Wow. So Raptor really is as quiet as the reference drives when idle? I'd say so. Based on SPCR reviews, I've got a Samsung P80 in my main computer, along with a 72GB Raptor (I bought it back when they were still about $200). I'd say at idle they are approximately equally quiet. And the P80 is the q...

Skelshy: Thank you for the commentary on the Aria. It sounds like it would work better with a water cooling system (pull the CPU and/or GPU heat straight out of the case), or need to be significantly modded. I like the idea of water cooling, but I think my next system with start with air cooling. I'...

Sis chipset? Courageous :shock: Why do you say that? I know the old SiS chipsets (from years ago) were not that great, but the newer ones are pretty good. My wife's previous system was running an Athlon XP 1700+ on a SiS 735 chipset board with no problems. The 755 and 760 chipsets have gotten some ...

I've been holding off on upgrading to see what the next round of chipsets will bring, but my Windows installation is starting to go sourth and I don't want to re-install it on my old HW (P2 450 MHz!) when an upgrade is so close. So I'm seriously looking at options now. Here's what I am currently thi...

It sounds like you might need to have your ducts cleaned (assuming you have a standard ducted HVAC system). If so, look around for a duct cleaning outfit that uses a cleaner with a rotating brush on a wand (along with a vacuum to collect what the brush knock loose). The ones that just use a vacuum d...

I had a friend who said his new WD SATA drives very quiet but he may have a different threshold. He may be right. I have two older ATA WD drives (13.6GB and 40GB) in my home computer, and the idle "platter whine" is really starting to get on my nerves. I can hear the whine from the next room throug...

How can energy be extracted from a magnetic field? A permanent magnet creates a magnetic field around it, which has the ability to apply a force to a nearby moving particle with electric charge. The force, acting over some finite distance, exerts work on the charged particle. The work creates a cha...

If he hooked two of his miracle machines together, after initial start-up, they could run each other forever plus produce electricity to spare. Thus putting every power producer in the world out of business overnight! Actually, if you read the article, he isn't claiming free energy or anything like...

Neil, I take it you like the ECS 755-A2 a lot better overall than the Asrock board? Too bad the Asrock didn't work out, but I'm glad to hear a good review for the ECS board (I might get one myself). How would you compare them in terms of quieting features (voltage and other BIOS tweaks, etc.)? The l...

Jan Kivar wrote:All is calm and peaceful in the kingdom, until Intel decides to release P-M to desktop...

Indeed. The Pentium M is a formidable chip, and it has the backing of Intel's chipsets. Intel makes some of the best chipsets, too bad they don't make them for the Athlon 64.

OCWorkBench has an interesting post about a new stepping of Athlon 64's spotted in Japan. From the articles for March 29, 2004 at http://www.ocworkbench.com/index.stm : There are two major differences. 1. When the CPU is in minimum power state, the case Vcore drops from 1.3V to 1.1V. Power rating dr...

The worst part will be when Intel tries to crank up the frequencies. If the 3.4 GHz is that hot, imagine how bad the 4 GHz will be! Sounds like time for another die shrink. This gives me a business idea, though. I'll build a small render farm of these and set them up with a water cooling system. The...

One other thing to consider is that SATA, with the same drive, could be slightly faster if TCQ (command queueing) is available. However, few SATA drives suport TCQ at this time (the 74GB Raptor being one), and supposedly none of the controllers on the market enable it. So at the present it's a moot ...

I would guess that the little heatsinks with fans are cheaper than a good beefy heatsink, so Abit and MSI save a little cost and make the consumer think it's better because everyone knows active cooling is better than passive cooling. :roll: I was the sys admin at my last job (the only computer guy,...

I've been comtemplating putting together an Athlon 64 3000+ system myself. Based on my limited experience with SiS and VIA chipsets (positive and negative, respectively), I'd go with the Asrock 755 chipset board. The VIA chipset seems to be a very good performer in the benchmarks I've seen, but I th...

I am looking to do some quieting work on an old Pentium Pro system (my last "main" system) so I can turn it into a Linux server and occasional S/W development box. There are three fans (two of which are 60mm) and my first thought is how to achieve quieter airflow without causing temps to go too high...

That is a pretty good article for a mass-market magazine!

BTW, what is that monitor on the desk behind you in the picture? It looks like a wide-screen model of some sort.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe all the P2's up through the 333 MHz run on a 66 MHz bus. The 400 MHz and 450 MHz run on the 100 MHz bus. If your motherboard only supports the 66 MHz bus (like most did before the 100 MHz chips came out), then the best your board with take is a 333. If...

It's been mentioned here that a signficant amount of the heat a typical PSU has to vent comes from inefficiency in power conversion in the PSU itself. E.g., a PSU operating at 70% efficiency while delivering 100W DC is consuming about 143W of AC power and therefore "wasting" about 43 watts, which go...

Has anyone ever heard of the entire CPU socket getting ripped off or damaged because of a HS? What's the chance of that happening?? I think HardOCP had a picture back in Dec. or Nov. of a socket (plus CPU and HSF) that sheared cleanly off a MB (very neat, looked like it'd been desoldered). IIRC, th...

Going back to CRTs, I recently noticed my Viewsonic PF790 19" monitor makes a faint but audible buzz noise sometimes during the boot process of Windows 2000 Pro. After it passes the startup screen and into the logon screen, the noise goes away. This might be perhaps because of the resolution? When ...

although i have no doubt that LCD's are quieter, I was very surprised to find out that my Dell 19" (a Samsung 191t LCD rebranded by Dell) actually DOES produce a very faint buzz. Say, does that unit have a built-in power supply (i.e., power cord plugs straight into the back of the unit)? If so, I w...

All that really needs flipped is the AGP card. I doubt many people have hot PCI cards. A sound or ethernet card isn't going to benfit from being the otherway around. That being said, I wish a video card manufacturer would make a flipped card. It wouldn't be ATX complient, but so what. At least that...

I did not have any intention to attach speakers to them or modify it any way to make it work with PC to cancel noise. The headphone I am talking about has built in mic, and I just wanted to wear the headphones as it is, when I was sleeping. Would it cancel out the noise of a PC humming away? Ah, so...

Hey, I just had an interesting thought along a slightly different line of thinking. I knew an EE/music double major in grad school who built his own electrostatic speakers. For those who don't know what these are, take a look at http://www.audiovideo101.com/dictionary/electrostatic-speaker.asp Anywa...

I am not a "sound expert", but I can comment a bit from memory of my days of studying DSP and communication systems as an EE Masters student (having defected from physics and math as an undergrad). I'd say the idea is sound (ok, bad pun) but the practice is where you run into problems. The problem i...

At work, we have three 19" monitors. Two are Viewsonic PS790's (circa '99), and the third is a Samsung 955DF. The convergence on the PS790's is terrible, and there's no convergence adjustment! They also have a lot of screen curvature. I don't know if they're still on the market, but if so I'd say av...

and I thought after I managed to silence my computer that'd be it... :roll: The thing in my room that makes the most noise now is my fluro light I might do this mod on the transformer with this plastic spray if I can find some down here... any idea what it's called? You're getting a humming or buzz...

I don't know if it helps or not, but I had a somewhat similar situation a few years ago. I ordered a PPro Asus motherboard with CPU from a mail order outfit (couldn't afford the high premium of the local shop). The first mobo worked but blew itself the second day (left a small scorch mark beside the...

Have you read the Undervolting/clocking article? Yes. Good article, BTW. 8) That table labelled "Various Undervolted & Underclocked Settings Achieved" definitely has some interesting results. I notice from the last two lines that the heat produced at 7.5X133 is less than 10X100 (due to much lower V...