If you are on a mid range XP the volcano 7 should prove an excellent solution for you. It's a hybrid, and fairly quiet. The Spire cooler I gave you a link for in my first message is every bit as good, but less expensive.
The question of sound is a tough one. There are a number of issues you have to consider such as other background sounds that may mask local sounds, the loudness of the various parts of your computer and the characteristic of the sound produced by your computer.
If you live in a noisey area, like near a freeway, the noise from your computer may be completely masked by the background noise. On the other hand, if you are in a relatively quiet area, like out in the country, you may end up hearing your computer no matter what you do. So the first consideration is one of relative loudness.
It's true that a loud sound will always be irritating, even a beloved song played too loud will irritate. So the absolute loudness of your computer is also a consideration. A 90db fan would drive anyone nuts.
The final consideration is one of quality of sound... what does it sound like. A soft rushing sound (white noise) such as made by the airflow from a quiet fan can actually mask other sounds in the room, making things seem quieter than they actually are. A whining or whistling sound, at the same DB count can be extremely irritating. So the nature or quality of the sound is important too.
First, just because your case has fittings for 307 fans does not mean you have to install all 307 of them. If one quiet fan will keep things acceptably cool, that's all you need. There's no reason to put up with the noise of redundent and often unnecessary fans.
As I've been learning of late the real trick isn't to fan the thing to death. It is also important to make sure the case has sufficient air intake that the fan(s) can draw enough air into your case without creating a vaccuum. Too many exhaust fans without adequate air intake can actually <b>increase</b> the operating temperatures because heat transfer is affected by air pressure. A little common sense tells us that you need as much area letting air in as out to create decent aiflow through a case. Each 80mm case fan should be matched by an 80mm air intake, to maintain the full airflow capacity of the fan.
Moreover, management of this airflow is important. In your average ATX or MICRO-ATX case, cool air should enter the front of the case and exit through the back. This draws cold air through the entire case. With open holes on the back, this airflow managment strategy fails, as the pressure drop in the case simply draws air in backwards through the open holes and out the one used by the fan without circulating it through the case at all. You probably will get better results by covering over unused fan openings in the back of the case and increasing the air intake area in the front.
One way of doing this is to cut or drill openings in the bottom of the case itself and use taller than average feet to allow airflow into the case from the bottom. Another is to modify the plastic front cover, cutting away the bottom lip of the plastic (underneath where it's out of site) allowing air to enter through the new opening.
Another noise management strategy is to slow down the rotation of fans somewhat. With most aftermarket coolers you can knock 5 or 10% off the speed of the fan without any noticeable penalty. Often this is true of the case fans as well. This can be done as easily as putting a 10 ohm 2 watt resistor in series with the fan's power lead, or you can get as exotic as microprocessor controllers that fit in drive bays... in any case even a slight reduction in fan speed can result in a pronounced drop in the annoyance factor.
So you may well find that with a well ventilated case you will only need one low speed case fan to keep things cool, quiet and sane.
To give you some idea how loud things are:
<A HREF="http://www.xprt.net/~rcrowley/tvcaudio/loudness.htm" target="_new">http://www.xprt.net/~rcrowley/tvcaudio/loudness.htm</A>
Hope this helps.
<b>(</b>It ain't better if it don't work.<b>)</b>
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram