I have fond memories of my Matrox G400. Actually I first went with Nvidia and their TNT2 back in 1999. I sold it and bought the G400 after less than a month because of its bad 3D and 2D-quality. It was maybe 20% slower than Voodoo 3 and TNT2, but reviewers ignored the picture quality and only looked...

According to spyre, Ati beta tester from the Rage3d forums, "4850 already has all aspects of powerplay functional". So it doesen't look good for those using reference cooler. However, Sapphire 4850 Toxic edition with the Zalman heatsink has much lower temperatures: http://www.hexus.net/content/item....

I sort of hoped that by that time either nVidia or ATI would fulfill their promise of bringing more power efficient video card on the market, sadly they didn't. What am I gonna do? Do like I did. Forget upgrading until Ati/Nvidia get tired to their "Who has the biggest" contest and play older games...

Do you guys think that Ati/Nvidia will eventually take same kind of approach like Intel did with its Conroe, or do you see that videocards will just get more hotter and noisier in the future?

They have a patent issue with another HDD Manufacturer, and dropped support rather than be sued. I guess whoever owns tha Patent doesnt want Seagate to have the Tech, as they are easily the biggest Drive maker around. I hope its Maxtor that owns it, as Seagate are Buying them, which will mean that ...

Well I finally bought this power supply, despite all the bad reputation it's been getting. So far I love it. It replaced a modded Truepower 430W that had been running for over two years with only minimal cooling. The fan doesen't seem to increase speed at all even under heavy load, thanks to this ki...

TomZ wrote:Forget the Antec marketing, and go for product quality! Get the Seasonic instead. Advantages of the Seasonic:

You forgot one thing. Neo HE's are manufactured by Seasonic =)

Maybe in the future there will be PSU's small as that that operate at 99% effiency and provide 500 watts of power

I wonder what the maximum theoretical efficiency of a PC power supply is? 99%? Theoretical, sure, but under what conditions? I remember a power supply mfr. saying that if only one voltage was required then efficiency could easily increase (in one of MikeC's posts?). Probably they could spend more o...

I too had the leaking motherboard capacitor problem. The board was, surprise surprise, Abit KT7. Then when I upgraded, I got a Intel motherboard. All the caps in it were japanese Nichicon caps. My next board will be from Intel too.

I also did mod for the 9700. I cut the wires of the stock cooler, and put a Panaflo L1A next to it, which is mounted to a PCI-slot fan holder. It's running at 7 volts and has been working for the last two and half years.

halcyon wrote:In 1x DVD playback AOpen dvd-1648 is amongst the least noisy (as measured by c't magazine). Better than Samsung/LG/Nec/LiteOn/Plextor/Asus.

Yes it is, but for anything other than watching movies it's useless, because it's poor behaviour to slow-down programs.

Funny how fast things change. It wasn't that long ago when Nvidia had mediocre performance and very high power consumption. I've understood that R520 was designed at Ati's eastcoast office(Marlborough), while the Artx team that made the wonderful R300 are designing the R600.

I wouldn't buy a fanless PSU that goes inside the case. After Zalman NEPS got cancelled, there isn't one at the horizon

The problem derives from different ground potentials. If the computer is ungrounded, the entire computer will float in half of the AC voltage from the outlet (115V/60V). I'm not sure that's correct... I would only expect that if the computer PSU wasn't functioning correctly... or am I thinking wron...

What do guys think of database for CD/DVD-drives in SPRC? It would feature information of available speed settings. It's really hard to find such information. There is one database at http://cdromtool.sourceforge.net/compatible.php, but it isn't maintained anymore. And it only lists reported speed, ...

Well guys, it looks like there won't be a NEPS400 this year Quote from www.zalmanforums.com

"There have been some snags in the development and thus delays. Perhaps sometime in Q1 2005. Too far from completion of development to provide further information at this time."

I used Naiobrin CD-Rom tool and Nero Drivespeed with the same results. I understand that there are no quiet drives at those speeds, and that's why I would like a DVD drive that support low CD/DVD speeds. Guess I have just to order a Asus from somewhere and hope it goes as low as my previous unit and...

I purchased this drive because it was ranked most quiet in the german c't magazine. However I am quite disappointed with it. It only offers five speed modes:12/24/32/40/48x. In 12x it is quiet. There is only one problem. Very soon after setting the speed to lower levels it forgets it and then goes t...

Disconnect the power cord while the computer is on(you might want to boot to command prompt). That way the large capacitors will be drained. PSU's have a hold-up time around 16-17ms and guess where the power comes from?

That picture is from a prototype that was shown three months ago. Who knows what they have added or taken out after that.

To me Zalman's upcoming fanless PSU looks to be something that can't fail. It's external, so it doesen't have to deal with high temperatures like all the fanless PSU's seen so far.

The HEC-300AR-T had really impressive effiency of 77.7%, which is at the same level of Seasonic Super Tornado 300. Maybe Mike should test these PSU's?

Whoa. I've been too dreaming about something like this for long time. I hope Zalman can deliver(unlike Antec with their Phantoms).

I suspected there are problems, after all it has been two months since it was in "final revision" and there is no word after that. Overheating issues could be resolved with something like this: http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.soho-jp.com%2Fgoods%2Fpcpa...

Well I am definately going to try installing Phantom like MikeC did in his "External PSU PC". For that kind of money I want the unit to have long working life. I hope it is BTX compatible.

I received reply to my inquiry from Antec. They say that there isn't official release date yet and the product is in "final revision phase".

Waiting is the hardest part...

I modded my Truepower 430W almost a year ago, but instead of Panaflos I used low-RPM Papst fans. It still works but the top cover gets hot under load. Not incredibly hot though, I can hold my hand there.

Still, I plan to buy Antec Phantom if it ever gets released.

Having just replaced "12dB" Papst fans with Panaflo L1A's, I say Panaflos are way to go. They are much quieter and the sound frequency is also much lower. I'm finally happy of my computer noise level. I am using Zalman MFC-1 fan controller with them. Papst are overpriced and their quality has gone d...

Cool J wrote:what in the world is a qtec? sounds like q-tip to me and i dont want a q-tip trying to power my computer.

Q-Tec power supplies are very low quality ones and I guess they have chosen that name because it's often mixed up with Q-Technology PSU's.