So, a few weeks ago I spring-cleaned inside my trusty little linux server machine before installing the replacement hard drive. I think I was rewarded with about a kilo of dust and other muck, but at least the machine is now clean. I then replaced the little CPU fan with a brand-new ball bearing fan (4cm). That was a huge improvement, but I was still not happy with the level of noise.
So, today I bought a Nexus NX-3500 “Real Silent Powel Supply”. What a difference… the machine is busy upgrading its ubuntu installation about 5 metres to my left and I can hardly hear it. This is great.
I think I’ll still keep the cheap-assed little hardware firewall, but at least I now have a very quiet machine to use as fileserver and linux playground at home.
(PS. if anyone knows of an easy way to cool a Celeron 300A Mendocino passively, I would like to hear about it)