I'm trying to decide on a 1TB HD, and I'm choosing between these three at the moment:

Samsung F3 7200 rpm
Western Digital Caviar Green
Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm SATA-300

Is there a benefit to going to a 5400 rpm drive?

Alternatively, is there a better option 500GB drive?

I'm thinking of getting an ATi HD 5770, and after some searching the Thermaltake ISGC-V320 seemed like a good cooler for it. However, it seems to have dropped off the radar. It's not on their website and I can't find anywhere that sells it. Has it been pulled? If it has, does anyone have any recomme...

Unsure where to go for a computer upgrade. I do mainstream gaming at 1280x1024 resolution, mainly flight sims, a bit of Witcher and hoping to have a go at Fallout 3, Dragon Age and the upcoming Elder Scrolls V. Problem is, do I go for a somewhat cheaper GTX 260 or 275, or DX11 with the GTX 465 or AT...

Is there a test of the Zalman CNPS 10x Quiet in the pipeline, by any chance? The Extreme's been tested so it would be a logical follow-on.

Thanks Seb. Just ran it. I corrected the memory timings in the BIOS as well. They were set to [Auto]-4-4-8, instead of 3-3-3-8. Had to leave the CL at Auto or it didn't boot up. Now it's running at 2.5 though. Seems a bit snappier now. CPU still giving me 1.8 in the WEI though. CPU-Z says the freque...

As I posted elsewhere on here a while back, I had a motherboard failure after a case swap. Finally found a motherboard with what I needed (AGP, SATA & IDE), an ASRock P4i65GV. My old motherboard was a Gigabyte GA8i848PM. Installed it all yesterday and it works ok, except for that everything seems sl...

Tried it outside the case, both with the current PSU and my old one, and won't work with either.

Problem is, I wouldn't know how to check a capacitor, much less change one. I'd be very reluctant to take a soldering iron to a motherboard. I'd probably end up doing more damage if anything.

If you had enough money for a P183 and a new PSU, you have enough for a replacement (used) motherboard - I'm quite sure that getting such an old one would set you back five quid or so. I'm trying, but finding a S478 AGP motherboard is proving mighty difficult. The ones I found are either PCI-E or m...

Does anyone happen to have a P4 motherboard kicking around which they don't need any more? I have a Gigabyte 8I848PM (Fujitsu-Siemens OEM mATX) which has gone, so need a replacement. Not looking for anything fancy as I want to get an i7 Lynnfield later in the year. Ideally I'd like a similar board. ...

Right. Think we can leave this one now. Thanks to those who posted. Have just done a major test, ripped everything out, had the mobo on a piece of cardboard on the floor and ran through everything. Tried using my old whiny PSU as well. Still dead as a dodo. Stuck it all back together again, just to ...

Matija wrote:How strange...

Check the PCI(-E) cards once again and maybe clean the contacts.

AGP. It's an old'un.

Matija wrote:Have you connected the dedicated +12V to the motherboard?

Yes, it's connected. It seems to work intermittently.

dang, that case/ps is too nice to just sit unused all summer. it may not have been anything that you did, i've seen motherboards get flakey and die like that. just for drill... there is no speaker in the p183, so the only way that you'd hear a post code is if you plugged in a speaker that you added...

do you have a speaker plugged into the motherboard, so you can hear the beeps during post? unplug as much as you can on the motherboard, and see if it posts then... stuff like the hdd, dvd, etc. No beep, everything plugged or unplugged. Redzo: checked the standoffs. Had to add a couple, so they're ...

Needed a new case and PSU, so got myself a P183 with the CP-850. All very nice. Spent a few hours today moving everything over to the new case. Switched it on and itgot stuck on the POST screen. Hmmm... Reset it, started ok but the rear system fan wasn't moving. Switched off, opened it up, everythin...

Spare me a seat on the bandwagon. Ordered a P183 and the CP-850 today.

It's probably a bit overkill for me, but hopefully I have got myself a good case and power supply. Upgrading my old Sonata case so hoping there'll be some difference in it as I'm quite happy with what I get out of that.

Thanks! Well, it was only a few pounds more than the Nexus, which I was leaning towards anyway, so figured I might as well get that since I might need the bigger case anyway.

Update on this: did some more digging and figured that a GTX260 will be a tight squeeze in my Sonata, so have ordered a P183 and a CP-850 instead.

Kidney, anyone...?

I'm planning on doing a system upgrade later in the year, but I might have to move ahead with the PSU. My office started smelling like burnt circuitboard all of a sudden, so yanked everything out and opened the case. Couldn't see anything, but the power supply exhaust smelled suspiciously. Also get ...

Just saw that Arctic has released what they call the Accelero XTREME GTX 280, meant to "bring enthusiasts an ultimate overclocking experience". It's their first 260/280/285 certified cooler.

What about for those of us who don't O/C? Will the Twin Turbo fit a 260? Or the Accelero S1?

Can a squealing card be replaced as defective? Or do they class it as normal?

Updated with PSU requirement.

Looks like sticking with the stock cooler for now until AC gets a 260 solution on the market.

Will the AC Accelero S1 or Twin Turbo fit the GTX 260? Read somewhere which hinted at it working. Anyone know for certain?

Also, does the Corsair VX450 or VX550 have second PCI-E 6-pin connector needed? Looking at Corsair page there's only one with the 450 and an additional 6+2 on the 550.

Thanks DDRJ. Just what I was looking for!

I put a little reply in your thread, just something which might help with the CPU cooling.

Hey DDRJ, Don't know if it's something you've thought of, but it could help cooling the CPU down: I have an Antec Sonata, and like you I have a spare optical bay and a spare floppy bay, so what I did was remove the cover from optical bay above the floppy bay. My brother built a cover from car stereo...

Thanks, I was actually thinking of the Accelero, either the Twin Turbo or the S1, but my brother was going on about the HR-03.

Thinking of getting a Thermalright HR-03GT for an upcoming XFX 9800GTX+ I'm hoping to get. I read on the Thermalright page that it can be aligned with the fins either below or above the card. I'm thinking of putting a 92mm fan on it, so there are three questions really: -Would it be better to put th...

Thanks for the info on the Zalmans. True to form, I've now switched over to looking at the Thermalright Ultra-120 with a Nexus fan for the CPU and a HR-03GT for the graphics card. The question is just which way to orientate the HR-03, but I'll post about that in the video card section.

Might swap it then with a NMB-MAT RB-12025-L (have used Panaflos before and like them and I like Dorothy Bradbury). This thread here has MikeC recommending it as well. I read another thread on here about someone replacing it and it seemed straightforward. Design a system, make it quiet, make it cool...

Been fighting with various OS:s as well throughout, from Windows 3.11 to Linux and Solaris. Did give Linux a proper go for a while, but got fed up with spending hours unzipping tarballs and gzt-files just to get the soundcard to work. It's a great OS but you start to appreciate having things which j...