Hi folks, I've got a new MSI H61M-P31 micro-ATX board swimming in an old Antec SLK3700 ATX case. There's one problem: the case doesn't have a hole for a brass standoff for the far right (as you face the ports at the rear of the case with the case on its side) corner of the board. Since I've got a po...

Thanks, folks. Things now stand at:

i5-4570 (or maybe i5-4670... if I'm already overkilling, what's another $20 of overkill?)
MSI Z87M-G43 (at $100, only $20 more than ASRock H87's)
G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Samsung 840 Evo... still thinking about what size.

Why would you avoid the -s CPU? I was figuring I could use the lower power consumption and thus quieter cooling more than I could use another .3 GHz of speed. Are there other issues?

Remembering which P180 it is reminds me of another significant constraint: it's a mini-p180, so I need a micro ATX (or smaller) board. It's been so long since I've used a full ATX, I wasn't even thinking of it.

I've used the zip-tie and automotive vacuum hose method I read about here a long time ago.

Those are some really good points, and a clear demonstration of how out of the loop I've been since the last time I did this a couple of years ago -- thanks. Let's now assume the CPU is: Intel Core i5-4570S Haswell 2.9GHz LGA 1150 65W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I54570S ...a...

I'm reusing my existing case, in the Antec P180 family (but I forget which one), and power supply, an Antec with more power than I need. This will mostly be used for personal programming projects; I know it's overpowered for those requirements, but I'm okay with that. That said, I'd be interested in...

I saw it didn't need a power supply, but I was undervaluing that distinction because I assumed I'd have to buy a new power brick. Now that I see I can re-use the 90W brick from my Zotac, I find it more attractive. Or maybe a BOXDH67CFB3 because I do like the idea of attaching the SSD at 6 Gb/s. Woul...

GA-B75M-D3H Seems like another overpriced GA. But maybe I'm missing something. I don't know what desktop boards support 16G of RAM. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see that the GA-B75-D3H suffers much by comparison with the DH61AG unless you have your heart set on mini-ITX (and whether I g...

Thanks. The hard drive is something I already have; that's why I'm willing to consider starting without an SSD. New Egg described the Gigabyte as having no video chipset, and I didn't know about the IGP and thought I needed a video card. I like the G630T over its siblings because of the 35W rating, ...

Hi Silencers, It's been a while, largely because I'd achieved quiet nerdvana with a Zotac IONITX-A-U and a mini P180. But the Zotac seems to have died (posts, can get the intial screen of a boot CD, but it'll only intermittently finish booting -- this is both before and after removing the hard drive...

That's a big help, thanks -- "slim cd drive bay" gave me the search term needed to find a couple of options.

Hi all,

I'm building an HTPC in an Antec NSK2480. I'd really like a slot-load DVD player, but all the ones I can find are slim-sized for laptops.

Does anyone know of a full-size slot-load DVD drive or a way to adapt the slim-sized ones to a full bay?

Just 3 years ago, SPCR was calling it a "new budget king?". If you're still rocking a "Celeron D, Pentium 4 up to 650, Pentium D up to 840" and can pick it up in Berkeley, California, then it's your lucky day. Never used -- like new condition, except for some thermal paste on the base -- I forget wh...

I received a 1.5TB Samsung F2. With the reports of problems with it, I spent 2 days running badblocks on it, which turned up no bad blocks at all. Haven't tried any speed tests.

Much faster.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811129041

But it's white, so it won't be as fast.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811129044

Through Mar. 1, Antec is offering a sale on a bunch of its cases. And buy.com has the NSK2480 for $98 shipped.

Bah! Too slow. It's back up to $75.

Doh! Sorry about that.

On pages 1 and 2, the review says it has 10/100 Mbps ethernet. Intel says it's 10/100/1000.

You can run small Linux distros from a flash drive. Remote mount /var, /tmp, and maybe /home on your main PC, and use a swap file there instead of a local swap partition (make sure you have enough memory that you don't much need swap, and configure it for low swappiness.) Then you'll be writing almo...

I took apart a computer to give it a thorough cleaning -- too much dust and cat fur had gotten inside. On reassembly, the CPU itself seems to be making a conspicuous whine, cycling high to low, sort of like a mobo's alarm noise (but not nearly so loud as that.) I've stopped the case fan and the CPU ...

You might like to check out LessWatts.org, a site dedicated to tips for saving power in Linux.

Product page

SSD's are getting close to attractive...

Note that the disk wipe part of Eraser is DBAN , so the DBAN and Eraser recommendations are the same for this purpose (Eraser does other interesting things outside of DBAN's scope.) Peter Gutmann did the seminal work on disk-wiping and his own advice is that the large number of wipes recommended for...

Hi all, I was seeking a passive dual DVI PCI/E card, and, based in part on comments here, decided on an XFX Geforce 7300 GT. It's running at 55C, much hotter than anything else in my box (but without obviously raising the heat of the other measurable components.) I'm not a gamer and will rarely have...

The Via Epia PX motherboard -- 3.9" x 2.8" (10 cm x 7.2 cm) -- half the surface area of nano-ITX. It's expected to have a 1 GHz Via C7 CPU.

We already have the picoPSU. Now all we need is an affordable pico solid state storage device...

The barcode scanner itself can be had for dirt cheap if you look for 'usb cuecat' on ebay. You're on your own for the app and UPC database, though.

Well, heck. After my previous question convinced me first to go double-core, then to go with a Core 2 Duo, I bought an E6400, Antec NSK3300, Asrock Conroe945G-DVI and an Arctic Cooling Alpine 7 HSF. After getting the heatsink on , I found it won't fit in the case. The NSK3300's interior is very smal...