SN45G Case Mod Idea

[Ahri]

I've never bothered with case modding before (I'm lazy, what can I say? ) but I'm becoming increasingly irritated by the fan in my SN45G; it's just too loud! This is mainly due to the fact that I have an AMD 3200+ XP (400MHz FSB version).

Anyway, the idea I'd like to explore with those of you who have experience with this sort of thing is passive cooling for my CPU and possibly even my Radeon 9800SE AIW. Now I'm not too sure of myself so I'd rather not knacker the current case but rather to construct a replacement case allowing plenty of airflow and possibly even acting as a large heatsink (yes, the whole thing - is this a crap idea? I plead ignorance!). I'm *really* impressed by heatpipe technology and figured that if the case is turned into a big heatsink with a bunch of gaps I could run heatpipes from copper contacts on the CPU/Radeon to the case to dissipate heat.

I'm fully prepared to be shot down on this one, but please try to give alternative ideas. I'm a rather skint student so perhaps heatpipes are a bit pricey, I really don't know. I found a site with some useful info, but nowhere to buy heatpipes from. Oh, and I'm not really bothered by how it looks, just how it sounds.

[ekundo]

would it not be immensly easier to buy a decent noiseblocker fan, a silentx powersupply and if noise is that important, switch to an already passively cooled gfx card?

[Ahri]

I'm sure it would be easier, but I'm not sure it would be any cheaper (I certainly don't have the cash to be buying new graphics cards on a whim). It's also sure to be less interesting/fun.

[Shogun]

What power supply are you using? Would be just easier to replace the cpu fan with a noiseblocker one and to replace the psu with a 250w silentX one . Will make quite a bit of difference. Honest

[Flash]

dont even think of going passive on that AIW ask greenpiggy if you want more info

[GreenPiggy]

Worked for about 10 minutes then got fuzzy screen disease.
Not sure how it'd cope when connected to the whole case but i doubt it'd make a difference

[Flash]

it would probably scorch a hole through the computer desk

[Ahri]

Hrm... maybe I'll try these silent fans first! I expect I will try to switch over to fully passive cooling at some point, though it sounds like passively cooling the AIW ain't going to happen soon