I wish I'd known about the "weaknees" thing last week. On Friday I put in a 60mm Vantech Stealth fan and it's not any quieter than the factory fan.

I have done the following to reduce the fan noise:

- Replaced the factory fan with a Vantech Stealth.

- Isolated the fan from the chassis with foam so that it doesn't transmit vibrations to the case.

- Connected a Zalman fan speed controller (with the knob protruding out the back of the Tivo so I can control it from outside).

Still not good enough. If I turn down the fan speed so it's quiet enough for me, then it doesn't move enough air to keep the innards cool.

Honestly, I'm really only worried about the hard disk getting too hot. If they'd simply designed the inside so that the hard disk wasn't so close to the power supply heat sink, I'd be able to get away with a lower fan speed.

The Vantech Stealth fan really REALLY sucks noise-wise. It's got a definite electromechanical "thrum" to it, a pitched frequency sound that's clearly NOT caused from the airflow. I thought the whole point of a quiet fan was supposed to be to get rid of exactly this kind of noise and reduce it to just the airflow noise.

And before anyone asks, it makes this same noise whether I've connected the speed controller or not.

I'm beginning to think that the Vantech people just slap a "stealth" label onto their fans without the fans actually being anything special noise-wise.

Argh.