Ayeah, I got this thing pretty quiet, the real easy part are the fans, I just put the low noise adapter that comes with noctua fans on each one front intake, CPU fan, and back exhaust fan.
Hard drives I think are the most difficult and the antecp183 has rubber mounts that deal pretty good with the drive vibrations but not completely and a low hum is inevitable although very very quiet. I would not ever know it was there while actually producing music, but sitting in a silent room it is audible but easy to get used to.
I ordered and installed some WD caviar blue 750GB drives and one was a bit noisy the other not as bad but still three 7200 rpm drives in a case will create some low end noise.
I do recommend the antec p183 v3 for low noise operation although it is not silent you wont heat it during production at all, way quieter than any other case I used.
I am trying to decide whether or not to return the WD caviar blues for a couple more sea-gate barracudas they are a bit less noisy the 7200.12 they do have a high pitched wine but the antec case blocks most of it.
I agree and stand by the idea that computers should always be in another room if you really want silent operation in a studio environment that way you don’t sacrifice cooling for lower noise. I will probably put the pc in my bedroom and run some cords eventually but for now it is good enough to call this a success.
So the antec p183
3 noctua 120mm fans with low noise adapters on all of em
3 seagate baracuda 7200.12 (only one installed as of now will get louder with all 3)
0r
3 WD caviar blue hard drives if I decide to keep them, I little louder than the baracuda’s
PC located behind you as far away as possible in the same room
a very quiet and usable system in the studio.
Thanks I’ll post back when I get the drive I think were the least noisy for this set-up so far it looks like the seagate single platter 500GB 7200.12 drives may win the battle.
I will almost definitely get this pc in a another room asap, I just thought of a great idea to just keep the pc in this room near the door with extension cords and just move it outside the room with the door closed when I am working and just put it back in the room when I’m not then I wont have to drill any holes in the wall it’s a bit unprofessional but I make music alone so who is gonna know 