During the 3DMark2001 benchmark suite, my newly-installed ZM80A-HP became too hot to touch for more than 10 seconds! Is this safe for the GPU? Temps below 50 C are perfectly safe. I have an old gf3(non-Ti) with pal8045t (before the age of zm80hp), and it is ~53 C (measured from the heatsink). It be...

Nevin, could you give any information about SX-25 Prototype? Is it much better than AS3? How long do we have to wait until it's released?[/url]

I'm using an additional CPU sidesink on my xp2400/a7v333-x. Since a7v333-x doesn't support undervolting, I purchased extra heatsink (instead of a new mb) and attached it on right side of the main cpu heatsink with arctic silver, and overcloced the processor to 2133 MHz. With one heatsink I was only ...

This is Deltatronic cpu heatpipe.
http://www.deltatronic.info/Home/home.html

They ship their products in all EU countries, but cpu heatpipe is not sold separately. Full 890,- set must be ordered.

Original gf3 produces lots of heat (but not as much as gf4). It can't be cooled with small heatsinks. http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/cnpsvga2.htm "Notes) 1)For GeForce 256 DDR, RADEON DDR, and higher classes of video cards, the ZM17-CU must be used with Zalman's FB165(www.zalman.co.kr/engli...

Regarding whining high pitched noise from PSUs -- it seems impossible to avoid completely in any PSU. I have heard it from every single one I have tested or used, sooner or later at some level. The better ones rarely do it, and usually at very low volume if it happens, but even with them it seems t...

Antec web site:
"Sonata European version
Currently this is not available in Europe"

I wouldn't recommend replacing psu fan. Adding extra case fan helps to keep psu cool and psu fan running at lower speed.

Bad high pitched whine isn't coil whine, it is chopper regulator. You might try to replace capacitors with new ones, but if this doesn't help then this psu is just badly designed and can't be easily fixed.

Copper dust is quite pricey, $ 585 /5kg which should be enough for complete silence. Strong bags should be used so that no dust is leaked to cause shortcuts. It might be possible to find copper drilling industry waste dust for free...

PSU fan and/or case fan is needed for ncu-1000. Deltatronic heatpipe solution is completely passive and works with deltatronic fanless psu.

Deltatronic CPU heatpipe works this way. Heat is transferred outside case and cooled passively. According to Deltatronic it is able to cool fastest P4 processors. How to get these heatpipes?

This same lacquer stuff is used for transformers, coils and circuit protecting. It doesn't cause overheating problem, but disables the source of buzz, which is freely vibrating copper lines. Any noise dampeners inside crt monitor are not recommended. If picture tube crashes because of overheating, i...

Thanks Gaminggod. I really haven't seen many cons to having a wood case. Commercial cases are made of inflammable materials and fire safety is improved by using flame retardants. Self-made wooden case don't meet any fire safety standards. This is as important as magnetic shielding. Lightning could ...

Whine is caused by chopper regulator (I suppose this is correct term) when chopper frequency or pulse width is wrong. Usually there is whine only when psu capacitors are nearly broken. Not all psu's whine, e.g. cheap 300w macron psu don't whine at all under any load.

Pipe cleaners are also very handy in connecting 80mm fan to graphics card. Fan shouldn't touch the card, since it vibrates and resonates.
Still, better method is big heatsink and no fans.

CRT buzz is caused by big deflecting coils on picture tube. There are 3 alternatives you can do: 1) buy a lcd monitor 2) take your monitor to monitor or tv repairer and ask to fix it 3) apply lacquer to deflecting coils. There is some discussion about this here: http://forums.silentpcreview.com//vie...

Sandbags are the most cost effective way to ultimate hdd silence. I'm using them myself, here's some pictures and further explanations: http://members.fortunecity.com/bluehat1/ Without those resonating aluminum plates, and with lighter sand layer, sandbagged 5400rmp maxtor max temp is 46C (still und...

Check out 'man hdparm'. It can be used in Linux systems to set cdrom speed, ide hdd spindown time, force sleep mode etc. Sleep mode isn't very useful if computer is used for 24/7 file server, or hard disk recording on home studio. Cool 5400rpm drives can be easily totally silenced at 0 $ budget usin...

For cpu, 60-80 C (measured with internal diode) is perfectly good temp. For mb, 46C is a bit high (<40C would be better). MB capacitors may start leaking fluid and fail, this happened to my old mb after installing gf3 card. Check out max temperature specs printed on mb capacitors. If they are high q...

So, I thought I'd simply build a 'room' around the computer: a small-ish box, just a bit larger than the PC itself. The box would be open in the back and bottom; perhaps made of heavy MDF and well-lined with sound dampening material on the inside. Here is one well-made plan for such dampening close...

NCU-1000 can be ordered from Japan (once it is again in stock): http://www.tsheatronics.co.jp/zen/english/ncu1000_e.html Looks like psu fan is needed. On the other hand, non-undervolted/clocked 2,8ghz p4 produces so much heat that it can't be easily cooled without fans, unless heatsink thermal resis...

Aavid Thermalloy also makes extrusion profiles suited for natural convection. Just select a heatsink with thermal resistance between 0,3 and 0,4 , and it is big enough to cool a processor. However connecting this kind of heatsink to cpu and removing it is difficult. I'm simply using ax-7 and extrusi...

PSU internal air temperature and PSU components will be cooler if you turn the fan blow cool air inside PSU. This also corrupts case thermal management, so either you use more case fans, or open the case. And afrer opening the case why not replace PSU fan with a big heatsink.

Since there's no airflow, should the case be left opened? This should take care of most sources of noise. Since I've never lowered fan noise to the point where other sources of noise become predominant, I'm not sure what else would be needed. Washers on the drives' mounting holes? Acoustic foam ins...

Graphite has thermal conductivity of 5,7 W/mK and density 2250 kg/m^3. So I guess graphite dust conductivity is 0,5 and density less than sand. It might be necessary to use extra cooling with graphite dust (e.g. aluminum plates, and this leads to resonances and large piles of dust). Any metal would ...

This is a very good question. The bottom line would seem to be that an inexpensive ATX PSU could probably be used without a fan in a low-power system, but that there would be increased risk of PSU failure. Of course it is also possible to use electrically isolating, thermally conducting tape (such ...

i'd really like to know more information on this procedure, can't find anything in my searches. anyone seen any detailed how-to's as to where to spray this stuff? or is this easier than i imagine? I don't know any howto's either. Probably there is a book in library about repairing tv's? Deflecting ...

I have built myself a mini-itx system which is fanless. The only noise is the hard drive which I am looking into ways of silencing. There is a SilentDrive enclosure which takes a 3.5in drive and then fits into a 5.25in bay. Unfortunately my mini-itx case is not big enough for a 5.25in bay so instea...

You can take your tv to a tv repairer and ask to fix it (a cheaper approach than buying a new tv). Tv repairers use generally lacquer to silence the rewinding coils, and it is easy to do also yourself, only difficulty is to find right kind of lacquer and apply enough of it to the coils. This works a...

Just curious, assuming you (or anyone else here) have done before, how effective is the laquer at silencing the coil whine? It isn't a 100% silencer, but very effective in reducing monitor buzz. It doesn't have effect on other crt noises (such as resolution changing, or after going to power saving ...