Thanks Jay_S, I will certainly take a look at those, they seem very good value.

First of all welcome to the forums! I am actually contemplating a build for the same purpose. I need a file server but also want to play music through my amp and watch the occasional catch up tv. Like your son, audio quality is important to me. I am pretty sure I want to go down the ION route, see h...

Anyone changed the 120mm fan in a Corsair PSU? What pin fan is in there? 800 rpm fan ok to put in there? Hi, I changed the fan in my HX520 to a 1200rpm Scythe Slipstream. The PSU had a 2 pin fan header but i popped it off with a screwdriver and slid the 3 pin fan connector over the bare pins. Works...

Not sure how you would delete Vista without formatting but you can fix the MBR using Vista Boot Pro. It works in XP and is mainly used for setting up dual boots but can also remove operating systems from the MBR. I used it to remove Vista and it worked great. Not sure if this helps you much but here...

Check out this new cooler from nexus:

http://www.nexustek.nl/NXS-LOW-7000_sil ... Cooler.htm

Looks very promising for low profile HTPCs

I have a WD 6400AAKS and 5000AAKS and my comp has been behaving strange for the last few days. When i was browsing the net Opera would become unresponsive and then other things started to do the same. I rebooted and whilst trying to load Vista it was unable to communicate with the bootloader so it w...

Awesome info, thank you. It seems like my gut feeling to go along with the 6400AAKS were right. How do you think a drive like that would survive in a SmartDrive enclosure, tempwise? Are they quiet enough to not even need to think about a special harddrive enclosure? I wouldn't bother.I cannot hear ...

Our local Maplin sucks fat ones. If you're Ravey Davey Mobile Disco Man you can get all the crap PA gear and flashing traffic lights you want, but go in for something as outlandish as cable clips or heatshrink and the shelves are bare :( Lmao so true! I was very surprised they had the P-clips, its ...

blackworx wrote: I had real difficulty finding them in the UK until I randomly went to a giant DIY store and found them alongside the more common "hammer-in" cable clips - the ones with the nail sticking out the side.

Got mine in Maplin

The best bang for buck, professional quality soundcards are the ESI Juli@ (which I own) and the Audiotrak Prodigy HD2. Both can only do stereo over analogue but thats all you need :). The Audiotrak has removable opamps also so you can swap them out and try different configurations to suit your taste...

amjedm wrote:
Thank you.

Should I remove the lower chamber fan in that case?

It will probably keep your hard drives a little cooler and help your psu but if its noisy or you have no hard drives down there then I would say remove it.

I was using an Enermax Noistaker (with both fans removed) in a P180 with the chamber fan doing the PSU cooling so blocked off the vents/holes around the PSU compartment so all air would exit via the PSU. I'm now using a NeoHE 550W (fan intact) and was wondering should I remove the tape blocking off...

I'm not sure how effective they actually are, hasn't Asus stopped putting them on its newer cards? Some people place the card inside a magnetically shielded bag like you gets with most computer equipment. The most interesting solution appears to be ERS paper. See here: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/...

If the splitter is causing such bad loss of signal why not try a switcher? Or do you have any other outputs you can use so they only supply a single external device? In terms of sounds on the PC, can't you just turn these sounds off via control panel? What is a Home Automation announcement by the way?

I have heard about the light and already planned to cover it with tape too lol.

By the way, when Power DVD updates does it remove support for HD DVD as with the new version?

Thanks, thats good news. Just ordered one!

Just recieved this drive yesterday and I am floored at how amazingly quiet it is!!! However, that is with regular DVDs. I have not yet used it with a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD disc...I'll update in a day or two when my first Blu-Ray from Netflix arrives. :o Thankyou! I am torn between this drive and the Li...

I would like to purchase a Blue Ray drive for use in a HTPC and have come across the LG GGC H20L. Can any owners of this drive comment on its noise levels when playing back Blue Ray/HD DVD movies? Thanks.

I'm currently just using this case as a HTPC, it's running on a HD2400Pro. Anyway, I'm planning to turn this HTPC into a full gaming rig in the up coming months and I was wondering if the big cards like HD4870 would fit in this case (length wise) and I don't think the bundled 450w PSU would be enou...

bsoft wrote:I love my WD6400AAKS, but the seeks are pretty clearly audible. Nearly notebook-drive audible, but audible none the less.

AAM didn't seem to help much.

Sounds like you got a bad sample. Like you I could hear seeks with AAM disabled but with it on I cannot hear them at all in a very quiet system.

How does heat and idle noise compare to a WD5000AAKS? My 5000aaks is made in March 2008 so I guess its 3-platter, unless they are making 2-platter ones now? I just installed the WD6400AAKS into my P182, suspended in the upper chamber with my 5000AAKS. It is quieter than the 5000AAKS in both idle an...

I have been looking to buy a quiet blue ray drive too. Currently looking at this:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130747

luggage wrote:NEC MultiSync 20WGX^2 Pro

I second this. It is a little expensive and the glare may be an issue if you are viewing dark images (movies) in bright sunlight but I use one and it is a beautiful monitor.

Yes, 520w is easily enough as long as you buy a decent branded psu, such as those on the recommended list. Without any overclocking or components other than listed, the eXtreme PSU calculator: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp recommends a PSU of at least 406w :) There are other threa...

haha

This site has provided me with a lot of advice with its reviews and great community so I decided to contribute $25. I would have liked to give more but being a poor student it's all I can afford at the moment

Good luck achieving the rest of the target!

Can you connect a pair of speakers AND headphones simultaneously to that card and then select programmatically which ones to use? It seemed to have so small number of outputs that I was not totally sure if it's possible. If you do connect headphones, does that limit you to using either the rca side...

I can confirm this too, my flatmate is using the same card and a P4 550 (3.3ghz) with an FSP 300w psu with no problems whatsoever.

I just bought an ESI Juli@ soundcard and am very pelased with it. It has interchangable rca and trs in/outs. The driver is very simple and well implemented, and installed takes up less than 1mb.

In terms of active monitors I have heard many positive reviews of the Audioengine A2/A5.

a) Not sure about actual figures but I would say having a separate drive for games would yield greater performance. b) I wouldn't bother with RAID in a desktop computer, only ever lead to problems for me with little gain in performance. c) I was contemplating whether to buy 2 Samsung F1 320gb's for ...