So I'll list the parts first

AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+

Epox 9NPA+ Ultra

Lian Li PC-7 Plus (2 integrated fans)

Seasonic S12 500W PSU

Asus 6600GT Silencer

NEC 3550A DVD

Floppy drive

Maxtor HD (dont know what model its a hand me down)

So I put it all together and it turns on and is fine but its no way as quiet as I was hoping it to be. On the Lian Li there are grates on the top and front which let a hell of a lot of noise out. The specification said these vents let the system cool so the fans didnt need to be so loud! What do people suggest to quieten my system? I dont want to the hassle of water cooling. What about passive cooling? Anyone got any experience with using CPU heatsinks and stuff? My CPU has reached a temperature of 41C just me having a browse through the BIOS options. Is this OK? What temperatures should I expect my CPU and System to reach? I havent built a PC properly before. I am on my old one at the moment.

Also, I tested my floppy drive by putting in Maxblast disk in but it said it couldn't load DOS or something along those lines. What do I need to do now to get my system up and running? The HD's been formatted so its not urgent for me to get into Maxblast, but what should be my next step? Shal I try booting my windows CD? I havent hooked my DVD drive up yet.

Thanks for the help

Edited December 8, 200520 yr by tomars

So I put it all together and it turns on and is fine but its no way as quiet as I was hoping it to be. On the Lian Li there are grates on the top and front which let a hell of a lot of noise out. The specification said these vents let the system cool so the fans didnt need to be so loud! What do people suggest to quieten my system? I dont want to the hassle of water cooling. What about passive cooling? Anyone got any experience with using CPU heatsinks and stuff? My CPU has reached a temperature of 41C just me having a browse through the BIOS options. Is this OK? What temperatures should I expect my CPU and System to reach? I havent built a PC properly before. I am on my old one at the moment.

Your CPU temp is fine. If you want to reduce noise levels you first have to find out where the noise is coming from. Likely its one of your case fans or the fan on the CPU heatsink. You might need to turn down their rotational speed to reduce noise if you have that ability. If you cant reduce the speed of the fans, then you might want to look at some silent after-market fans.

Also, I tested my floppy drive by putting in Maxblast disk in but it said it couldn't load DOS or something along those lines. What do I need to do now to get my system up and running? The HD's been formatted so its not urgent for me to get into Maxblast, but what should be my next step? Shal I try booting my windows CD? I havent hooked my DVD drive up yet.

You need to boot into DOS before you can run maxblast, but I wouldnt worry about it anyway since the windows installation will let you partition and format the disk. Hookup your DVD drive then go into BIOS and set it (the DVD drive) as the first boot device, and make sure your maxtor hard drive comes after the DVD drive. At this point you should be able to boot from a windows CD and start the install.

Nice specs BTW

Cool thanks, I'll try setting it up tonight after college

Thanks again