I bought my rig preassembled using Silverstone SG02B-f case, 8400-E cpu, with P5Q-EM MB. Unfortunately my cpu fan has no variable speed and is much too noisy for me. It is a cooller master cpu "heavy duty" and there is a mount plate under motherboard it is screwed to. I'd like to upgrade my cpu fan without removing MB and I was told by my seller I can buy a Zalman 8700 cpu fan and just attach it to my mount from the coolermaster. My priority is too keep PC as quiet as possible. I've heard this fan is not so silent and wonder if anyone can recommend something better. Clearance from cpu to PSU located directly above is not great which limits my cooler size options. I know some with my setup are using silverstone heatsink cooler NT06-E. This looks even better but will It be compatible with my existing plate? Please recommend me a silent solution without having to remove motherboard. Do noise levels vary greatly for power supplies? If so, can someone please recommend a quiet one? My Apevia 500w PSU seems loud to me and I'd like to swap it out if I could silent my system some. My seller doesn't think a replacement will be much quieter. What do you all think?
If your current cooler uses a backplate, then you'll need to remove it (i.e. remove the motherboard) to fit a normal cooler. If it's just a pushpin cooler, however, you can do a straight swap to one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186029 It's out of stock at newegg at the moment, but you can get it somewhere else I'm sure.
You should get rid of the Apevia PSU, not just for the noise, but also because Apevia units can randomly go pop and destroy components, most cheap low quality PSUs do. Stick an Antec Earthwatts 380W in there, they're silent, and cheap.
