the GPU cool. So I hatched a plan. I got a no-longer-needed nVidia 8852 at
work that had a passive heatsink on it. It turns out the G400's heatsink
mounting holes are a fairly standard configuration, and the 8852 had the same
mounting pin configuration.
I took the passive sink off the 8852, took the fan-heatsink off the G400. Laid
down a thin layer of thermal grease on the G400 chip and attached the passive
heatsink.
It has now been running for 4 months or more without any issues. It stays cool,
although I don't have anything in the slot next to it so it has extra room for
airflow and the blank slot on the back has a cover with vent holes in it (came
with the Antec case) so air can be drawn into that space by the exhaust fan.
And best of all, it's absolutely silent!
Now I can no longer hear anything from the box from across the room. It's
wonderful! So don't be afraid to experiment with your G400 card and passive
cooling. I doubt the Freevo system taxes it too much, but my system is a
stand-alone running DirectFB, so I don't have X to deal with.
Happy tinkering and happy Freevoing!
James
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