[linux-audio-user] Quiet PC Components?

[Tim Moss]

> > I have been playing with DRC and Brutefir for room correction and
> > digital crossover capabilities.  The results have been positive and now
> > would like to quiet down one of my PC's in order to keep it in my stereo
> > system.  I am looking for a particularly quiet case, CPU fan (for Athlon
> > 64), and a video card that does not need a fan (hopefully NVidia based
> > or something that is easy to configure in Linux).  I can't afford the
> > expensive fanless PC cases (heat pipe style).

I have built several quiet systems and I really like
http://www.directron.com/ for parts. They even have a section of their
website specifically about building quiet systems. 

For CPU fans, I have had excellent experiences with Zalman products
(they even make an ultra quiet power supply but it's kind of expensive).
It sounds like you're just upgrading an existing computer but, for what
it's worth, I just got a retail box AMD 64 X2 and the fan it comes with
is extremely quiet. A 3rd party sink/fan isn't even necessary.

I haven't tried all the case fans that directron recommends for quiet
systems but, of the ones I have tried, the Panaflo fans have been the
best. They generally provide more airflow than others and are still as
quiet if not quieter.

I use a Radeon 9200 video card which does not have a fan and works very
well in my new Debian Sid system (without any tinkering). Looking at the
pictures of video cards on Directron, it looks like there are several
fairly cheap cards (both Radeon and GeForce based) that don't have fans.
I don't have any experience with the GeForce cards but I have had 3
different Radeon cards and they all worked easily in Linux.