xzzyx@xxxxxxxxxxx a ?crit : > > Looking at the archives I noticed a few people have (or had!) a MSI > MS-6215. I'm curious as to whether you have found the performance > adequate (I have a 1 GHz PIII) and noise level satisfactory. > How can noise be reduced? (I am not very hardwarily inclined) I have an MSI case the generation before this one, and didn't ever reduced it's noise. It is really awful. What I would suggest : * external power supply (the fan inside the PS might be really noisy) : search for DC-DC converters with AC-DC power blocks (meant for Via EPIA motherboards, but should be powerful enought for your PIII). The DC-DC converter has a high efficiency, thus low heat output, and the power bloc is external to the case * get the biggest heatsink as possible for your processor, and underclock it (cf. www.silentpcreview.com) * get out everything that is not needed (floppy, cables, etc.) to maximize airflow You can go farther if you can cut metal sheets... > Has anyone tried making the power supply external to minimise heat? The heat sources are the processor, the HDD and the DVB card (more if it is a full-featured one). The noise sources are the power supply (because this is the only one to the air out of the case) and the heatsink on th processor. The bigger the fans, the better. The slower the fans, the better. Thus try to fit 8cm fans with a resistance in series to reduce speed (cf. www.silentpcreview.com) > Finally, does anyone have any good ideas to minimise dust entry to the > machine other than putting the machine inside a cabinet. Minimize fan speed -> minimize heat generation -> underclock the processor and take great care about the HDD you choose (rule of thumb : the lower the power requirements of the HDD, the lower the heat + the lower the rotational speed of the HDD, the lower the heat) > Thanks for any help, Starting from a case like this one, you will have a lot of work to make it silent enough. The cabinet sould help ! > Andrew -- NH
