Wire it up to 5v or 7v. 7v is made using the difference of 12v and 5v (search for details). Instant quieter fan. The reduced airflow could lead to overheating though so watch that.

search for Scythe Mini Kaze 60mm

There might be room to use an 80mm to 60mm fan adapter, and the separation would eliminate "blade chop" noise from the blades passing over the fins

I appreciate all of the suggestions. I'm not very adept at mods, so I took keropi's advice and ordered one of the Scythe fans. I'll report back when it arrives Wednesday.

That e-machines mobo has some TEAPO capacitors and what looks to be like G-Luxon or something.
Amazingly the VRM caps are sanyo.

Because the low quality capacitors are in lesser critical areas, it'll probably work for awhile (assuming the sanyos are not fakes).

What chipset does this board use?

Regarding the cooler. With luck, you can mount a 80 mm fan, with just 2 screws on the left and have the right side hang over.

I'm guessing that the Sanyo caps are the only good ones? I had a Gateway machine from this era that kept giving me the BSOD. I bought another power supply and was pulling my hair out with Windows reinstalls. I didn't know about bad caps at the time.

This machine uses the VIA VT8235 chipset. It was a Craigslist/Freecycle rescue. The previous owner had upgraded to 2GB with Crucial RAM (had only 256MB stock), so it's a nice early-era XP box. I like the smaller size of the tower. I'm going to put a BFG 6800GT OC in it next week for some Doom 3 / Far Cry goodness.

biggest problem is the turbulance of air over the fins, you only really need to life the fan about 1/8in from the fins and you likely wont notice it

The cheap Chinese 3 pin 60mm fans from ebay seem to be fairly silent. I have two of them and so far am impressed with the airflow and noise level both.

Just tie a 120/140mm fan to it with tie wraps or something. This will provide some air flow to the VRM coils and transistors too 😉

For absolute silence, I can recommend the Scythe 120mm 800rpm or Antec TrueQuiet 140mm.

If I remember right, there is a 60mm variant of the Vantec Stealth, which should be a good alternative as well. Replacing/upgrading the heatsink wouldn't be a bad idea either, if you can find something nice at a reasonable price.

ODwilly wrote:

The cheap Chinese 3 pin 60mm fans from ebay seem to be fairly silent. I have two of them and so far am impressed with the airflow and noise level both.

Could you please link this? Thank you!

All great suggestions. If the Scythe doesn't work out, I will go with a larger fan.

The BFG 6800GT OC turned out to be malfunctioning. Still rockin' the Ti4600 for now.

The Scythe fan arrived early, and I just installed it. Very quiet! I would say the fan noise is cut in half, if not more. A perfect solution to the problem. Thanks again, keropi!

philscomputerlab wrote:

ODwilly wrote:

The cheap Chinese 3 pin 60mm fans from ebay seem to be fairly silent. I have two of them and so far am impressed with the airflow and noise level both.

Could you please link this? Thank you!

Sorry I am late! Here are the ones I bought 😀 http://www.ebay.com/itm/60mm-PC-CPU-Cooling-F … =item484b064f5e EDIT: I just want to add that they also have a Molex powered version for the same price!

Thank you!

Noctua make a 60mm version of their FLEX fans. They are 3-pin and come supplied with low-noise and ultra-low-noise adapters to run it at 3000, 2400 or 1600rpm.

http://noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&pr … ts_id=48&lng=en

I'm impressed with Noctua. I got their Noctua NH-U14S cooler last year and requested the Socket 775 kit from them direct, which came no questions asked within a week or 2. The cooler was also pretty good quality. Just not a fan (get it) of their colour, but in a un-windowed case who cares.