I've been told that I need an extra case fan in the front of my computer if I have two or more hard drives. Really? Is that a felony or a misdemeanor? Sometimes one can make the argument that the data on their hard drives is worth more than the computer itself. This will be my first build. Having l...

I've been told that I need an extra case fan in the front of my computer if I have two or more hard drives. Most people would pop a Nexus on the front. I have no idea how to throttle a front case fan and am wondering if I could just put a passive cooler on. What about those little $8-$25USD hard dri...

I see a lot of products that say they will alert you of a fan failure. I was just wondering if anybody has ever heard of this happening?

Not long ago I decided to calculate what the increase in dB would be if I had one sound source, and then added a second sound source that produced equal amount of noise. I concluded that the 3dB rule is sort of an estimate, and that to really find the increase in dB one must solve a big equation. As...

First some background . The Asus A8V (939) has 3 fan connectors, one for the CPU fan, one for the PSU fan, and another for the chassis fan. Because the PSU controls its own fan I think the connector is just there for monitoring purposes. I plan to install a rear chassis fan to exhaust hot air out of...

ilh wrote:

StarfishChris wrote:Tools such as Nero's DriveSpeed should do the trick. Search for it on Google (it is free, isn't it?)

Thank you! That works great. It is much, much quieter at 16x.

It was actually my impression that anything spinning at 40x is going to make a lot of noise.

Why not just combine the above and get a Radeon 9600 All-in-Wonder? They can be made passive quite easily (if not passive from the factory). This is something I have been considering. I did not realize that the All-In-Wonders could be made passive. It would likely make good use of system resources....

...if you have to add a passive video cooler, will that fit in conjunction with the XP-120... I don't know how I'll figure this out. Thanks, I didn't realize it was a potential problem. The XP120 does fit though. Why the NEC optical drive? Do you know that it is quiet? I have had good luck with Asu...

CASE Antec SLK3000B PSU Seasonic 350W ATX12V Super Tornado CASES FANS 2x 120mm Nexus - One in the rear and one in the front ATX MOTHERBOARD Asus A8V Deluxe SOCKET 939 CPU AMD Athlon 64 3500 CPU HEAT SINK & FAN XP-120 w/ 120mm Nexus MEMORY Kingston KVR400X64C3AK2/1G - 2x 512MB AGP VIDEO CARD DirectX9...

I'm looking at the specs for some of the NECs and it says the total harmonic distortion of the DAC is 0.10%! I don't know what normal for a DVD/CD drive. Maybe for a DVD/CD dirve 0.10% is good. As far as good DACs go it is truely dreadful.

There are five basic things that I will need in my next computer and I am looking for a good way to include them all. I have compiled them below in a list. 1) Graphics - I have no special graphics needs, so I shouldn't need anything too fancy. 2) TV - I don't care very much about the picture. I woul...

I am probably not the typical hardware enthusiast. I'm would definitely not say that I am in the "silent computer game." I have specific uses for this computer other than sitting around and not making noise. Building my own quiet computer turned out to involve A LOT more work than I thought it would...

If you've gone too far, your processor overheats, and you've crashed your computer. The processor will NEVER burn out unless you failed to install the heatsink improperly to begin with. Are you saying that if I boot up my computer, start doing something that is very processor intensive, and then us...

Even after all this you, like most other Intel customers, will most likely still choose Intel because its Intel. :? edit: my terrible spelling At this point it is easier to go Intel, simply because I am a lot more familiar with the motherboard. I also like the idea of having my graphics system inte...

I'm not sure about this. Obviously it not totally passive, but if it were totally active then why would the mouth of the duct have to be larger than the fan? and why would they recommend that there be a small gap between the duct and the fan? Where does it say that the mouth of the duct has to be l...

...it's trivial to replace the Intel stock HSF with another that has superior cooling capacity and similar airflow. Zalman 7000, for instance. In any of a number of ways. Since you're fond of Intel specs, perhaps you should take a look at the processor specs and find the differences... I don't thin...

The NEC 3520 is a good drive - some here prefer the LG 4163, the latest Plextor is good, and I like my Pioneer DVR-109. Is drive noise a big issue? If not, any of the above will serve you well. CDR-Info and CDR-Labs are good resources.... ...Case fans - Panaflo low-flow (L1A etc.) are good, but the...

I run 5-8 programs at once. Which ones? At the moment, Firefox, Acrobat, Thunderbird, Ultraedit, Filezilla, Gaim, IE, Word, Limewire, Matlab, Visual C++, Winamp, Windows Media Player. In the future I'll plobably be running EmulatorX, some sequencer like Cubase SX, and some TV/FM tuning software. It...

Halfpower, if FFT performance is important, why are you even looking at the Prescotts? I'm sure your research showed you that the A64's are clock-for-clock something like 50% faster in that regard. (even when running in a Windows 32 environment) Your assumptions about the Prescotts being better for...

My dad had an insightful definition of a "fool". A fool is someone who asks for, and receives, good advice; and then ignores that advice to do his own thing. If you had already planned to build "according to Intel spec" then why ask for peoples advice here? Go ahead and build your system. It won't ...

I missed where it said that the duct HAD to be larger than the fan. In fact, the guidelines specify 60% or greater, with a minimum diameter 80mm. That means that at minimum, you get 0.6*80mm = 46mm diameter hole equivalent or better. I thought that the 60% referred to the area of the air-duct inlet...

If you build to the Intel specifications, then it will be noisy, and fairly hot, too. If you put a better HSF on there, it has a good chance to be quiet, and it will likely be much cooler, too. Here's another suggestion, that may be shocking to you: build and Athlon 64 system! :P The memory is much...

I don't know if the people on this site are computer scientists, computer engineers, hardware technicians, or are like myself and fall into some other category, but... I'm both a computer engineer by training and an electrical hardware technician/engineer by trade. Can you point me to the thermal r...

Complying with the thermal specs won't guarantee stability. It won't even help stability. It will, however, guarantee extra noise. You haven't built a computer since a 366mhz. You frankly have zero idea what sort of noise you're talking about, about about what sort of steps will be required to make...

If Intel's thermal design specifications are so important to follow, why not just use the stock Intel HSF? After all, it is the HSF that Intel themselves have spec'd for the processor so it must be appropriate for their own thermal design spec! In fact, I would submit to you that most SPCR's machin...

You do not half to comply with the Intel Thermal Design specs. It will not impact stability. It will not impact component longevity. Even big OEM's don't worry about complying with every CYA clause of the spec. And reason side ducts aren't used here has nothing to do with Prescotts, but has a lot t...

The Intel Thermal Specs are designed to make it easy and cheap to mass produce a working, reliable computer. They won't especially help you if you want it to be quiet, and if you're willing to put in a little effort and research into product selection, and are willing to assemble the components you...

Are you saying that you will eventually run the CPU passive, without a fan mounted on it? From what I've read here, this will not be possible with a 3.4Ghz Prescott P4. But it sounds like you are going to carefully design your airflow, so I'd be very curious how it all turns out. One question, thou...

For HSF: Arctic Cooling Super Silent Series. Under 450g, adequate cooling, radial airflow (by which I assume they mean a top-down blowing fan). Ducting is not necessary, but, I'm sure, a possibility. The most recent version has a 92mm fan, if that's too big, older versions are still available throu...

How could you even consider the stock Intel HSF? This is SPCR, remember? I'm sorry. My Pentium 366 just had a critical hardware failure or something. It won't boot. When I turn it on three green lights shine and the speakers hiss. Other than that it sits on my desk lifeless. It is beyond its life e...