quietest case?

[attgig]

My friend is wanting a quieter case, and I have no clue what's 'quiet', so wonderin if you all know some 'quiet' cases... Also, the smaller the better...he's all into appearance and stuff, so if it looks cool, that's better too........and he's a student so cheap...:P

quiet, small, looks cool, and cheap. :)

any suggestions?

[JPR]

Well if ya want quiet don't build one like mine :P. If you really wanna do it inexpensive like get some of that styrofoam board used for insulation and tape or glue it to the inside walls. Seems to work from what i've heard.

[Windsor]

The sony VAIO cases are so, so, quiet, my ATCX sounds like a jet engine in comparison. The ATCX by Palo Alto is pretty quiet, its not amazingly silent or anything, but workable. Also, the cooling seems to work well, I only have one chassis fan and my temps are decent with a 1.4ghz Athlon.

[coleslaw]

In general, no case will be any quieter than the next. However, the components used inside of said cases will vary the noise level. Check the dB rating of your fans and keep in mind that they are rated on a logarithmic scale - not a linear scale, so a small increase in dB can result in a large increase in the noise level. Also, notice that fans of smaller diameters will produce noise at a higher freqeuncy than larger fans. Sometimes, larger fans produce noise that is just at the lower limits of frequencies that the human ear can interpret, while smaller fans can produce frequencies that fall in the central portion of this perception band. The speed of the fan also factors into the noise as well. Higher RPMs will produce more noise overall. It is sometimes beneficial to utilize a larger fan and step the voltage down to either 7 or 5 volts, which reduces the speed of the fan. This will produce similar airflow to a smaller fan with considerably less noise. One thing you might try is lining the inside of your case with sound-dampening material, such as the cloth that is used in stereo equipment. However, keep in mind that any kind of cloth will build up a relatively large charge and could very easily damage any electrical components.

There are some other alternatives as well. You could find a CPU which only requires passive cooling, a.k.a. Macs (PPC chips). Also, you might consider a totally water-cooled solution, which would remove all but one or two fans from your case, leaving nothing but silence.

[VegasShawn]

Hey, my first post...;)

I just bought a Dell Dimension 8200 that is so quiet you can't even tell that it's turned on. My homemade server however, sounds like a tornado.

[sho.gun]

yeah, a case is a case, sheet metal, plastic, etc. nothing different. The thing that matters is, as good ol slaw explained, the parts inside your system. CPU fan, case fan, HD noise, power supply, they all contribute to your system noise. If i remember my physics correctly, the decibel system used to measure sound works like this. a 40 db fan is two times as loud as 30 db. So basically multiples of ten means double the noise level. Anyway, get some quiet case fans, such as the Silencer, Panaflo (Check the FS/FT forum, xsiled has some good prices on panaflo's, I think his thread is titled "DC fans"). Also get hard drives that are quiet, the seagate barracuda IV or the IBM deskstars, they are very quiet. Hmm what else, oh the power supply, some of them like the enermax has the fan controlled by the mobo, with the sleep mode. But remember, good airflow and cooling is a must on a hot system, so don't skimp.

[Windsor]

Yeah, I agree that in general, cases are equal in material, but the design is kind of important. If it has a design that allows for great airflow and cooling, you won't need a much fans, thus less noise generated.