Arctic Cooling Silentium T1

Hard drive mounting

Mounted to the left side of the power supply is a large aluminium box suspended by four elastic rubber rings - Arctic Cooling call this the HDD Muffler. The idea is to isolate the drive from the chassis so that vibrations are not transferred into the chassis, causing noise. It's not a new idea: our friends at Spode's Abode published a ghetto mod that uses a couple of garden-variety rubber bands and two biros to achieve the same effect. In both instances, the drive is completely isolated and noise is reduced. The solid aluminium cage wouldn't hurt when it comes to cooling the drive either.




We didn't receive a manual in our box but a quick check of the Arctic Cooling website produced the necessary PDF. If you follow the manual, the installation process is as simple as removing the end cover and sliding your drive inside. For photography purposes we removed the entire drive cage, which is only possible by removing the power supply as well. We suggest you leave everything in place, unless you mess up like we did - more on that shortly.



There are no mounting screws - the cage provides a very snug fit. We followed the manual in terms of drive orientation, reassembled the PSU back into the case and screwed everything together. Sadly, we would quickly come unstuck, as you will read on the next page.