Thanks for the replies everyone. I looked as passive power supplies, but I would then need to add a fan to the case so that dosn't seem to make sense to me. OK, I did some reading on the FSP300 and it looks good (80+ certified). There are not a lot of reviews of it here and I ran across one suggesti...

In a moment of frustration, I picked up a cheap pc to replace my dying P3. The power supply fan makes almost as much noise as a 767 taking off!! The system has a Foxcon 45CMX mobo, Celeron e1200 cpu, single drive and dvd. Its a surfing machine so I don't anticipate needing anything beyond the onboar...

Thanks for the replies folks. Looks like its not worth worrying about so now I can move on to more pressing problems like the randomly not working HDMI sound out to my rptv and finding a wireless keyboard/mouse with good range (that dosn't cost an arm and a leg).

Fred

I guess I didn't read quite enough of the motherboard manual (Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H) before installin Vista, so now my SATA drive is running as IDE. Question is, does it really matter? I have not done much with my rig yet so its not a big deal to reinstall the OS with the drive as SATA. I've done so...

You forgot one thing. The pictures... She's no thing of beauty, what, being in an old atx case with the side pannels still off and all... I still need to cut the back pannel to put in a 120mm fan. I'll post some pictures when I get the rig completely up and running. I'm still fiddling with the OS g...

Just wanted to post a big thanks to Mike and everyone here as spcr for making this such a painless experience. I ended up with a gigabyte ga-ma69g-s2h mobo, amd x2 4800, Corsair 450vx power supply and wd 500aaks hdd. I put it all into an old xt case because I havn't decided what I want in a case yet...

Lotsa views, no replies. Is nobody using this mobo with a 3rd party video card?

Fred

When this board came out, there were concerns whether or not a graphics card would fit without interference from the 690 chipset. I originally decided on the s3h to avoid any possible issues, but am reconsidering now that I am close to my build. I really don't need the extra features the s2h offers ...

I am about ready to pick up parts to build my computer but want to buy somewhat local. Tried emailing two TO vendors already and have had no response.

Anyone know of a decent Toronto area vendor that actually answers their email??

Fred

From what I have seen of pricing recently these are rare times with perfomance memory going very cheap at times. When I first started poking around ncix.com the cheapest ddr2-800 was some crucial balistics running at 2.2v, hence the question. Just trying to avoid making a foolish/painful mistake thi...

Did some searching today and it looks like I am good up to ddr2-800

still looking for an answer on 2.2v support in the most recend bios.

Fred

I am about ready to order parts for my first build, but there are a few things I still need to understand. At the moment there are a lot of deals on performance memory, but the voltage requirements vary from 1.8 - 2.2v. By the Gigabyte specs, the mobo I have chosen supports memory at 1.8v, but I hav...

Can't buy from Newegg as I am in Canada, but can find similar deals at ncix. I will probably end up picking up one of the deals there, just need to do a little more checking on stuff. This will be my first build so I am being careful about what components I buy. For instance, the mobo I am looking a...

Oops, been away from this thread for a few days. Have been looking at OS options, and it looks like I will be installing vista (never thought I would go this route) mainly because of much improved security. Depending which version I buy, it may include system backup tools that will do what I want. A...

Thanks for the replies guys. Given that I am not a performance/power user, I suspect latencies will make little difference to me. The big question is still cheap ram vs name brand. bonestonne. Your point on trojans and RAID is well taken. Seems hard enough getting rid of some of this crap as it is. ...

djkesk. I consider 2 gigs the minimum for a system these days. I don't know much about timing on memory other than it effects latancy/speed. Will different timing have that much of an effect on the perfomance of RAM? bonestonne. I was planning to put my music coolection on disk, and thought that in ...

I have settled on most of the components for my new system, but as a first time builder have some memory questions The system will be used primarily for video playback and web surfing. I am not sure yet if I will rely on the onboard graphics for DVD decoding or if I will end up going with something ...

My understanding of this is that currently HD video quality on the PC is in its infancy in terms of offering hardware and software support for features that maximize video quality. I agree. I have been thinking about this lately and believe that hd decoding and scaling should end up being done on t...

It also depends on the bit rate and quality settings of the footage that you are playing back. The real test of course is blu-ray and HD-DVD playback. Been posting in so many places lately I forget what I post where... The on board graphics is a short term (1-2 yrs) solution until pc based hddvd/bd...

It depends what you mean by acceptable graphics You know, I'm not quite sure what I mean. I do need 1080 support as well as the ability to do a custom size desktop to deal with overscan. I considered waiting for the am2+ boards to arrive, but I expect that initial releases will be more expensive bo...

Seems to me that on the cpu front, intel is just a better choice now, particularly for someone like me that keeps their hardware for a long time. More processing power = longer life. Problem is that I really like the gigabyte board I listed because of the integrated graphics. This is for an HTPC, bu...

The noise is a high pitched whine. I suspended the drive hoping that would help, but it made almost no difference. The pc is a small form factor desktop so there isn't room in the case for a disk-in-a-box. I will look at the small notebook drive option. I didn't know the older ide notebook drives co...

I have an old P3 I will be using as a firewall, and I want to quiet the hard drive. I have read the threads about putting the drive in an external box with gel packs, but this is going to sit in my livingroom so I don't want an ugly mess. Was thinking of building a small vented wood box and lining i...

aaa, hadn't thought about that, so maybe disk noise won't be an issue. I will try this first.

AuraAllan. I think I would rather just box the whole PC. Less fiddling with longer cables etc. and much easier to make it look nice.

Fred

I've been doing a lot of reading here for an upcoming build, and thought I would practice on an old p3 I plan to use as firewall. I checked out the system and ps fan and neither made much noise. Turns out the noisiest component is the har drive. After reading how much quieter drives are when suspend...

I'm at the point where my current system just isn't enough anymore. This time around I want a quiet PC so I have spent a lot of time reading here at spcr. For my needs - browsing, non-hd movie watching (rented not ripped), music server - a basic system will do just fine. My current pc will do all of...