Having a single drive for CD and DVD would eliminate one source of noise and heat but the Pioneer DVD burner just doesn't perform well with CDs. So both drives stay for now.

The Cavalier is good case but it is far from perfect for a quiet computer. The grills for the front and back fans are of the punch out type. This is obviously very cheap for the manufacturer to produce but they restrict the air flow and create noise. Then the drive bays extend to the bottom of the case and is not removable. Using one of the drive bays for the hard drive is not an option as the vibrations would be transmitted to the case: way too much noise. One more problem I have with this case is that the side panels are made of thin metal that tend to vibrate.

I cut out the grills for the fans. At the back I put a wire grill to make sure I wouldn't accidentally stick my fingers in the running fan. The intake fan doesn't need one as it is not accessible from the outside. Besides I haven't decided yet if I'll use the intake fan at all. I also removed the drive bays. Some of the rivets were not easily accessible but eventually it all came off. I cut it so only the top bay remained. Before installing anything in the case I lined it with sound proofing material. This greatly reduced vibration of the case and generally reduced the noise coming out of the box. But I would have liked a higher density material for the side panels.

My first choice for this machine was a Zalman 7000 AlCu. The heatsink is huge and there is a 92 mm fan in the centre. The installation of this impressive bit of kit required that the metal backplate glued to the Asus motherboard be removed. Heating it up with a hair dryer softened the glue enough to remove the plate easily. After that installing the heatsink was very easy. Unfortunately I found the fan to be too noisy. I thought about changing it but that seemed like too much trouble. The Zalman had to go.

I went for a monster heatsink next: the Thermalright XP-120. It is massive and heavy but performs really well and can be used with any 120 mm fan, preferably a very quiet one. The original backplate on the motherboard had to be re-fitted. Installing the XP-120 was straight forward despite the dreadful manual.

I still need to experiment with the fans to find the best compromise for noise and cooling. I am currently running this PC with a 120 mm Nexus fan for the extraction fan and no fan at all on the CPU heatsink.

To stop the vibrations going to the frame of the case I put the drive at the bottom of the case on top of some foam. The drive runs hot so it needs fairly good cooling. By placing it at the front and bottom of the case it should be in the air flow (even if the intake fan is not used). The Zalman heatpipe cooler works well. But what helped to bring the heat in control was to allow air under the drive. My solution is not particularly elegant but it is efficient. I used brackets that were meant to mount a 3"1/2 device in a 5"1/4 bay and fixed them under the drive.

One thing I might investigate at a later time is a suspension cage for the drive. But it is low priority as the only benefit would be to make the PC easier to move.

It is much quieter now but not as good as I expected.

Flat IDE and floppy cables are easy to deal with. They can be folded to follow the shape of the case and drive bays. The floppy cable was too long and paart of it is hidden under the motherboard.

I still have to work on the power cables and the fan connections.