Yeah but this is weird because it's INTEL certified passive it looks like. If this is true you could have a damn good system and quiet. Although 65W TDP worries me. I managed to run a mobile Athlon XP Passively undervolted with XP-90 which is a very good heatsink and I still had about 55C on 100% lo...

Hey guys,

I just saw this for sale:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819117082

Is this a passive Xeon? or is it passive assuming I have insane case cooling?

Any opinions on whether ECC would be worthwhile for something like a HTPC or PVR box, which stays on all the time mostly unsupervised? well it depends how bad you want that show you recorded :). Then again computers crash for other reasons besides RAM, so ECC is really not that great of an improvme...

Hey guys, I know it might sound stupid, but I'm wondering what is better when it comes to silent computing. I'm using the machine as an HTPC and currently AMD 1700+ (Thoroughbred) I have in it is plenty good, but I have 3 fans in the case right now and would like to lower that to 1 or none hopefully...

I've yet to see a credible test show that a RAID 0 array actually is faster in a way that matters in the real world. It might be a bit faster, but not by much -- and using a single Raptor instead would swamp the difference. Add to this, the very real increased risk that you will lose everything , d...

The V120CE range of hard drives from Samsung would seem to be ideal for your purposes (in fact it is expressly designed for use in a PVR) except that: 1) It is PATA. 2) It seems to only be available in Europe at the present time. V120CE This thing is apparently 5400RPM, which is basically BAD thing...

I'm in search of something similar. I have a WD 320gb with fluid bearings in my desktop and it's very quiet, but the seeks can be a little anoying although recently i brought it out of the case and it's noticable, and since i'm trying to go as passive as possible for the next computer I think the HD...

Might be worth looking into the Samsung V120CE -- these are 250 gig drives that run at 5400rpm. They've been mentioned on the forum before and I'm awaiting two at the moment. There are no reviews as yet on SPCR and nobody has tried them to my knowledge. I got them for a server for the main reason t...

Yeah i was looking at notebook drives, but they're all really expensive and relatively small size (gb wise). It seems that the single-platter drives should be my best option.

Hey guys, I'm in search of a coolest (not in appearance or behaviour, but temperature ;)) HD that I can get my hands on. Will be putting it in the passive computer and I would like it to generate as least heat as possible. Any of you know what good 160+ gb drive I can get that will be relatively coo...

it may, but how are they going to prove you didnt use their thermal pad and cooler? theirs no rule that says you cant clean the dead chip with some alchahol before you RMA it ;) I tend to disagree. No matter how good you clean the CPU some third-party paste residue will still stay on it, all they n...

MrDisco wrote:by using AS5 (etc) instead of the stock thermal pad that comes with the amd64 chips, does this void your warrenty?

Yes it does. Basically the only thing you are allowed to do is: take the CPU out of the box, put in the mobo, put the STOCK cooler on it and let it rip.

Just installing my first AMD64 I realized how much of a pain AS5 is to spread. Use the inverted plastic bag to spread. Almost impossible to spread with the credit card trick Just like every GOOD modder I toss any sort of manual that comes with my equipment CONSTANTLY ;). So on few AMD64 builds I wa...

You're gona have to wait for the ram. Motherboards compalin when there is no memory.

but with pin layout you mean like the distance between pins? Not just that there might be some holes (meaning no pins) at certain spots or just the general shape especially around the corners. some chips migh have totally square corners including the pins, while some other chips might have rounded ...

@rie wrote: all pentium m have more than 512mb chache
do you think my board can handle this ?

Why would cache matter? Cache is totally independent of the motherboard so it really doesn't matter. CPU is the one that manages cache, not the motherboard.

I hear this all the time, but has anyone actually made/seen a chart of how what the history of component prices has been like? I'm not talking about prices but more of technology itself and the fear of having "old" stuff. If i quickly look at cpuscorecard.com for Intel CPUs i see this: Pentium MMX ...

Seems like you're right on the money. For the past 2 years computer technology hasn't been what it once was. Before you could by a processor and within 6 months it was yesterdays news. How long have AMD64s been around of Prescotts for that matter? Dual-cores came about and where supposed to be HUGEE...

P3 800mhz = 26W
P3 1000mhz = 34W

So basically you get 9W extra with 1ghz P3. Can you give your current temperatures (ambient and cpu) to figure out what your cooling coefficient is then you should be able to figure out what your increase in temperature would be.

I just bought an Opteron Tyan board from MonarchComputers for $189 for my company's server. This one is not 1U compatible, since the DIMMs aren't angled, but there were few that were. There seems to be a number of them out there for around $300 or so. As far as sensors go this one has them and the w...

all processors can be underclocked, the question is how far. Problem with this is that it all depends on sample. I had XP-Ms that normaly boot on 1.35 but one of them was able to boot at 1.15v no problem, but other one could do it at 1.20v, but only occasionally so i had to put it at 1.25v so it wou...

My 2c....I see absolutely no reason a heatpipe cooling solution could not have short sections of the heat pipe made of rubber, to promote slight relocations/adjustments. Of course it would add to the expense, and introduce possible leaks. And I'm not talking about long sections of rubber like water...

I'm just in the process of building something that looks like that case. Except mine will be a bit smaller and the screen will not be touch-screen, but instead standard VGA.

Will post pics when i'm done

I'm using the Zalman's blue one on NForce2 400 and it works just fine, it lowered my case temps, but that's about it.

is the heatsink hot or cold on touch? if it's cold then there is something wrong with the way you installed it, try it again. If it's warm then I'd check your thermal sensors and maybe use another kind to test it. If the heatsink is scortching hot on the other hand, where you can't even touch it, th...

Yeah, the hottest you can be at that point is essentially as hot as the CPU when you turn it off, I don't see how it could be any higher, and especially how it could be "significantly" higher.

you also have to understand that the CPU heat production goes from some known number of W when it's on, down to 0W as soon as you turn your computer off, the residiual heat that is left over into the core is extremely small, due to the size of the core that is unable to keep any excess heat in it, s...

I can get the 35W version on Abit NF7-S v.2.0 at 1.2V and 1200mhz, but anything lower becomes "iffy", meaning sometimes it posts sometimes it doesn't, so I left it at this and I'm able to cool it passively at 56.5C with prime on for about an hour, using the SI-97 heatsink.

most defnitely. You can use some alcohol, standard rubbing isopropyl, the purer the better if you can get 100% it's the best, if not 70% or whatever you can find in the drugstore is good. Also use a lint free cloth, I use those kimwipes. Just wipe it good from the contacting surface, also wipe down ...

dragontales wrote:Well I fired them a call and got the rma to setup an exchange. I should get a replacement in about 2 weeks. I'll post the new findings. Hopefully it will be silent this next time around.

good luck, I hope you'll be happy once the rma comes back.