How much in a microATX

[cjewell]

Hi,

I was wondering how much hardware is sensible to put in a microATX case. I'm currently running:

a 350W PSU
P4 2.4GHz (with standard cooling fan)
2 Seagate hard drives
1 CD-RW drive
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX400 graphics card
no separate case fan

I would like to put in an HP tape drive plus associated SCSI card. Is this sensible? I'm a little loathed to put in another fan as I like the quietness of this box. Should I get a bigger box (more air space for cooling)?

Cheers,

Chris J

[gehidore]

put it in.

get some "silent" fans. they spin slower but they still cool, just not as loudly.

if your afraid of temp, run your box for a while then reboot and check the temp in the bios. then put in the tape drive and card and do the same thing.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

What are the dimensions of the case?

I mean, you can mount a uATX board in a full tower case if you wanted to. I'd say the cooling efficiency of the system would be largely dependant upon how much airflow you could push through.

I, like Gehidore, would recommend silent fans. Either that, or Thermaltake makes some nice fans that have built- in thermal sensors. That way, if things got too hot, the fans would just speed up.

[The Others]

You should check out quiet pc:

http://www.quietpc.com/uk/

for some (almost) silent cooling solutions.