[ulairi]

Originally Posted by bobkoure

IMHO 28dB should be pretty straightforward.

Have you already bought the case? The 180/182 is very nice - for air cooling. Once you get into water cooling the separate airflow path design of the 180/182 is (IMHO) more hindrance than help. I'd look at some of the larger Antec server cases - particularly if you're going to hog out a big-ass hole in the lower front for a radiator/intake. Sorry I can't recommend a particular one - their models have changed since my last build.

Whichever case you get, mass-load all the panels.

The bad news is that I already have the case. The good news is that the 182 is actually quite sound dampened. Having taken a long thoughtful look at the case layout, it seems quite likely that I will have to take a Dremmel to it. That was a highly likely thing almost regardless of the case (save for the SuperMicro-sized server full tower cases). I'll get a hold of the eDead stuff in case I need to add. There are rubberized mounts everywhere in the case. Since I'll have to scuttle at least one drive cage, I can use its rubberized mounts to isolate the pump's vibrations from the rest of the case.

Originally Posted by bobkoure

About the only other thing you can do to kill pump noise is to use soft silicone tubing to/from the pump (the tubing's the remaining vibration path). The downside is that this stuff lets coolant evaporate slowly, so you'll need a reservoir.

Hrmm... hadn't thought of the hoses issue, thanks for bringing that up. If I cannot figure out a way to dampen them, I'll have to follow your suggestion (then again, it'll remain to be seen as to the amount of noise I'll get with Tygon everywhere.) I'll certainly keep a couple of feet of soft silicone stuff - it is inexpensive enough.

Originally Posted by bobkoure

The key to reducing fan noise is to have as large a radiator as you can fit (preferably using case-intake air). Thin is also good as it reduces the pressure required to flow air and loses very little in cooling capacity. There's lots of discussion about this here on PC - and the Thermochill PA160 came out of that discussion - so at least consider that rad.
I've had good luck with Nexus 120mm fans, both for case exhaust and for pulling through a radiator (if you are using a heater core you will need to "stack" them in order to get sufficient pressure while still slowed way down). They don't "tick" when PWMed.

The 160 is, indeed, an excellent rad for low-CFM enviroments - the news of its development was the link that led me to these forums. It is my understanding that it is only meant for one fan. I can't help but think that its internal volume may not be appropos to cool a C2D and a rather power-hungry GPU. An additional caveat is its availability which, state-side, seems rather... attrocious, whereas the 120 series, while not as efficient, are more plentiful.

Originally Posted by bobkoure

There are quiet power supplies out there. I've had really good luck with Seasonic.

Quite true. I've picked PC&C's for the high efficiency and very stable voltages choosing to sacrifice the silence in this particular case.

Originally Posted by bobkoure

I think that's about it. My current PC isn't as powerful as what you're looking at (OC'ed AMD X2) and it's not completely inaudible - but I have to stick my head under my desk to hear it (mostly a whisper of disk noise). BTW, I've got the exhaust fans speed-controlled on case air temp and the rad fans speed controlled on cpu-block temp. I expected it to get louder when the room temp's up and I've got the CPU at 100% (mpeg encoding, mostly) - and it does get a bit louder, but I still have to move under the desk to hear it (a little whoosh added to the disk whisper).

Hope this helps - use/ignore at your pleasure...

If I can get thereabout in my setup in terms of silence, I'd be quite happy. My current PC is a shuttle (SN25P) which will become a media player machine when the new one goes online. That one will *have* to be utterly silent, though I am not sure how much I'll be able to do given the size of the case. An MCP350 pump at the lowest voltage setting, ThermoChill 160 and the quietest fan I can find seem appropriate. The video card will likely be an ATI 2400 or 2600 series - that'll give me SD/HD decode acceleration sans the heat.

All that, however, is in the future. First, this rig.

Thank you kindly for the advice and suggestions. I'll use what I can, and learn from the rest.