Although both side walls and the front plate are easily removable, the motherboard tray is only removable (from the side) after removing a screw or two.

Cool, so it is different then from most of the Lian-Li cases that I have seen. I should work then.

Although both side walls and the front plate are easily removable, the motherboard tray is only removable (from the side) after removing a screw or two.

No, I don't think so. You can never have too many fans, assuming they don't bother you with their noise. That's why I would advise you to also invest in a baybus of some sort. I'll use the Vantec Nexus now as an example, but there are a lot of others too. I personally use the Zalman Fanmate that is also on that link. (but that's because my water cooled system doesn't need as many fans. Only one on the radiator really, the other on is to cool the disks, the inside of the case and to keep the airflow continuous and fresh)
This will allow you to run your fans at 5v instead of 12v, having them slow down considerably, getting rid al all the noise they create BUT still having them cool adequately. You can control them via the buttons. (except when using the fanmate of course, those are inside the case) Then if you're playing a CPU intensive game and your PC could do with the extra cooling : no problem : turn all the fans up. You're not likely to be bothered with the extra noise your PC will make if you're playing a game anyway.

If your PC has room in the front for two 80mm, then you should be able to mod that to one 120mm (or indeed, at least to a 92mm). Which Lian-Li case it is ? Do you have a link of it on their page somewhere ? It might be easier for me to tell you what I think if I can see what I'm talking about.

Don't relie on your PSU to remove a lot of heat from your case. It already has a lot of heat to remove from it's own electronics. I will help of course, but nowhere near as much as a dedicated fan.
I would still also use that blowhole fan. And I would try to fit a 120mm fan. (blowhole fans are VERY effective since that is where most if the hot air in your case floats to) If it didn't fit I would make it fit, using a Dremel tool. I know it's a hard choice to put a Dremel tool to such a beautiful (and expensive) case. But if you're careful you'll have very clean results, and the added cooling is really worth it IMO.

For cooling I'm using the Xaser III case which has seven fans along with the Thermaltake Subzero 4G thermo electric cooling system which controls the case fan speed as well to quiet those down somewhat.

I've just replaced my 1.4gz thunderbird which was watercooled with a P4 3gz HT.

The P4 idles at 45c and underload gets upto 62c. So I decided to watercool it. Now underload it's at 42c, and idle it goes down to 36c. Also the noisy had gone.

Also the noisy had gone

Nice, isn't it ? That's also the main reason I went the watercooling route.

On a same but different note : have you guys seen the soon-to-be-released Zalman TNN-500A case yet ? Totally silent, because there's NOT ONE fan in this case ! (not even in the PSU !). It's very expensive though, but I don't think that will stop me from buying one!

Do you have a link of it on their page somewhere ? It might be easier for me to tell you what I think if I can see what I'm talking about.

I bought it from Newegg a while ago. It's the PC-7B, which is essentially the PC-7 in black. Newegg has more pictures than Lian-Li's website on their product page, although those images don't show the blowhole fan that I definitely do have.

As for the fan sizes - I wasn't sure before but I have measured them now. They are all 80mm. And I do like the idea of having a fan controller. It's not often that I play games, so I could keep the noise down with one of those most of the time. On the page you linked, I think I like that 3.5" Nexus. I won't have more than 4 fans to control if I'm going to mod the case, and my 3.5" external bays are all unused at the moment.

So, in short, thanks for the advice. Think it's about time I call up my buddy and ask to borrow his dremel tool.

<<< Zalman TNN-500A case>>>

And it's *only* about 45pounds, not much heavier than the one I currently have and the casters can support up to one ton .
Any idea of cost?

Bah. I thought you meant it was £45 at first and was wondering why it was so cheap

Speaking of noise..

Not long ago I yanked my nice new WD120GB drive from my main desktop, because it makes way too much noise from just sitting there and spinning.

Instead, I plugged in a 160GB Maxtor I had lying around -- one of the very first LBA48 drives ever manufactured. It is much quieter at idle, but makes way more noise when seeking (accessing the drive).

So.. I've just been playing with the onboard "Acoustic Management" features of the drive, and there is a dramatic difference in noise levels between "fast/noisy" and "slower/quieter" modes. Like, a HUGE difference!

So, when reindexing the drive, I can speed it up at the expense of increased seek noise, and the rest of the time I can quiet it down to very reasonable levels.

Nice..!

(Linux: "hdparm -M" )

Cheers

Now that I have seen the photo's of your case, it's become much more clear. This is what I would do :

1) I would mod the space where those two 80mm fans are in the front to make room for one 120mm fan. Those fans push a lot more air, so I wouldn't at all be surprised if one 120mm fan ends up to be more effective than two 80mm ones. (depends on what 120mm you buy of course)

2) mod the back of the case so that it can also hold a bigger fan. I don't think that a 120mm will fit there, but 92mm is certainly do-able.

3) mod the top blowhole so that a 120mm fan will fit.

If you use just those 3 fans, even at 5v, I can guarantee you than you case temp wil drop significantly. AND things will be a lot more silent too. The only thing you'll probably still hear is your HD.

On the page you linked, I think I like that 3.5" Nexus

That one is my favorite too. Especially since, like you say, the 3,5" bays are unused anyway. A word of warning though : the 5,25" version of that fan controller is known to make a high pitch whine when the fans are turned to 5v (low speed). Poor electronics if you ask me. But this 3,5" is a totally new version, so this may be remedied by now, I don't know. Just thought you might want to know that.

So, in short, thanks for the advice. Think it's about time I call up my buddy and ask to borrow his dremel tool

You're most welcome! These are really fun projects to do, especially when you get the desired results in the end. If you need any more info, just ask.

<<< Zalman TNN-500A case>>>
Any idea of cost?

There are rumours going around that the case may cost as much as $1000 ! These rumors haven not been confirmed nor denied by Zalman however. I don't actually believe that they will cost that much. For that price you can get yourself one of those phase-change fridge PC's !

I guess we'll see in september. That's when the TNN-500A is scheduled for release.

I also switched from a WD 120gig HD to a Maxtor. The main reason for this was that, after all the trouble I went through to get my system silent, the HD ended up being the loudest component. So I bought myself a Maxtor 200gig, which used an FDB motor. VERY big difference in sound compared to the WD !! I was most pleased.
Unfortunately, the Maxtor died about 40 days later. No warning, just dead. I had backupped about 90% of my data, but still lost some important stuff. Grrr. This was the third time this happened to me with Maxtor, and I can guarantee you it will also be the last time.
WD has finally announced some FDB drives too now, so with a bit of luck, I'll then have the opportunity to get a lot of diskspace that is relieable AND silent too. (WD has never given me any trouble - so far...)

I've just been playing with the onboard "Acoustic Management" features of the drive, and there is a dramatic difference in noise levels

I know. I haven't used the acoustic management software from Maxtor (and probably never will now ), but I have used the software from IBM on an IBM/Hitachi drive. You're right, the difference is really big, and for someone who really only uses his PC to write texts and surf the net and for whom HD speed thus isn't THAT important (I guess that's the same group of people who would like to have their PC silent), it comes highly recommended !

Speaking of fan controllers, here is a temp/fan controller that is different:

Link

I like the analog displays, but it only controls two fans. Personally, if I wanted to go really retro, I would make a fan controller that had some Nixie tubes. Might have to think about that one...

I always wanted my empeg to control some Nixie tubes for a visualization.

Well, I actually have never used acoustic management software from any company -- I use my own, with Liunx.

Cheers

Another note along those lines is that one fan blowing into or out of the case moves x amount of air. 2 fans blowing in or 2 blowing out moves nearly 2x as much air (small losses based on what the air flows over to get into the case and such. However, one fan blowing in, and one blowing out, only moves something like 1.5x as much air.

I took this to heart, and I've now got what I think is a proper solution.

For starters, I bought a replacement CPU cooler, a Zalman CNPS7000A-AlCu. This is a very nice unit. Fit perfectly in the case, and is orders of magnitude more quiet than the Intel fan and heatsink that came with the chip. Not silent by any stretch of the imagination, but a lot quieter.

Then I got two Vantech SF8025L case fans. Therse are medium-airflow 80mm fans. I didn't have an easy way of mounting a 120mm fan otherwise I would have gone that route. Again, these are not silent but they are reasonably quiet.

Mounting of the case fans was an adventure. There is one spot for an 80mm case fan in my case, which I wanted to use. But the case designers didn't, for some reason, expect it to be used. Even though there were holes drilled in the aluminum inner casing where the fan mounts, there were no openings in the colored plastic outer shell. So I dremeled some. The shell had some stylistic "arc" shapes in the plastic, so I just sliced big slots in those arcs with the dremel tool. Nice big openings for air, now. But when the fan was installed it still didn't blow much air because the holes in the aluminum inner shell were too small. So I dremeled ou that section of the case, slicing it up much like Archeon's picture. Now that fan blows plenty of air.

The second case fan was for the drive bays. I had enough room to squeak a single 80mm fan right in front of two of my disk drives. But the drive bay covers are solid, thus not able to transfer air. So I drilled a nice circular pattern of holes in the drive bay covers, and hot glued everything together as a unit. Now that fan blows a significant amount of air over the disk drives and keeps them cool.

So the system now has two 80mm fans blowing room-temp air into the case from the front. One at floor level and one at drive-bay level. There are ventilation grates in the back of the case which allow the air to exit out the back. The power supply also blows out the back. So I think I've now got it doing what I'd like it to do, airflow-wise.

The CPU idles in the 105-115f range now, and it didn't get any higher than 140f as I was playing through the rest of Unreal 2 today.

The only thing left is to re-arrange my disk drives and get rid of one of the three so that I can have only two disk drives with both of them being blown upon by the upper fan. Right now the C drive is between the two fans, right under the floppy disk drive. And it gets hotter than I'd like. So that's just a re-arrangement question I think, and then all will be well.

It's noisier than my old system, still, but I think it's about as quiet as I'm going to get it.

One final note: Those Zalman and Vantec fans are POWERFUL. First time I've actually yelped in pain when my finger accidentally hit a case fan.

Thanks, everyone, for all the helpful information and suggestions!

Did you install a Zalman fanmate onto the fans as well? I've got a couple and set the fans low enough to start reliably and cool but also to be nearly silent. I can only hear them if I've got my head right up against the case now.

The Zalman fanmate is currently sitting unused in my drawer. The length of the wires that were supplied prevented it from reaching any place useful or easily accessible. I could have extended the wires, but decided not to because with this 3.2 CPU, I need all the cooling I can get. The case and fans are only just barely coping with all the heat from the components at the moment, and I'm afraid of lowering the speed of any of them.

Nice to read everything worked out pretty well. Have you got any pics of the mods you did ?

Vantec fans...Again, these are not silent but they are reasonably quiet.

While those Vantec fans are indeed supposed to be Stealth, they are not silent. You can make them a bit more silent though, and you do this by getting rid of the vibrations they cause. A fan that spins vibrates and these vibrations are enhanced through the metal of the case. You can keep this from happening by glueing some rubber on the case and then screwing the fan onto that. The rubber absorbes the vibrations and the noise is gone.
You can actually see this on the third pic I posted earlier in this thread : the brown rubber pries out from between the fan and the case. The rubber I used was some of that self-adhesive stuff that people use on the windows of their houses to keep the draught out. Works very well and easy, becasue it's self adhesive. You also loose NO air movement because it's a nice secure fit.
This is in no way a necessary mod to do, but it's just a thought.

First time I've actually yelped in pain when my finger accidentally hit a case fan.

Ah, you noticed that too ? The edges on those fans are really sharp and can cause some nasty cuts. I also didn't notice that, before it was too late.

Well, I actually have never used acoustic management software from any company -- I use my own, with Liunx.

/me smacks hand against forehead.
I should have known! DOH!

Nice to read everything worked out pretty well. Have you got any pics of the mods you did ?

I took a picture just now and attached it. It's not spectactular, just shows the holes I drilled in the drive cover plate, and you can faintly see the outline of the fan behind it. At the bottom are the "arcs" where I cut openings from the inside for the lower fan.

A fan that spins vibrates and these vibrations are enhanced through the metal of the case. You can keep this from happening by glueing some rubber on the case and then screwing the fan onto that.

I thought about that, but both of my mounting locations didn't have much clearance. For instance, in the photo, that upper fan is an entire solid hot-glued assembly consisting of the fan and the two cover plates. And the fan nearly touches the disk drives mounted behind it. and I can't move the disk drives any farther back because the RAM chips interfere. The IDE connector of the lower disk drive just barely brushes the second RAM chip.

Actually, if I'd left the RAM chips where they originally were, I could have moved the drive back farther, but then I got the helpful information in another thread about putting the ram in the proper bank arrangement to get the dual-mode speed out of it.

I took a picture just now and attached it.

Looks pretty good. I'm sure the fan will do it's work. Now all you have to worry about is cleaning the inside of your case now and then because that fan will pull quite a bit of dust inside of it.

I thought about that, but both of my mounting locations didn't have much clearance

It doesn't take much room. In my case 1mm, maybe 1,5mm. But as I said before, not a required mod for cooling performance anyway. Besides, you glued it to plastic plates and those will probably also dampen the vibrations a bit.

I could have moved the drive back farther, but then I got the helpful information in another thread about putting the ram in the proper bank arrangement to get the dual-mode speed out of it.

I know. I was one of those rascals that convinced you to place your memory like this. (but is IS really the right way to install them though! )

I know. I was one of those rascals that convinced you to place your memory like this. (but is IS really the right way to install them though! )

Yup, and you were right. It's in the manual for the motherboard, and the RAM slots are even color-coded to help remind me.

Wow, reading the manual... what a concept.

My 3Dmark2003 score improved a bit after changing the RAM around. I wonder if that was the reason, or if it was a fluke?

speaking of 3dmark2003, what kind of scores do you get with that machine?

Changing the RAM chip order pushed the score up to just above 6000. This is with the latest version (there are patches at their web site).

There are some spots in the demos that really bog down the frame rate. Some of the scenes in the "nature" demo are pushing so many multi-textured polygons that the frame rate drops to 11fps.

Anyone have any 3Dmark 2K3 scores to share that I can compare it to?

I honestly don't trust any 3DMark score anymore, after the NVidia fiasco with all the cheats in their drivers. Who knows what is lurking in any drivers these days from either company.

I did use 3DMark to test my 2.26/9700 Pro against a 2.8/9500 Pro, both running the same drivers. The CPU made a bigger impact then I expected, with the 2.8 box scoring 500 points higher then mine.

An update on the way the case is working out...

The Vantech case fans push so much cool air through the case that the variable-speed fan in my 400w power supply slows down to practically nothing. So much so that the software that reports my fan speeds thinks something has gone wrong with the power supply fan.

(This isn't a problem, I just think it's neat.)

did you go with the 5800 or the 5900?

5900 with 256 megs of RAM. The video card alone was $500.00.

Edit: It was this one, specifically.

ill post my ati 9700 benchmark when i got home sometime. it wont go near your 6000, but itll be interestng to see. i cant remember what i scored on 3dmark2k1

Cool, thanks. I'd also be curious to know what the lowest frame rate displayed during the Nature demo comes out to be.

5900 with 256 megs of RAM. The video card alone was $500.00

I thought you where holding out on buying a new video card until Doom 3 was released ? What made you change your mind ? (though I am pretty sure that Doom 3 WILL run on that card of yours! )