This doesn't really answer your question, but one thing you want to look out for is a fan that starts reliably at low voltages. PSU's often feed the fan less than 5V when cool so ideally you want one that starts at 4V or so, if you make the wrong choice it might not spin until the PSU starts to heat...

How long will you have to wait for the SG-05 case to be released? Maybe you wouldn't have to wait much longer for the 40nm replacements for the 4850 and 4870, they will definitely use a lot less power. They still seem to be at the sample stage unfortunately, with no word on release dates. A current ...

Just a thought about the Ninja.... those pushpins usually bend the motherboard a fair amount, if you were to use a bolt-through kit with a backplate instead it may no longer touch the heatsinks on the board. I don't think it's going to short anything, but I still don't like components to be touching...

I thought this thing about the differing power consumptions of the various 775 CPUs was very interesting. Does anyone know of a survey where the idle and load powers of the different models are measured? Like, for example, if the LGA775 Celerons use less power than that Wolfdale? They have lower TD...

Ok, if the Zalman is only 3-pin then its not PWM. You need to run the Zalman and the Arctic Cooling fans off different headers. It sounds like the motherboard is detecting the fans as only 3-pin and is attempting to control them by voltage rather than PWM, resulting in the AC fans not spinning. I do...

according to the review here on SPCR, they messured 98W @ load with an E6400 CPU and 65W @ load with an E7200 CPU, so I think I will be fine with an E1400 and still stay below the 100W the 8K01 PSU has as its limit. You will be well under 100W at load and in fact the celery will draw about the same...

I had the same issue as ntavlas and solved it the same way, by changing the fan control method from auto to pwm in bios. I think I may have spotted another possible cause of the problem though, (but cannot be sure as the picture link is broken for me). I thought the Zalman 9500 came with a regular v...

At least you know it's not the PSU now.

Normally I would say if you remove a component and your problem goes away then you have isolated the problem. I guess you just need to monitor the situation with your remaining drives while waiting for RMA confirmation on the velociraptor.

Plympton, lechuck speaks the truth, most (all?) 4670 cards you can buy support 0.9V idle in the BIOS, but don't actually have the physical components onboard to allow the undervolt. This sector is very price competitive and I don't know of any manufacturers that are willing to pay for the extra comp...

Here are a couple of new articles dealing with graphics card power consumption with tables listing most of the newer cards:

Tomshardware - How much power does your graphics card need?

Hardspell - 53 graphic cards power consumption contrasted

frootloops, maybe you can reuse your Picopsu to save a few more watts? I know 24 pin mobo's are backwards compatible with 20 pin psu's - it's not ideal but should be ok in a low wattage situation. I have not used picos myself so don't know if there are any extra issues with 20pin picopsu compared to...

The G31 chipset is good for a cheap and low power consumption motherboard with integrated graphics for intel cpu's. You can get Gigabyte etc versions for about £40. If you replaced your current mobo and graphics card with this, and kept everything else, you will save something like 30W at idle. (As...

It would be a good idea to rest it on some type of soft feet, this would isolate any vibrations being transferred to the desk or shelf or whatever, and give the side vents around the front bezel room to breathe. Maybe you can remove and re-use the feet it comes with? Also will the door stay open in ...

I had a similar problem caused by a failing PSU. When starting from cold the PC would never recognise the drives but after several attempts it warmed up enough to boot. I was tearing my hair out for ages before I measured the voltage on the +5V line, it was only 4.3V from cold and eventually 4.7V wh...

You probably want to be looking at boards based on the G31/EG31 chipset, Asus and Gigabyte and others will have a few options to choose from with slightly different specs. They are considered no-frills boards but that helps their relatively low power consumption. The integrated graphics is not the b...

yeah, I didn't explain that perfectly, but the physical address space is limited to 4GB. When everything else has been allocated the address space left over can be used for system memory, in a typical system this is often 3.5 GB. This is the amount of memory that Windows can see and use, and is indi...

32 bit windows XP can utilise 4 GB of physical memory but will not see all of it due to video card memory, system ROM, PCI cards etc which use up some of the address space, which is limited to 4GB. I have XP 32bit (with all service packs and updates) on an Intel socket 775 system and Windows sees 3....

Video cards typically run hotter than CPU's, I've heard 120C or so bandied about as the maximum they can withstand. Obviously you want to stay well below that but 90 C ought to be fine for a passive card. You might want to keep an eye on the temp if your room gets noticeably warmer in summer.

Scan have this one but from the description it seems to be for the coolers with four heatpipes, don't know if it also fits the ones with three pipes or which model you have.

Also, if you clean microfibre cloths in the washing machine never use fabric conditioner.

That's what I was worried about, but there must be a ratio of vinegar to water that is dilute enough not to damage the screen while still helping the cleaning process.

Is vinegar safe to use on LCD screens? I was thinking of using a mixture of white vinegar and filtered water.

(My normal approach is one pass with a dry microfibre cloth, sometimes followed by a second pass with a damp microfibre cloth but I've always chickened out before adding the vinegar.)

Well Zalman are now claiming the shroud is only there to protect the cooler during transport and should be removed prior to use. I wonder if that was their intention all along, or if they simply realised it was rubbish after reading reviews like this one?

mackworth wrote:Maybe I should contact AC and see what they say?

That's what I would do in your situation.

100C in 100 seconds with the twin turbo module on the S1 is just plain wrong. You have a serious problem somewhere.

Is there any damage to the S1 such that the vapour could have escaped from the pipes? Assuming the mounting is ok, a defective S1 is all I can think of.

I read that review earlier in a translated by google sort of English version (not much easier to understand than the German) and it's nice to see a Scythe cooler doing so well again. I think the return to a bolt-thru system as standard has a lot to do with it, and the design of the tower split into ...

It is common for motherboards to have caps in that area, the brackets are designed the way they are to fit over them. (The only exception would be if the capacitors were freakishly tall) When I first installed a Thermalright cooler with these brackets I was a bit concerned as it didn't look like the...

Nice video card.

Edit: Let us know how you get on with the Scythe Musashi. It did quite well in test of 4870 coolers at X-bit labs, Turbo Twins and a Swordsman: New VGA Coolers Reviewed, I think they rated it the best.

The 4350 has the potential to be cooler at idle than the 3450 because it is the newer and more effecient design. According to AMD it has 2x the performance per watt and they both run at the same default clock speed. This may not hold true in practice, it depends which card has the best Powerplay set...

lol, I should have included some references. Idle power consumption of Powercolor vs AMD http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_4830/23.html Article showing the missing components from the power circuitry of HIS board vs AMD reference design http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/10/30/his-ati-rad...