After several emails between us to confirm various aspects of his experiences, I followed Jack Russell's lead and made the plunge to quieten my two PTP systems by replacing the three original "case" fans (in each system).
Jack had gotten his "Silencer 80mm" fans from http://www.power-on.com. But the ones they sell come with the wrong connectors for this particular system so all the leads had to be cut and then joined to the new fan leads. While I *can* use a soldering iron, I didn't really remember where I last had seen mine. I saw on Power-On's site that the fans are manufactured by PC Power and Cooling so I went looking for their web-presence and found the matching fan at http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/products/alarmandaccesories/silencerfan/index.htm They are cheaper than Power-On and have price breaks based on quantity. But the most endearing thing is that they sell the fan with one of two connectors: 4-pin or 3-pin. The 3-pin is *exactly* the same as those on the original PTP fans (*). This means no soldering or cutting! I ordered them and found during order checkout that ground shipping was free. This was getting better by the minute. They arrived from the west coast to the east coast on Friday (ordered on the previous Saturday and shipped on Monday). It took about 1.5 hours to replace the first three because of the care I took and the case cleaning I did while it was open. By far the hardest one was in the power supply. That's where the "*" from above comes into play too: the connector for the fan in the power supply is only 2 pins *and* in both my systems was stuck in place with "goop" pretty hard. I figured out how to break the old connector free and then slid the new 3-pin connector over the 2 leads, with the unused position of the connector, well, unused. It sounds weird but if you get in there you'll see what I mean (see below). This same fan ends up with a longer lead than necessary so I just turned the fan a partial rotation to sorta "spool" the lead on the outside of the fan to take up the slack. The original lead has an additional plastic sleeve around it but I believe that is most likely for heat since the original lead rests right on a towering heatsink. I just routed my new leads far away from that. +===+ |*|*| connector to old fan +---+ The "===" is actually plastic fixed to the circuit board, I had to pry the "===" portion away from the connector with a small screwdriver to break the "goop" and release the old connector +--===+ | |*|*| connector to new fan +-----+ * * pins for connector The sound difference is amazing! Each system is so quiet now that I can actually hear the disk drive seeking sometimes. And since there are two of these now quieter systems in the same room the reduction is quite dramatic. The fan's output is noticably less volume and warmer (particularily from the power supply) but doesn't seem too high. My systems don't have all the PCI slots or drive bays filled so that could be a factor for others. All in all, I spent $51.30 and a little over two hours of my time on my two systems. I wish I'd done this a long time ago. Thanks Jack for your encouragement and my wife thanks you too! Marty -- Power Computing is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... 123Inkjets.com <http://lowendmac.com/ad/123inkjets.html> Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Power Computing list info: <http://lowendmac.com/power/list.html> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> List archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/powercomputing%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Macintosh? Get free email and more at Applelinks! <http://www.applelinks.com>
