Has anyone attempted fan replacement or other endeavours to reduce the noise of a 7100?
The 7100 has a front fan blowing air onto the 601 CPU, this is a 60x60x20mm fan. The fan itself doesn't seem to be too noisy, but the way air moves around the metal case seems to cause a bit of noise. The front fan is curiously mounted to a plastic bracket, so I wonder if anything further can be done to improve the mounting to reduce vibration through the case.
The 7100 also has a rear exhaust fan, drawing air through the machine and the power supply, pulling to the rear of the machine. This fan is located in the power supply, and is a standad 80x80mm fan. I used a Noctua replacement in another machine with the same PSU but didn't find it made things much quieter.
I'd be interested in hearing opinions of how to make the 7100 quiet - not necessarily whisper quiet, but just less noticeable. I've already removed the hard drive and replaced with an SD card device, so one source of noise is gone.
I want to retain adequate cooling because I've just put a G3 card in the 7100 and things could get rather toasty in there if the fans aren't up to the job.
I was also wondering about the impact of the metal enclosure on noise; would adhesive sound dampening foam applied to the top lid /front bezel help at all?
The 7100 has a front fan blowing air onto the 601 CPU, this is a 60x60x20mm fan. The fan itself doesn't seem to be too noisy, but the way air moves around the metal case seems to cause a bit of noise. The front fan is curiously mounted to a plastic bracket, so I wonder if anything further can be done to improve the mounting to reduce vibration through the case.
The 7100 also has a rear exhaust fan, drawing air through the machine and the power supply, pulling to the rear of the machine. This fan is located in the power supply, and is a standad 80x80mm fan. I used a Noctua replacement in another machine with the same PSU but didn't find it made things much quieter.
I'd be interested in hearing opinions of how to make the 7100 quiet - not necessarily whisper quiet, but just less noticeable. I've already removed the hard drive and replaced with an SD card device, so one source of noise is gone.
I want to retain adequate cooling because I've just put a G3 card in the 7100 and things could get rather toasty in there if the fans aren't up to the job.
I was also wondering about the impact of the metal enclosure on noise; would adhesive sound dampening foam applied to the top lid /front bezel help at all?