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Ever since I’ve had my Asrock 330 HT I have been annoyed by the high pitch noise level it produces. It´s a great device to run XBMC live on, but Asrock’s claim for the device to be silent only holds when the device remains unplugged or when it’s overruled by some speaker set cranked up to 10. Googling my way to some sort of a sort of a solution, I found out that the noise was mainly caused by the fan being screwed too tight to it’s heatsink. A looser coupling would be the solution.

Step 1: open the case

Open the lid of the case by unscrewing two screws on top and remove the HD drive again by removing two screws on top. Unplug the HD drive to give yourself some space to work.

Step 2: remove the fan

This is perhaps the most difficult step. The fan is mounted by three screws on the side of the heatsink. It may be difficult to remove the the bottom screw, as the other heatsink blocks your way. But with a little ‘wiggling’ of this aluminium monster, you will be able to get the screw to move. For the top two screws I widened the heatsink a bit, to enable easy removal of the screws. By now, you should be able to remove the fan:

Asrock 330 HT fan

Step 3: cut a rubber gasket

It’s essential to limit the amount of fan vibration transported to the heatsink. As gaskets for this specific model, size and purpose are not sold these days (and I doubt they ever will be), I chose to cut a piece of rubber to fit in between. An inner tube of bike, some rubber ring or even a rubber band will do too.

Myself, I cut a piece of off my pond liner (EPDM), which actually still stood out from the side.

Rubber square

Step 4: cut your hole!

That’s just trial and error. Just make sure that it does not block the airflow too much.

gasket

fits nicely

Step 5: put it all together and position the heatsink.

In this step, it’s best practice to put your Asrock on the side. That way your rubber will not move too much. When you are confident about the positioning, take a tie wrap and tighten it back to the heatsink. I would not recommend to use a rubber band for this job, cause it will wear down over time, possible leave your fan traveling loose through your Asrock.

Reconstructed fan mount on heatsink in Asrock 330 HT

Now it should look as shown above, plug in your HD bay, screw it back in place and put the cover on. Turn on XBMC for a while for some testing. Noise should be much lower now.

More info on XBMC can be found here (in Dutch).