Recently built an Antec P180 case with a PC Power and Cooling power supply - first time using this brand, but I'm impressed. Every cable run is mesh-covered, and they've supplied all the connectors I need. Bought it for the power (510W), but I'm surprised how quiet it is; admittedly, that's probably...

The big big plan of it all :rolleyes: http://forum.hardware.no/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=4569785 Fear my paintskills Your paintskills maybe, your cable work definitely (very neat in the photos), but not your spelling! :D There are two typos on that diagram :P Then again, judging from the ex...

I found it a lot easier to build with both side panels off. For one thing, it makes cable routing rather easier. You have to remove the other side to install the power supply, at least - can't unscrew/screw up the bracket that goes over the power supply without taking the far side off. You might fin...

The big difference between the Scythe Ninja and the Sonic Tower is that the Scythe works :-) The Sonic Tower has received some shocking reviews, and they sound well-deserved. I'm using a Thermalright XP120 in a P180 - it works very well, but I'm not trying to run it fanless - it has a low speed Pana...

Not sure about the need for 3 hard drives - I prefer to keep the hard drive space on the server (living in a separate room), and hook the media PC to the server using gigabit Ethernet (trust me, that's plenty fast enough!) - gigabit Ethernet costs nothing but the cost of the switch, because all the ...

I don't know what kind of plywood justblair has tried before - but I think he is mistaken. Plywood is used because its strength is essentially equal in all directions. That is because each of the plies, or layers, are arranged 90 degrees from each other. That neutralizes the direction of the grain....

Both my P180s came with the motherboard screws in a separate plastic bag clearly marked "for motherboard". Add to that the fact that the spare motherboard stand-offs are in the same bag, and it's a little difficult to make a mistake on that front. Well, unless you don't notice the little black box o...

Can't see the difference between this and the previous Stacker.

I have one of the previous Stackers. It's a good case to use for a server - I have 10 hard drives in mine - but it's not a quiet case. I'm glad mine is in the server room - I wouldn't want it in the room I'm working in.

PC Power and Cooling offer a "TurboCool" 510W power supply that supports SLI It fits nicely into the P180 (it's exactly the size of the PSU cage). It is well-suited, in fact, because all the cables come out in the centre of the top of the power supply, lining up beautifully with the cable hole into...

The Phantom 500 can be installed in the P180, and its ATX12V cable will reach even the nasty "behind the keyboard connector" spot easily. I'm using an ASUS P5WD2 Premium motherboard, which can take either ATX12V (4 wires) or EPS (8 wires). The Phantom supplies both connectors - it has an 8way connec...

Gigabyte make a cooler kind of like this, with a gap between the hotplate and the fins. It's supposed to reduce the resistance the fan sees dramatically, because the air blows straight through the fins - so it makes sense that this is recommended for low-speed/low-noise (hence low-pressure) fans. Th...

I'd recommend leaving the XP-90 alone - concentrate on air flow through the case. The best heat sink in the world won't help you if it's surrounded by hot air. The heat sink moves heat out of the CPU and into the air around it, but it's limited by the temperature of the air - if the air is cool, the...

The noise level of emptying a box of rejected fans exceeds the SilentPCReview standard for a quiet computer

The ATX12V cable on the Phantom 500 has an 8 pin connector, then about 4 inches, then the 4 pin connector. If your motherboard requires the 8 pin connector, it will reach, but there won't be a heap of room to arrange the cable nicely. If you need the 4 pin connector, then there's plenty of length. T...

I have found the card I'm looking for - it's not available here til next week, but it has all the features I want: - dual DVI out (so I can run two LCD panels on DVI) - Zalman heat pipe passive cooler factory fitted (I'm lazy and I want the warranty) The fact that it has 256Mb is just a bonus. And t...

Just collected one of the Leadtek/Winfast 7800 GTs. It's very loud at boot, but once the drivers load, the fan speed is reduced dramatically. Runs fairly quietly (and at ~40 degrees C) in a P180 (rear fan on low, watercooled CPU). This is a temporary card - will be replacing it with two passively-co...

You might want to correct the spelling - it's meant to be "scythe"

PC Power and Cooling offer a "TurboCool" 510W power supply that supports SLI (it has two 6 pin VGA power cables) - it gets various names, but you can identify it as the "510W SLI power supply that costs a lot". It fits nicely into the P180 (it's exactly the size of the PSU cage). It is well-suited, ...

apparently raid 5 can be faster then raid 0. but hardware raid 5 controllers aren't that cheap :( nevertheless, winxp has a built-in software raid 5 that offers about half the performance of hardware raid 5, that's the route i plan to take later on :) (it's free!!) I think you'll find that the soft...

I have no experience with AMD CPUs - everything I have built (>50 systems) has been Intel CPUs. I think the motherboard experience does depend on the CPU. And almost every motherboard has been Intel chipset - latest purchase has an NForce4 chipset, and I'm not enjoying it! My first choice is ASUS - ...

XP isn't a breakaway from 9x / me - it's a follow on from NT (the kernel is pure NT - and that's a GOOOOOOOD thing - I've done some kernel work in both NT and 9X, and the difference is huge). I never had a lot of time for Win2K - it always felt like a half-way step. And XP felt like the second half ...

It's not easy finding 1Gb DIMMs, but it can be done. I'd strongly recommend buying DIMMs in pairs, though - it sounded like you were comparing 2x512Mb with 1x1Gb - I'd urge you to get 2x1Gb, or to stick with the 2x512Mb. This is because Dual Channel makes quite a difference to performance, where the...

I have installed a floppy a couple of times recently, both times so I could use an "F6" floppy - Windows XP won't read RAID drivers off a CD (no, I cannot be bothered slip-streaming them into an XP install, especially when they are being installed for testing/verification). However, any machine I bu...

There's particle board, and then there's MDF - MDF isn't sawdust glued together - it's more like paper glued together - I think the American term is "kraft wood". Lots of speaker manufacturers use MDF for their cabinets because it tends not to resonate, and that's a good thing for what you are doing...

Er, the Phantom is made by Antec, not Seasonic. I have yet to find a source in Australia for Seasonic power supplies. All the Antec models, on the other hand, are widely available. I have a Phantom 350W, and it has been working well on my not-too-low-powered system (P4 3.2GHz, 2Gb DDR2) - the CPU is...

Does anyone have one of the WACC waterblocks? The photos show a copper waterblock, even though the (mangled) English says aluminium.

I looked at the WACC offerings, as you suggested. The reservoir / radiators do look good. I had a look at their CPU block, too, and now I'm not sure about them. They say "All WACC H20 Cooling Blocks come with our own design of high performance aluminium based redial heat-sink cooling cores" - not th...

They generally don't generate a whole lot of heat while reading. I don't know about when they are burning - I wouldn't expect it to be too much more than when reading. They tend to be used intermittently, anyway, so I don't think it's a huge concern unless you will be spending your entire life rippi...

Pretty much every mainstream card manufactured for the PCI-e bus is dual-head nowadays...it just depends on the connections you want. Some are 1xDVI, 1xVGA while others are 2xDVI. As seltrus said, some of the most-liked passive cards around here are from Gigabyte, and as he said they are both of th...

Well, I ended up getting a Matrox Millenium PCIe, since I need a card for high quality 2-D graphics that wouldn't use a lot of system resources, and I placed a Schooner heat sink on it, to replace it's fan. They are not really designed for one another, but fit well enough, luckily. The Schooner is ...