Originally posted by: mugs
If you can hear a fan, you must have your TV muted. Turn the volume up dude. I don't even notice the DVD drive spinning when I'm playing.
My hearing's pretty good (I have a musical education

) and unless I put my volume up to some insane values, I can easily hear the fans of the Xbox over game sounds. The speakers are Z-2300 2.1 from Logitech, they have quite a punch too.
I can hear my drives (though faintly), my fans (Nexus 120mm at 5V) and most definitely my HD4870 (which annoys the crap out of me unless I drop it to 0%

). I wish there was a system that is as silent as the Nexus fans at 5V and then I'll stop complaining

As this is as much as I can bare without getting annoyed by the humming, hissing, swirling and what not