HP Compaq nc8000 hard drive fan noise

[kmagdono]

I received my nc8000 a week ago, and am generally happy with it except for the noise of the hard drive fan. While I think most people wouldn't mind (and friends who have stopped by think it is fine), I want a PC as quiet as possible.

One friend has a low cost Averatec that is far more quiet (this isn't an ad for Averatec; he has had a variety of problems where I wouldn't want one for myself).

The PC fan rarely kicks on, which is good, and the hard drive fan is just a constant whirr (as opposed to some oscillating noise), but for $2500 bucks, I want near-perfection (which for me means near silence).

Within the power options of the Win XP control panel, I have indicated that the hd should turn off after 3 minutes of inactivity, but I suspect XP is looking for 3 minutes of system inactivity, not 3 minutes of hd inactivity (otherwise I would expand beyond my current 512K and load all my apps at startup and rarely access the hd).

I chose the nc8000 because of HP's reputation, annoyance with Dell, preference for a UXGA screen (not a 15.4" WUXGA screen, or a smaller resolution within 15.1"), reasonable weight, and lower cost compared to IBM. Most notebook makers seem to be moving to 15.4" screens for when they support UXGA (and thus they have WUXGA screens), but I think the pixels would be too small, I worry about distorting effects for games and presentations, and I don't think I would use the extra horizontal space. Even living in a metropolitan area, it's pretty much impossible to find a store with UXGA in stock, so I ordered directly from HP, and if I return this machine within my 30 day grace period, I will probably have to order something else online, too, and thus will not be able to judge for myself how quiet the machine is.

What do you recommend for someone who wants silence or as close as possible? I suppose I could replace the hard drive if you know of a particular hd product. Would a 4200 rpm hd likely be more quiet, or not necessarily? Is there a way to tell xp to turn off the hd while I am just web surfing or typing in word? If so, should I be concerned about stress on the hd turning on and off? I wouldn't care about startup delays - I just want the noise (whirring) to stop!

I rarely run on battery, but thought that the lower power Centrino / Pentium M would generate less heat and thus require the fan to be on less often. My friend's Averatec has some sort of AMD chip. Maybe when the Intel Dothan chips come out Dell will replace the Inspiron 5150 with something lighter that is not noisy that will be nice enough to make me overcome my annoyance with their bad support and bad build quality? I had heard good things about the Toshiba Tecra S1, but they don't seem to offer Tecra's with UXGA anymore.

Thanks for your advice,
Karl