A silent PC
http://www.hushtechnologies.net/ shows a reasonably fast (933 MHz, up to 1 GB of RAM) reasonably cheap (under $1000) WinXP machine that is cooled via heat sinks rather than fans. Another very quiet PC option is the Gateway Profile, which looks like half of a laptop computer mounted on a small pedestal. My friend Doug and I removed the (pretty quiet) fans from a couple of old ones (500 MHz Celerons) and they continued to run just fine.
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