I remember the day it arrived in the mail and I installed it - my family had just recently moved into a new house where my own room was located directly above the living room. When I started my PC with the new cooler and fan for the first time, the noise (esp. the obscene vibrations through the floor/ceiling!) actually prompted my mother to visit and check what's up/wrong :D
I ended up rigging together two chopping boards and a few pristine cleaning sponges as a kind of pedestal for my big tower case to rest upon, and was allowed to operate that way for the months to come. If it weren't for the over-ear headphones I wore all day back then, I guess I would have had suffered hearing loss from the noise exposure rather sooner than later...