This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz by Peter van Ooijen. Original Post: Passing the screwdriver to the next generation (Fiddling with a computer housing) Feed Title: Peter's Gekko Feed URL: /error.htm?aspxerrorpath=/blogs/peter.van.ooijen/rss.aspx Feed Description: My weblog cotains tips tricks and opinions on ASP.NET, tablet PC's and tech in general. Latest .NET Buzz Posts Latest .NET Buzz Posts by Peter van Ooijen Latest Posts From Peter's Gekko

Today was a special day. It would have been my dad's 77th birthday. He didn't even live to celebrate his 70th. As a technical engineer, specialized in thin layers, he worked for Philips. His first main project concerned the inner coating of CRT tubes, his second was taking part in the development of discs for optical storage. The first is almost fit for the museum; but every time I hold a CD or DVD he's still near. As a hobby (better said out of the hobby grew his profession) he constructed radio's and other electronic devices. Started with tubes, made the step to transistors and after that came IC's and microprocessors. Working completely bottom up, from diode to microprocessor he made his way up through teaching his TI-59 to play chess, Z80 assembly language to (finally) MS-DOS and Turbo Pascal. I did (initially) not follow his steps; but coming top down from biology, through computer based simulation we met in Turbo Pascal.

The thing we always liked both was "knutselen": fidling with screwdrivers and small wrenches. He could spend an entire evening just fixing a a pot-meter right. And today I "wasted" a couple of hours assembling a PC. Not just a normal one, I want my machines to be quiet. Also in the spirit of my dad (he spent quite some time with clubs like the CSVN and HCC (ZX81/MSX)) I want to share some of the things I learned today on computer housings:

• The are quite a lot of good looking and well isolated models around. But the fans of all of them sound like vacuum cleaners. In case you want a quiet PC you'll have to find some good replacement fans as well.
• In the majority of these days models the drives are fixed using a clamping mechanism, looking something like this:

This may look nice and quick but is a disaster to work with. The average "knutselaar" like you or me will not manage to get the drives firm and vibration free in place Nothing beats plain screws ! My dad was right.

Finally I also want to thank the ikbenstil company again. They are quite geeky, specialized in (parts) for silencing PC's and operate (over the web) in most European countries. They make support, customer satisfaction and screwdriver-pleasure into a form of art. Absolutely recommended!