Search found 261 matches

by zds
Sat Aug 04, 2012 8:27 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: 3770K IHS removal and results
Replies: 66
Views: 144736

Re: 3770K IHS removal and results

Thanks! One thing with the lapping is that the tight metal frame of the LGA socket may also bend the IHS slightly. Ie. it's not 100% certain completely flat IHS gives best results. Per my understanding the LGA socket frame is of harder metal than IHS and the pressure applied is high, whereas IHS is ...
by zds
Thu Aug 02, 2012 9:43 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: 3770K IHS removal and results
Replies: 66
Views: 144736

Re: 3770K IHS removal and results

Interesting results! As to the question "why", I have couple of ideas. Intel using sub-par greese due to cost reasons does not seem very likely, as others have explained. Instead: 1) Tolerances and gap between IHS and the die. The reason CPUs nowadays have IHS in the first place is to protect the CP...
by zds
Wed Dec 14, 2011 6:41 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Difference between WD20EARS and EARX?
Replies: 2
Views: 3977

Re: Difference between WD20EARS and EARX?

Thank you! I have one WD20EARS now and I've been very pleased with it, too. In quiet home environment you need to be quite close and concentrate to hear it at all, even without enclosure. "Quite close" means "tens of centimeters if not meter", not "centimeters" here. Ie. few feet, not inches. One of...
by zds
Wed Dec 14, 2011 5:30 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Difference between WD20EARS and EARX?
Replies: 2
Views: 3977

Difference between WD20EARS and EARX?

Hello! Has anyone here compared WD20EARS and EARX to each other? From spec sheet ([url]http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701229.pdf[/url]) it looks to me that both share mechanical structure and the only difference is in SATA speed supported (3Gbit/s and 6Gbit/s). Is that corr...
by zds
Thu Jul 21, 2011 6:36 am
Forum: General Gallery
Topic: Pictured walk-through of assembling quiet SFF gaming system
Replies: 2
Views: 3721

Re: Pictured walk-through of assembling quiet SFF gaming sys

Nice computer. You should give more details on how you made/found the acrylic "S" and where to find the foam rubber that will not degrade when it gets hot. I'm sure people here are interested in ducting and materials. Thanks for the feedback! I'll add more images and explanation about those within ...
by zds
Wed Jul 20, 2011 3:21 pm
Forum: General Gallery
Topic: Pictured walk-through of assembling quiet SFF gaming system
Replies: 2
Views: 3721

Pictured walk-through of assembling quiet SFF gaming system

I recently rebuilt my SO's desktop system with new motherboard, cooler and fans. The resulting system is compact, pretty and quiet gaming rig. This series of blog posts walks through the build in pictures and words: http://zds.iki.fi/zds/projectlog/?p=223 Much of the time when you see quiet systems ...
by zds
Mon Apr 11, 2011 8:09 am
Forum: Power Supplies
Topic: Seasonic X-400 Compatibility Issues?
Replies: 6
Views: 3462

Re: Seasonic X-400 Compatibility Issues?

RMA it and see if it just happens to be a bad PSU. If you can't determine any other cause, that's a good place to start. You don't need to go into detail about the motherboards it works with. It didn't work with your board. If it has incompatibilities, they should tell you, not vice versa. Thanks :...
by zds
Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:56 am
Forum: Power Supplies
Topic: Seasonic X-400 Compatibility Issues?
Replies: 6
Views: 3462

Re: Seasonic X-400 Compatibility Issues?

Eventually, IME usually in such a case it's a board fault, and not a PSU one. Yeah, especially considering the board cost 65€ and the PSU 157€ PSU, that would seem likely.. But the odd thing is that the same board works with three other PSUs, including one very cheap one and one from Seasonic itself.
by zds
Mon Apr 04, 2011 10:14 pm
Forum: Power Supplies
Topic: Seasonic X-400 Compatibility Issues?
Replies: 6
Views: 3462

Seasonic X-400 Compatibility Issues?

Hello, I bought a brand new Seasonic X-400 few days ago for our home server but I'm having problems getting it work with the motherboard on the system. The motherboard used in the system is ASRock A780LM, that has been running fine on that system for more than a year now. I cross-tested with other P...
by zds
Fri Sep 03, 2010 12:31 pm
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Silverstone Sugo SG07: The Ultimate Mini-ITX Case?
Replies: 17
Views: 18533

Thanks for interesting review! Couple of thoughts: The GPU cooling obviously needs some work. With that plenty of volume and breathing space in case, it should be fairly easy to make it a lot quieter. Having silenced gaming graphics inside one of the early Shuttles this chassis seems very potent. Tw...
by zds
Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:26 pm
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: Need 140mm&120mm fans: Looking for well-rounded air cool
Replies: 5
Views: 4176

So what do you guys think? I'll let you know when the fans get here. If they're not so good, I can always undervolt them and go for the scythe fans for the other 2. IMO you can't rely on other people's opinion. Just as example, in my findings almost every fan which spins at more than 1200rpm is not...
by zds
Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:12 pm
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: Quiet 140mm Fans?
Replies: 35
Views: 22994

Thank samuelmorris. I have found an Akasa AK-195BL a 140mm fan which I find no mention of of here. http://www.akasa.co.uk/akasa_english/spec_page/fans/spec_ak_195_bl.htm Has anyone tried this? I am in need of 140mm fans, but the smaller Akasa fans I've seen were more focused on the looks than quali...
by zds
Tue Jan 26, 2010 11:01 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: SPCR's 2010 CPU Heatsink Test Platform
Replies: 123
Views: 116946

Having gone through this latest article and low-profile heatsink roundups once again, I concluded something like this: -If you want the very best performance, go for Megahalems. -If you have very hot CPU and want bang-for-buck, get Scythe Mugen2 -If you have less hot CPU, consider also Ninja Mini an...
by zds
Tue Jan 26, 2010 10:33 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: SPCR's 2010 CPU Heatsink Test Platform
Replies: 123
Views: 116946

You know, I have to ask what's wrong with the data we've already compiled on the P-D950? It all there already on a CPU that has a thermal profile smack dab in the middle of the current pack. Consider the 45W AMDs at the bottom (and they actually draw less than 45W in real apps) and the 130W i7s at ...
by zds
Tue Jan 26, 2010 10:01 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: SPCR's 2010 CPU Heatsink Test Platform
Replies: 123
Views: 116946

- low profile /"blow the air to the motherboard-profile" types, because all of them do the same task (Noctua NH-C12P, Kabuto, Nexus low-7000, Big Shuriken, etc) I would not artificially limit heatsinks per the airflow direction (sideways ws. towards MB), especially as results of this article seem t...
by zds
Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:53 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: SPCR's 2010 CPU Heatsink Test Platform
Replies: 123
Views: 116946

First, thanks for the very insightful article! A few points that may have been missed: 3) As it stands, the new test platform is most useful for the OC / gaming silencer, who represent a sizable but still minority portion of the SPCR audience. As a result... 4) A lower power test platform looks unav...
by zds
Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:52 pm
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: PAPST 172mm 6224/12 monster
Replies: 0
Views: 1773

PAPST 172mm 6224/12 monster

Back in 2006-2007 there was not that many >120mm fans meant for PCs available, and none of them looked too promising, so I went on and got me some second hand industrial fans from Comair Rotron and PAPST to see if you could make them work quietly. To put it short, it was not really worth the trouble...
by zds
Fri Jun 26, 2009 11:32 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Seagate Barracude Low Power
Replies: 5
Views: 4668

The drive arrived today. Because the disk went to our home server, not to any workstation, I did only some brief testing on the acoustics. I tested the 1.5T Barracuda Low Power against couple of years old 120G Barracuda 7200.7. Overall the LP model sounds smoother and more benign, but it's only a to...
by zds
Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:05 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: WD GPs are dying? Really?
Replies: 67
Views: 45545

What is the purpose of parking drive heads each 8s even if great OS Windows, the only environment WD is considering, DO NOT ALLOW them to park? This might be true for system drives, but for a drive used solely for storage and without indexing enabled it might not be. This is the only real "point" I...
by zds
Mon Jun 15, 2009 12:23 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Seagate Barracude Low Power
Replies: 5
Views: 4668

Ksanderash wrote:Then give us know of your experience with this big ...FISH
I will :-).
by zds
Sun Jun 14, 2009 12:51 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: WD GPs are dying? Really?
Replies: 67
Views: 45545

Why make HDDs for them dipshits who don't care about environment (= Linux users)? Sorry for the flaming but you're really asking for it. You claim Linux was not intended for desktop/laptop and only for server. So be it. Why should desktop and laptop HDDs be optimized for server OS then? It doesn't ...
by zds
Sun Jun 14, 2009 12:35 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Seagate Barracude Low Power
Replies: 5
Views: 4668

Seagate Barracude Low Power

I ran across these in local hardware web store:
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datashe ... uda_lp.pdf

It would seem Seagate has listened to users and provided 5900rpm drives at capacity points of 1, 1.5 and 2 terabytes.

Very nice, I already put in order for the 1.5T model.
by zds
Sat Apr 11, 2009 7:21 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Momentus & Scorpio 500gb notebook drives
Replies: 25
Views: 22705

If they stutter, they stutter from the start. Obviously, you want to choose a drive that doesn't stutter, but the wear/slowdown over time is definitely solvable. Negative. To quote Anand: While SSDs are truly immune to the same problems that plague HDDs, they do also get slower over time. How can b...
by zds
Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:59 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Momentus & Scorpio 500gb notebook drives
Replies: 25
Views: 22705

From the article, page 2: Random write performance is quite possibly the most important performance metric for SSDs these days. It’s what separates the drives that are worth buying from those that aren’t. All SSDs at this point are luxury items, their cost per GB is much higher than that of conv...
by zds
Sat Apr 11, 2009 3:39 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Momentus & Scorpio 500gb notebook drives
Replies: 25
Views: 22705

The postscript says: [quote] SSDs' usability continues to improve, with performance besting the fastest of current disc drives. At time of writing, an excellent 128 GB Samsung based SSD is selling "on the street" for little over $300 [/quote] Before you rush into buying a SSD as device besting HDDs ...
by zds
Sat Mar 21, 2009 5:07 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Is there a problem with head parks on WD Green HDDs?
Replies: 296
Views: 457371

And I can definitely see how this parking behavior is critical to the drive's lower power consumption numbers. The bad thing is.. apart from the power comsunption, this kind of behaviour is not what people at this site (SPCR) want. Constant loading/unloading, while it might lower the absolute power...
by zds
Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:36 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Is there a problem with head parks on WD Green HDDs?
Replies: 296
Views: 457371

Though the EADS still defaults to every 8 seconds. Couldn't that in itself be a problem in the right context? I suspect the EACS firmware was just plain faulty, so it was not just timer setting but a real bug (or the combination of these two) that caused high load/unload counts. What makes me belie...
by zds
Wed Mar 18, 2009 7:28 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Is there a problem with head parks on WD Green HDDs?
Replies: 296
Views: 457371

lunadesign wrote:With regards to the WD10EACS vs WD10EADS question, it appears that the latter does not have the same issue.
Thank you very much, this was very useful piece of information!
by zds
Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:33 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Is there a problem with head parks on WD Green HDDs?
Replies: 296
Views: 457371

trxman wrote: no go on win XP SP3
It's a low-level DOS program, like BIOS updaters and all those.. you need to run it from *DOS*, not from Windows. Time to dig out your DOS boot media.

If you lack any, download FreeDOS, it's free in both senses and works like a charm.
by zds
Thu Feb 26, 2009 5:11 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Is there a problem with head parks on WD Green HDDs?
Replies: 296
Views: 457371

completely stonewall the rest of us, to the point of actually withrawing a tool that can help fix the problem! If I had to guess, I'd say the reason is that the EACS firmware is bugged beyond what wdidle3 is able to fix. That, naturally, does not justify not releasing fixed firmware for EACS drives...