Cheers guys, looks like a thumbs up all round.

I guess I can stretch the £250 budget for the extra ram.

Thanks Erssa,

I'll see how I go with the tricool.

Hopefully antecs grommits have improved a bit as I can appreciate space will be a real issue with this case.

Any opinion on the ram, I've found cheap Elixir 6400 or Geil (4.4.4.12) 5300 for the same price?

I thought it might be time for an upgrade and, well, I could hardly part with my cash without consulting the spcr forum. I've come up with the following spec if anyone one would care to crtique it? I think I've covered the angles, but a second opinion would be appreciated. Maybe branded ram? Antec N...

At last someone's dared to use there imagination! However, if they had done it right it might look more like this (without the cone obviously):

www.melt2000.com/history/0003.html

(hmmm, sexy ).

Rebadged? I think all ATI cards are made by third parties. They just make the GPU and companies like Abit make the card. As all the cards are made to a basic design supplied by ATI they're all pretty much the same. Some may have higher stock speeds (pre-overclocked), better heatsinks and more memory...

The biggest prob I found with the silentpipe (6600gt in this case) is keeping the card itself cool, rather than the case. The case temps didn't really change much when moving up from a 9600. Pointing a low rpm fan at the card dropped the cards temps by 10c, it now idles at 50c. I guess it kind of de...

aria.co.uk has them. Small and quite expensive if I remember.

In case anyone is interested, 6600gt Silentpipe has a flashing utility supplied with it. There's BIOS's available from the gigabyte website to download. Apparently, the F3 version has no temp monitor, but the older F2 has. :) Haven't tried it yet, as my card seems to have developed a fault :evil: . ...

Next question (sorry to pester). I have the Fortron 350 PF version that runs at a slighty higher RPM on the controller than the non PF (according to SPCR posts). The fan is a Medium Ball Bearing Yate Loon at 70CFM/1600RPM. If the non PF runs its fan slower then I'm guessing I can put a slower fan in...

Hehe, they phoned me up. Apparently they hadn't dispatched mine yet and are expecting the correct model tuesday/wednesday from gigabyte. They use next day delivery, so should be here before the weekend.

Thanks for explaining that Aleksi! Probably took me longer to understand it than you to write it, but I've the gist of it now.

No idea :shock: - I'm no spark :wink: It's just something I read (this forum I think). Someone mentioned that the Fortrons fan speed is regulated in a a way a diode wouldn't work. Maybe it reads the returning (negative) wire or something (something... being beyond my limited understanding)? EDIT : O...

Hi, has anyone tryed a Antec Tricool 120mm in an Fortron 350 (currently has a ~70cfm Yate Loon ball bearing). My thinking is that I could run the Tricool on medium setting (and high or low for extreme conditions): 39 CFM (1200 rpm) 25 dBA 56 CFM (1600 rpm) 28 dBA 79 CFM (2000 rpm) 30 dBA What do you...

Thanks mahkum2,

canceled my scan order and phoned fasttek to order, they were very helpfull!!

bollocks, just ordered one from scan for £150 will have to cancel, cant let a £35 saving pass me by.

mahkum2, have u ordered from them, are thet reputable?

Yeah, the front panel, they are a bugger to remove/fasten. As for the CDROM rails, as BigDonut said, just screw them to the drives then slide them in from the front, they clip in. If I remember the flat side goes against the drive, towards the bottom of the drive. I'm guessing you worked out the har...

Maybe try some bits of foam between metal case and panel. If your hand can dampen it, then maybe tightly squeezed foam will (obviously avoiding air intakes).

I'm no expert, but those temps and volt ratings look pretty dam good to me. NB is the North Bridge, a little chip that takes care of USB, SATA, Sound and things like that. From a noise perspective you might want to look at the NB fan as 8000rpm is huge :shock: . There are posts around that should gi...

Seems the software is past it's trial period (ie. it wont work) and the creators website url has expired so if anyone has a working code do post! (admins permitting that is).

Just what I was looking for! Anyone tryed it yet, or am I going to have to risk destroying my work PC to find out? hehe.

Quite an interesting post. I suspect your harddrive is probably the culprit, without decoupling my Seagate produces and very low frequency hum in my 3000b, I can hear it from anywhere in the house, it's freaky. Also, my Maxtor produces a headache inducing whine. It's fine during the day when it's dr...

I think I'm starting to understand the thermo now... moving it won't lower the starting speed, it'll just prevent it from ramping as much (which it doesn't seem to be doing anyway). Regarding a replacement fan I'm a bit concerned a lower CFM fan might cause overheating. I think the Fortron's Yate Lo...

First, big thanks to SPCR for the wealth of knowledge! Recently silenced, pixel pushin' workhorse... Antec SLK3000B All holes open. Blocking semmed to do little for accousics and raised case temps. Maxtor HD Antec grommits worked ok in bottom shelf, some vibration. Mounted with elastic string, secur...

Probably sounds crazy, but if you can identify the offending component in your PSU, some people drip hot wax over them, to seal them in kind of thing. I'd do a search on google first before trying though, whatever you do don't take my word for it.

Does you card report temps in the nVidia control panel? If not you might have to flash your card with a BIOS that does. My only experience of MBM is that if the sensor is in the setting panel then you can read it.

=/

Not sure where to get EARs in the UK, but you might want to try mounting your HD (if there's only one) in the bottom most tray. This seemed to reduce side panel vibration quite a bit.

Think most (if not all) 6600gt have a component/composit/svid out dongle, and with onboard video processing so PQ should be very good. I read the BFGs are very noteworthy, if it's HTPC your thinking.

Thanks guys, I did actually find a previous post after a bit of creative word searching. Shame nobody has come up with a bit of software for doing this. would be dead handy.

So no then.

Anyone seen a solution that can power down a HD that isn't in use?

Power management will power down all drives if the system is idle, but what about just powering down a single backup drive that you only need once in a while?