On Tue, 19 Jun 2007, Andy Ruhl wrote:
> I guess since people have proven that you don't even really need a
> fan, anything you put on there would probably be fine. Although I do
> know that these newer hard drives crank out the heat, and my opinion
> is that a fan is needed with a newer hard drive. And hopefully the
> power supply can keep up.

You definately *do* need a fan if your qube is doing any serious work. I 
removed the fan from mine and it worked fine for weeks, until I tried to 
compile -current. The qube would hang at unpredictable points in the build, 
no messages on the console. After an hour's googling I finally thought to 
check the temperature of the HDD with smartmontools (it's the only temp 
sensor in the qube). It was 65 degC.

I installed a 2.5" HDD (only one screw holding it, and you need an adapter) 
and replaced the fan with a generic 4cm one; it was still too loud so I put 
one of those variable fan speed regulators between the fan and the MB. I 
set it to the lowest setting that the fan would still spin up at when 
booting the qube.

It's almost inaudible now, can be stressed at 100% for weeks and the HDD
never goes above 35 degrees.


FWIW, HTH,

bbee