Sure is, but since it's over international boundaries, can't get it prosecuted unless Mr. SHAHUL HAMEED ABDUL LATHIEF decides to come to the US to face prosecution...

See my comment below, I got shafted out of almost $600 by a seller out of Thailand.

I thought this one was good, had a transaction that went sour, seller was supposedly in Orlando, FL, but ended up being in Bangkok, Thailand. Item was obviously defective, returned at my expense, with proof, and PayPal sided with me on the claim, letting me know they had the money from the other person's account before I sent it. Posted proof that it was sent, and received a credit of $0.00. Net cost to me for the nothing I now have in hand: $514.00 for initial transaction, +$78.30 to send the item back to Thailand for a grand total of me getting shafted in the amount of $592.30

I'm just fucking thrilled with PayPal right now, can't you tell?

I probably won't get modded at all thanks to catching this discussion so late in the game, but I managed to get an insider poke at SysInternals, hard enough that they updated their BGInfo application to fix just this problem (for a test-lab Win7 machine no less). Difference is, I routed it through a guy at Microsoft who actually lives and breathes this stuff - Aaron Margosis. Check out his blog on application compatibility and least user access, he's been working through it since XP came out, and has really helped my company make strides towards a solid-performing (more) secure desktop for my users. http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/

I guess some folk like to stick with the first version of anything they ever try... kinda like the Amiga crowd?

Yep

If anyone feels the need to build a super-quiet box, they really should shop around and look into these type of issue, or suffer sever disappointment.

I can't figure out if this is a typo or not!!1

Yes, typo, meant to be severe. Nested quotes FTW, by the way

http://www.neweggmall.com/ Looks like today's your lucky day =oD

I stand corrected! Thanks for the input, as I said above, it's been awhile since I built systems, so this is great news on the war on noise =oD
E

I don't think the machine was built for quiet, I think liquid cooling was used to get more cooling (and this more overclockability) than fan cooling alone would. The machine was built for speed, not noise reduction. Otherwise, why would there be so many fans in addition to the liquid cooling?

From TFA:

As a former enthusiast in the liquid and vapor phase-change cooling market, I can point out a multitude of things gone wrong here.

1) Single Cooling Loop - with 4 quad-core processors, this machine could net much better bang-for-the-decibel out of a dual loop system - one loop handling one pair of processors, second loop handling the other pair. Optimally speaking, a quad-loop system (individual loops per processor) would net even better results.
2) Video cards have fans, too! - Find yourself a video card that uses cooling pipes or similar technology, rather than fans. Those little fans spinning really fast make _LOTS_ of noise.
3) Speaking of noise - WD300 Raptors? Congrats, you just put the noisiest modern hard drives in a machine "built to be quiet" - if no expense was to be spared, why is this thing not outfitted with Solid State Disks???
4) Problems with the liquid - in addition to number one above, the reservoir is mounted at the bottom of the case? That's an amateur mistake right there. Reservoir at top of case = any air infiltration gets trapped at the reservoir. Additionally, the "angled barbs" are 90-degree bends - not exactly what you want in a low-flow system, backpressure is going to kill that pump, or at least cause it to whine incessantly, even at lower flow settings.
5) PSU - Corsair HX 1000W PSU - why not a PC Power and Cooling ultra-quiet unit, or a SilenX-modded solid cap PSU? Instead, they opt for a PSU rated at 57dBm?

Amateur job, Puget, very amateur. If anyone feels the need to build a super-quiet box, they really should shop around and look into these type of issue, or suffer sever disappointment.

E

Sun's hardware is already prohibitively expensive, how much will options like this add to the price of hardware? When I can order up a pair 4U boxen from any competitor that each have the same hardware specifications as a single box from Sun, what does this buy me besides simplified wiring/management, and the ability to run Solaris?

I guess I'm one in 600+Million then... When you've got a big fat pipe and a couple thousand CDs in your collection, you quickly find that .torrent is a LOT faster than swapping discs through the ripping machine. If it matters at all, this is a consequence of my earlier work as a DJ - over 3500 CDs spread through almost a dozen CD books that each have slots for 512 discs.

Maybe they're hosting the article with pictures on one of these $10 laptops? ;)

Could be worse, at least they're not watching soaps from the Philippines. Do yourself a favor and subscribe to any Pinoy channel on cable/dish networks, it's nothing but 24/7 soap operas (and as a bonus, usually in English instead of Tagalog!)