Here is a bunch of info on products for making a super quiet PC. Nobody really does a very good job at making a performance based yet quiet PC so you will have to work on it yourself using various parts.
In short the fans on a computer are what makes it noisy next to the mechanical noise of the hard drive.
Zalman makes some good products:
Zalman
I use their VGA cooler to replace the fan on my video card and their Northbridge cooler to replace the fan on my motherboard. Their CPU cooler for AMD doesn't work as well and I ended up with a Silverado instead. You can get more info on the Silverado at: ChillBlast
Update: Even the Silverado makes lots of noise and it just pumps more heat into the case. I needed a quiet solution that moved the heat outside of the computer case. I ended up buying an Icerberg I from ExoticPC.com. You can see view the install process here. The quality of these pictures is poor.
I used a SilentDrive enclosure with an already quiet Samsung Spinpoint hard drive. The only problem is that you can only put a 5 watt disk drive inside of a SilentDrive enclosure or it will overheat. So no 7200 RPM drives. This doesn't matter to me since most of my data resides on the network and not locally. SilentDrive is at: SilentDrive The Samsung Spinpoint Hard Drives are at: Samsung With a quiet Spinpoint in a SilentDrive enclosure you can NOT hear the hard drive with the case on. You will have to depend on your LED to know the HD is working.
Other things that you may need include ultra quiet case fans as well as a quiet Power Supply. You can find these items at: QuietPC
Once you get your power supply you'll probally find out that in the end its still pretty noise, even compared with a Silverado CPU cooler. Here is an article I found that might help. I have not had time to crack open my power supply yet: SilentPC Review
You may also want a new case, I use a desktop version that is all black with a black DVD and floppy drive so it blends better with my existing home theater rack. You can find this stuff at: Digital Connection
Take a look at their sound damped version: DC Quiet Case
Usually Digital Connections has reasonable service but they slip every so often in customer service so if you order from them be double sure they shipped everything you are susposed to get.
Here is a geek BBS thread on cooling and quiet PCs: Geek BBS thread
Hope this helps. My home theater PC now makes less noise than my air conditioning, which runs pretty often here in Dallas during the summer. However it still makes more noise than my TiVo so I'd say its not perfected yet. Also it runs pretty warm. I think the heat simply means that some components may fail within 3-4 years instead of the 5-8 that I typically get. However since the HTPC is a performance machine I don't expect to keep any component more than 3 or 4 years anyway.
I need to look at my power supply because I think thats what makes mos tof the noise now and there simply isn't anything more quiet than the Silverado unless I want to run my CPU at over 60 degrees C which is awfully close to the AMD limit of 70.
I'm using an ATI Raedon graphics card, a Creative Audigy sound card, an AMD 1800 XP CPU, 256MB of DDR RAM, a Logitech wireless keyboard, a Gyro Mouse, Pioneer DVD drive, and Microsoft fore feedback joystick and driving wheel.
Update: The Audigy is OK for games but not very good for music. I ended up with a Delta Audiophile 24/96 for music. You can get more info on this from Digital Connection here.
Last updated: Sat Oct 5 15:56:40 CDT 2002