Thanks for the info about the speed of the 800MB IDE flash drive Lenny. I had some thought about buying one, but now I am sure I will pass. That is close to the speed of my USB 1.1 memory. The solarPC stuff seems to lack almost all information that really tells you the details you want to know. I wo...

I just found out that DC2DC has restarted its webshop, and it seems that they have stopped selling through vendors. They are the only company that I have found so far that seems to sell PSU kits (brick+DC/DC board) that can handle ATX boards. Problem is that shipping to Europe is quite expensive USD...

The CNPS6000 is an ok cooler, but far from great. The bottom is far from perfectly flat and the clip applies too little pressure. Using a good thermal compound and using slightly more than usally recommended should give you better thermal transfer. Don't expect anything drastic, and effect depends m...

I agree with Copper that somewhere in the 20W region is what you can cool passively with a reasonable amount of work. With lots of work and money you can get to something like the TNN-500 that is big, ugly and expensive, but can cool 150W passively. Btw, congratulations to a great passive setup Copp...

Sledge: The Sempron is a 32-bit CPU. The currently released version is 32 bit. The Sempron 3100+ will be based on the Athlon64 core but stipped down so it will use 32bit memory bus, but I believe it will still be a 64bit CPU. It will probably be crippled by to little cache and too slow memory bus, ...

Dan: L series versus M? what's the difference? do they both use hydrobearing? Panaflo fans typically come in at least 3 speed versions with most of the other things on the fan is the same. L=Low speed M=Medium speed H=High speed Also note that they are called x1A (e.g. L1A) or x1BX where the x1A do...

Wim: and as for this listening test, the SPCR heavyweights Edward Ng vs. sthayashi speaker wire challenge.. where can i make a wager/buy tickets? my money's on sthayashi! Well, this depeds. If he uses single-threaded phone wires I bet he can tell the difference. If he uses very weak speaker cables ...

It depends on what the hum comes from. There is basicly 3 options: 1. PC sound card is low quality, so there is actually a hum coming out in the sound when it souldn't. 2. Amplifier is of poor quality or designed is a way so there can easilly be some hum when there is no input. In this case you shou...

Btw. it would help if someone knew what vcore I should use at 100x15. First of all don't be scared if the board does not boot due to massive undervolting. There is no way to harm a board or CPU by giving it too little voltage. The general recommendation is to start with a very low vcore. You are li...

That spec defenatly sound like dreamed up numbers, especially since it is from Thermaltake. Looking at the RPM 2000+/-10% make it even less likely to be even close.
I would not trust the numbers until the fan has been properly compared to a known good 120mm fan.

I see a few problems with this proposed standard. The first is that the fan becomes more expensive. Most people and manufacturers pick rather cheap fans, so it will have a hard time to make a major break through. This should make it cheaper to manufacture motherboards and fan controllers that use PW...

It is common that high current fans are sold with 4 pin headers only. So a fan with a 3 pin header is likely to draw little current, so connecting to the motherboard is usually not a problem. Checking the specification is of course the best things to do. As a rule of thumb the moderboard headers can...

I guess you could to some extent get ridd of the hum by putting in a passive filter in the speakers. For the subwoofer this will somewhat cripple the lower fewquencys, so it is far from a perfect solution.
From your description this seems to be a design flaw, so there is no easy fix without drawbacks.

Splinter: AFAIK, when your components are running hot, they cause more errors, so commands have to be resent. I have never heard of a CPU for a PC that would check the results of commands and redo them if the result was faulty. If you knew the results of the commands you don't need to run them at a...

Could you take a picture of the mounting brackets and the capacitor so we can see exactly how tight it gets?

Well, you have got some of the theory here, presented in a quite nice way. Practical test with a single fan, 80mm vs 120mm of the same type and model usually shows that you get the same airflow from the 80mm fan at 7-8V as you get with the 120mm fan at 5V. This depends a little bit on what fans you ...

Good to hear that this was enough answers for you. The questions you brought up was very good, so I think it is good to dig slightly deeper to get all the answers. I am no expert on DVD and DivX playback, but if I remeber correctly DivX uses more CPU power. It also makes a lot of difference what pla...

Those little "gummy bear" travel keyboards are dead quiet but also flat, dunno if that'll help your strain however you could make a custom wedge or pad to put it on. Actually a flat keyboard puts less strain on your shoulders and wrists. I learned this less than a year ago from an ergonimist (or wh...

So what I propose is this. We don't need specific benchmarks for the underclocked computers. What we need is a series of validations tests, or a series of regression tests, if you prefer. This does sound reasonable. But there is a few things that comes into play here. Gaming and DVD playback is hea...

ist.martin: That's great info. I hadn't realized that the 1.6MHz Pentium M is power equivalent to a VIA M10000 setup. Note that they use different motherboards. That can make a substantial difference. Especially since the Pentium-M used an industrial board. These boards are typically very expensive...

Neat and simple solution that does the job. Great work man! Just in case you want to try this yourself I would like to correct some minor facts. The diods are not named IN4001, they are named 1N4001. (The first "1" is to tell you that there is one junction=diod, where a "2" would make it a transisto...

Looking at the picture that fan has dual USB plugs. I guess that has to do with the need for power, much like the latest graphics cards that have dual power connectors. A wild guess is that this fan needs two connectors to be able to comply with USB standards. To make good use of the cables you shou...

Are you saying that you don't get any reading that is usefull from your CPU or is it just that you want an external reading so you get ridd of board specific issues? An external probe typically reads slightly less than the CPU, but this is more of a calibration problem. The external probe will also ...

Just comparing different CPU and how efficient they are compared to the wattage is very difficult as this thread has already prooven. The die size and use of heatspreaders or not also makes a difference making it even more complex. What is more interesting is a few important heat steps: 1. CPU does ...

I agree with Davidstone28 that your temps are nothing to worry about. The real problem is that the PSU fan is speeding up. So I think you should concentrate on lowering the speed on the PSU fan. There is one easy thing you can do. On the CPU cooler if you lift off the fan you can push down the tempe...

Skylined: USB's amperage rating is 500mA, so 0.5A. Well, the 500mA is the current the system needs to be able to power an USB hub with device(s) in parasitic mode. This is not the same as saying that devices may use 500mA from the USB port. Checking the complience guidelines: http://www.usb.org/dev...

Is the desktop XP2500 unlocked?
If it is I bet you can sell it second hand and get a good part of the cost of the mobile CPU. With a good and flexible motherboard you might be lucky enought to run that CPU with the same settings that the modile CPU can run.

Note that the recuired current draw that USB must supply is 100mA. So if your fan uses more than 0.1A at 5V you might need a powered USB hub in between.
Using a 12V DC wall-wart and possibly a fanmate seems like an easier solution.

Since it is a server it normally needs to be on, so suspending to S3 is not a good option. Spinning down discs and enabling HLT instuctions to reduce CPU heat during idle and using temp controlled fans seems to be a more resonable option. Using a slow low power CPU is also often a good choice for a ...

The clear blue fan is ball bearing, while the panaflo is hydrowave bearing. This should be a considerable difference.
I have not checked out the clear blue fan specifically, but I would not trust the noise levels until a review shows if they are any good.