Since our new box is being used for speech recognition, a quiet case is desirable. Last weekend, Fry's had Antec Sonata minitower cases for $80. These contain the same Antec EarthWatt 500W supply that we were planning to buy for $90, so the buying decision was easy. The case is indeed soundproofed - damping rubber on the side surfaces, vibration-dampened drive slots, 120mm low speed fan, etc. The main downside is that the 120mm fan has a speed switch on a cable, and not a mobo connector, so it won't dial itself way down when the system is idle. But that is what the power switch is for.
We swapped the supplied (and noisy) CPU fan that came with the low-power AMD processor for a much quieter Coolermaster CK8-8JD2BOL, and are using one of the greenpower WD hard drives. We are using onboard video, so there is no fan with that. The result is indeed very quiet, according to my non-tinnitus wife. Quieter than an idle laptop. The cases are normally $140, but I expect there will be markdowns in the future. Especially on these bulky items in a down economy. Keith -- Keith Lofstrom [email protected] Voice (503)-520-1993 KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon" Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
