I would use distilled water, and it used to be pretty easy to buy at the store. I remember it being available where rubbing alcohol and contact lens solutions is, but I haven't looked recently. You could make your own, by catching the steam from boiling water. Deionized water is looking to get ions,...

Yeah, short drill bits, although if you're not doing that many holes it probably doesn't matter.

If you use WD-40, then the cleanest way is to wipe it on the bit and the area to be drilled. If you have a liquid dropper then you can just put it on the hole area you are drilling.

I think that center punches and center drills could be found at home depot. I haven't looked for them there though. I don't think you need any specific type of drill, unless you are really doing a lot of drilling. Typical types are HSS (high speed steel) and carbide. General purpose are porbably HSS...

More details and pictures

http://news.uns.purdue.edu/hp/Garimella.nanolight.html

The best thing is to have some resistance against the back of the surface you are drilling. So using wood is good since you can drill into wood without problems. Perhaps you can use bricks or something to raise the wood and push it against the surface. The best way to make precise holes is to use a ...

What kind of motherboard are you using?

The typical maximum diameter I've seen is 6 mm. If you want to build them, that's a lot of work, but it could be interesting. I'm should be getting some pretty soon, so if you actually want some send me a private message (PM).

Perhaps just a good old analog VU meter kind of like what Coolermaster is starting to use now.

"old school" meter:

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/c ... type=store

According to the AMD spec 70 C is the max for Athlon 64 and 95 C for mobile version. So if that's correct, it's way too hot.

I don't think there is a power supply like that, well at least I'm not sure it would be practical to try something like that. But if you get some normal ATX units you will have larger quieter fans and temperature speed control on them. A tray would just be a shelf with the bottom and sides only. If ...

I'm thinking that the water pump will be pretty loud. Using a ~1/2 hp industrial pump which is only able to do about a few gpm, it's very loud. I assume these are 1U or maybe 2U cases? You could move the power supply outside the case and get low noise power supplies. Perhaps some kind of 80 mm fan s...

I noticed this too, but I didn't see any pictures. However, the Quadro FX 500 is a board like the 5200, so the heatsinking is similar. I am assuming the 700 is a step above the 500 and probably capable of being cooled by a large heatsink. Of course without pictures, it's hard to tell.

One of the biggest problems I've seen is that people will put them on carpet or other places with lots of dust. Then the unit sucks in all the dust and messes up the fans. However, if the height were enough that would probably be less of a problem, but for the typical user it can be trouble.

That would not be a thick enough piece of copper to transfer the heat. The cross section is way too small. You would need a cross section of probably 3 square inches to avoid overheat. I had initially thought of doing this, but I realized the copper part would need to be like 2 x 2 inches. That woul...

I suppose Dell doesn't use thermal paste, but they must be using a thermal pad if not paste. The pads are quicker and easier to deal with for volume manufacturing. Really what you want is an ideal contact between the two surfaces, and just enough grease to fill any voids. If you put too much and don...

It's mainly a matter of what's available. I can get larger stuff but there are going to be some limitations concerning cost and availability.

I'm amazed that you were able to find that by the way. I have been searching for days for a page just like that. Where and how did you search? Russ This is a type of part I've seen at work. There are many brands and some might have the temp range you need. Combine this with a thermistor (variable r...

You should look at a passive thermal switch like below. Normally open then closes at a higher temperature. I assume this would work fine by just putting it in series with the fan and it will come on once the temp rises high enough. http://www.selcoproducts.com/cfm/ProductDetails.cfm?Action=Close&Sub...

Well one thing to realize is that most of these units, except higher end ones, assume a fixed emissivity. I see normally it is assumed to be 0.95. Which means it is calibrated for measuring temperature on a surface such as a black anodized body. Measuring other items will be less accurate unless the...

The metal on the racks tend to vibrate depending on how thick they are. Usually they are intended to function where no people normally work. The AC fans generally don't have any speed control (on or off). Closed door are likely to generate more of an echo sound if the speed is fast enough, although ...

These sites sell panels and how some info on them, although I don't know if any of them can generate 120V AC. You might be able to find something that will power a laptop. The system would work by charging a battery that will feed the power, otherwise, a passing cloud would just kill the energy sour...

Hmmm, was waiting for something like this for my project. Looks good.

Yeah, the case is quite useful.

I was measuring the voltage, but it seems to be pulsed so I couldn't get a steady read out. The max was around 4.2 V and the typical seemed to be 3.5 V.

It is a BX, so it's not the quiestest, but I haven't found the best 120mm fan yet, and I'm not spending time on that now. The main issue for 120mm fans is the clicking or scuffing sound, but it's okay in my config as the fan is on the side of the case away from me. Right now my hard drives are the l...

I've found the Noisemagic NMT-2 coupled with the Zalman fanmate to be very good. http://www.siliconacoustics.com/nmt2.html Since the NMT-2 only goes down to 5V, you can drop that down even more by adding a fanmate. I'm getting a 120mm Panaflo to run at around 450 rpm, which is the benefit of the ful...

I believe that there were some designs for aircraft props which changed pitch of the blade. The pitch changed to either increase thrust which increased noise, or to decrease thrust and lower noise. If there were no pitch on the blade then you wouldn't get any (or very much) flow, but by angling the ...

The Zalman TNN-500A.

I'm working on something for the future.

Hmmm, wonder what a recompiled code could do on a Athlon64?

Well apparently they are selling Athlon 64 3000+ with 512kb cache for a little over $200. That's half the price of the 1mb cache versions. Looks like AMD is really going to push 64 CPU's into the market. That seems like a good deal to me.

Look in the yellow pages for plastic suppliers. There are many plastic only places that will sell all types and cut them for you.

Well it will be interesting to see how much 64bit programs will improve with the Athlon 64.