Every time I played games, the ever-present hum of heatsink fans, hard disks and spinning optical drives ruined quiet moments. Every time I wasn’t blasting through the wastelands of Fallout 3 or rumbling around rally circuits in GRiD, my soundtrack was magnified, becoming more intrusive by the minute.

And what’s where my obsession begun: the endless creaks, groans and whirrs coming from my PC needed to be crushed, eliminated and silenced.

It began with a £3 Zalman Fan-Mate which, at least initially, sounded like a fantastic gadget. Pay the value of a jacket spud, plug the little thing in between your CPU fan and the motherboard, and gain control of the fan’s speed with a simple dial. There was even a little strip of sticky tape so I could attach the control box to the front of my PC.

The heatsink that I had attached to my Phenom 9950 was automatically reigned in. Even if the sweet-spot to balance noise and temperature meant that the fan could still be heard, the whisper now emanating from my chassis was a vast improvement on what I had to listen to before, and certainly worth £3.

I wasn’t to know, though, that the diminutive Fan-Mate was just the beginning.

Instantly, the lack of noise from my CPU heatsink revealed several other sources. The optical drive made a terrific racket whenever it first spun a disc, and my pair of hard drives rumbled uncomfortably in their metallic shells. The fan on the back of my case was now audible, as was the PSU fan, and my graphics card was also, for the first time, making itself heard.

That opened up a whole world of possibilities and, conversely, plenty of confusion. I’ve contemplated many potential ways to quieten my PC, but I’m not sure as to which would be the best option. Sound absorbing foam, for instance: is that worth spending my hard-earned on, or will it bake the insides of my PC before I’ve even got past the menu screens?

New case fans are another option; they’re not too expensive and will certainly run quieter than whatever proprietary hardware is in my chassis. I could also go down the route of installing a new GPU cooler, but I’m entirely clueless as to which is worth choosing for both silence running and efficient cooling.

I could invest in a kit to reduce noise. They’re cheap, as I found while poking around the internet recently, and the multitude of washers and accessories might even work somewhat.

Or, if I’m feeling drastic, I could invest in a new case, build everything from the ground up, and start again.

I really, really do want my PC to be as quiet as possible. I want it to sit in the corner, as quiet as a vacuum, with a flickering hard disk light the only indication that the machine’s even booting. I can’t wait to have a quiet machine, even if I am a bit confused as to where to start.

So, that’s where you come in – and I listen and absorb any and all ideas and product recommendations that you’re willing to send my way. At this stage, I’m open to any suggestions, be they tried and tested, award-winning products or undiscovered gems – so leave your pearls of silence-related wisdom in the comments below.