For some strange reason I just got the itch to try out Ogg Vorbis. Maybe it’s because I see more and more PDA MP3 playing software supporting the format, and you get equal quality at half the size. I’m going to investigate encoders. I’ll post my results here. If you have any good recommendations, e-mail me please!

Antec slaps the motto “Hear the Silence” on the box of the Sonata ATX case for a reason. While it’s not totally silent, the Sonata offers an extremely quiet solution for housing your computer components. I’m not a professional writer, or the most qualified to write a detailed PC hardware review, but I will give you my thoughts on this case.

I recently became obsessed with making my computer silent. I’m living in a dorm room right now with a room mate, and two computers in close quarters can draw your attention toward component noise. My room mate has a Dell, which was nearly whisper quiet compared to my beige box. I had a chieftech-clone mid tower with a standard off-the-shelf power supply. A standard Intel P4 CPU cooler, 80mm exhaust fan, and power supply made this box pretty loud. I started by switching the cpu cooler out with a Zalman flower. Next I got a Vantec Stealth case fan. I realized that most of my noise could be killed with larger fans and a quiet power supply. After searching the net for solutions, the Sonata looked like it would solve my problems.

Installation was pretty simple. The case was a little more cramped than my previous case, but I got everything installed without a hitch. I love the sideways mounted hard drive rack. Also, the hard drives mount on racks with rubber bushings, silencing hard drive vibrations. The case comes with a 120mm fan mounted for exhaust. The fan mounts with rubber “mounting pins”, further reducing case vibration. To me… the real gold in this case is the power supply. The Sonata comes with a 380watt unit that controls fan speeds based on load and temperature. The PSU not only controls the speed of its internal fan, but will also control case fans with special “Fan Only” molex connectors. By hooking the 120mm fan up to this fan only connector, its speed is regulated based on case temperature. I also got a second 120mm fan, a gift, that has its own thermal regulation. The second fan mounts on the hard drive cage, pulling air in through an air filter built into the front of the case.

With this case, and my Zalman set to it’s lowest speed, my system is practically inaudible. I am extremely happy with the Sonata, and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get their system quiet in a compact package. I won’t recommend it to anyone who wants to heavily “mod”. The case just doesn’t give a lot of room for such modifications. I think the case looks great from the factory. I won’t go into much more detail, because there are tons of awesome reviews written by much better writers. Just hit Google and you’ll get days worth of reading.

Find more at http://www.antec-inc.com/us/.