
PCs to Be Seen, Not Heard - pg
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/technology/circuits/11basics.html?ex=1349755200&en=68c3c50567e3f24a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
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joeguilmette
my first computer had a problem with the fan so that every few hours it would
start to rattle so loud it would wake me up in the middle of night. the only
way to make it stop was to hit/punch the damn thing.

eventually there was this fist sized dent in the side of the case.

besides losing sleep, i never really understood people who fawn over super-
quiet pcs, unless they are going for a media center. our way around that was
using a pa system for sound. not only did it drown out the cpu fan, but it
rattled the walls.

nowadays though, d-link's dsm series seems to be killing the media center pc
concept. we found one on CL's free stuff, and it's pretty amazing. haha don't
ask me why he was giving it away.

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jsjenkins168
I had a real hard time building an HTPC quiet enough to use for movies and
music. The real problem is that graphics cards powerful enough to decode H.264
for 1080p material usually have big, loud fans.

nVidia recently started incorporating HDCP and onboard H.264 decoding on their
low-cost 8500 and 8600 graphics cards which is a huge relief. Some companies
such as Gigabyte even make completely fan-less versions of these cards for
<$200.

Now if blu-ray drives would just come down in price I'll be set :)

