From my recent research I came to the conclusion that it was not possible to have an HTPC that was both low-power consuming at idle and be able to play games at decent settings (my definition of acceptable gaming settings was 1920x1080 at high quality settings). can you spell LOL? I guess some peop...

^^

QuietOC wrote:With intake fans you are limiting this path with the case. You are basically increasing noise and heat by forcing air to bounce against the case and slowing the air down.

lol...

How confident are you that you're installing the push pins correctly? The last pin needed a lot of force to click in all the way. also, you have the pins twisted to the locked side when you install, not the unlocked side correct? I can't imagine even the worst example of Q9300 would run anywhere nea...

Another tip which wasn't immediately obvious to me was to keep the car in gear (high gear) when decelerating and braking until you almost stall. I had naively presumed that coasting in neutral would use less petrol, but it seems that that's wrong. In neutral the engine management system needs to us...

I'd be most concerned about getting proper cpu/heatsink contact/pressure.. it's not gonna do any damage to the caps, so if temps are good you've got nothing to worry about

Spare Tire wrote:Isn't TDP the heat dissipation and not the power consumption? The CPU must certainly consume more than it dissipates.

where does it go?

wow, that's a monster post. I think you're a little confused as to your overclocking options if you think a 1333mhz fsb cpu is gonna clock better.. these new intel cpus are really, really good and it's probably going to be your motherboard holding you back-- for that you would want a higher multipli...

No offense, but that really seems like a stupid concern to me. It's already been said that pci sata controllers are very cheap and easy to find and use. You're going to be spending a considerable amount of money building your raid array ($500+), and I'm sure you want it to perform well for a long ti...

you could cut the price a little even with what it is, by only buying 1 of the 500GB drives. if you really need a lot of storage, get an 80-160gb drive for the OS [no need to make it bigger than it has to be] and then have only one 500gb drive for data storage/network access [if thats the use]. i d...

you're all over the map with those servers... I really doubt you'll have need for dual quad core xeons :P what's the intended use? just about any modern machine will do fine as a fileserver, I'm still using a P2-450 for mine and it comes close to saturating my 100mbit lan. Assuming you don't really ...

looks like a pretty good build. I would recommend going with the E21xx series cpu as I've got an E2140 that runs very cool even bsel modded to 2.13ghz that runs 28*C idle, 42*C load stock cooler @ 20*C ambient. You could save a few bucks and run undervolted yate loon fans and spend the extra cash on...

that vent on the left is probably popped out on one side. most people don't know this, but if you lift up on the top of the front fascia with the door open, you can unclip that vent and it will fold back (so you can have your front door parallel with the side of the case. be careful not to break it!

600+ watts? that's such a joke. I bet you can easily get away using a 300W psu by a quality manufacturer.

well, as an overclocker, i do get the idea of an overkill. also, as an overclocker, i'd like to choose my components carefully and with consideration. so far it did not include the psu, apparently. a 500w unit would have been more than sufficient for the components and would have had a buffer to wi...

it should be like 8 screws and 5 minutes to pull the board out. definitely worth pulling it instead of risking breaking a cap or cutting a trace on the mobo or soemthing bad.

I've used this a little bit, it's not a complete operating system, just a collection of apps that save all their data to their root directory so you can easily move your apps+settings to other computers. I've tried running most these apps with wine under gentoo and almost all of them worked flawless...

I'm assuming that's a socket 478 mobo in which case I could recommend a scythe ninja cooler. You'll probably still have to run it with a fan but it should be very quiet and do a good job of cooling that heater. As far as power supply it's really up to how much you want to spend. Something like a cor...

Have you considered getting a really low power via? it should have all the features you are looking for and will run cool and quiet

I'm assuming you intend to format the partitions with ext3 or reiserfs or something of the sort, and not NTFS. Read support for NTFS has been near flawless in linux for 5+ years. You aren't going to need to jump through any hoops or worry about fscking your disks if you only intend to copy from NTFS...

that sounds reasonable. I've been powering an overclocked core duo system with a 7950GT KO on a 300W sparkle psu from ~1999. numbers don't mean as much as quality.

I'm not sure how long the picopsu cable is but I do know that you can get just about any length (up to a couple feet) of ATX power extensions.. I think we sold them for about $25 for 12"

I think we've pretty much agreed that a complete, low power computer system will be your best bet. I'm not sure about Europe but here in the states it's not uncommon to find a cpu+mobo combo that will run fanless and dissipate under 20W at full load for under $100. The advantages of having a complet...

I'd have to agree with Jesse. The added hassle of adding switches and running several different controller cards would more than offset the power consumed by a low power full-fledged computer which could do everything you need (switching drives, sharing media etc)and imo be a cleaner and more functi...

I've got an e6300 at 425fsb (~3ghz) running a ninja rev. b and my idle temps are about 40*C while under load they reach ~58*C (ambient about 20*C).. I'm really not concerned with the temps although I do have the scythe fan running at full voltage and I'm wondering if that is normal or if I should lo...