If you have a GOOD air compressor, I would also suggest taking a look at air powered grinders. Harbor Freight usually sells a little pencil job that takes 1/16" shaft bits and works great for fine detail work. It is about the size of a fat ballpoint pen and is much easier to work with than a clunky ...

I've found Stanley tools to be a very mixed bag quality wise. Some of there stuff is OK a little of it is great, but some of it is real cheesy. My general opinion is that it is on average towards the upper end of 'consumer grade' and the lower end of 'pro grade' IMHO one can often find better tools ...

No refs, but there have been some reports of PSU's w/ 7volt setups doing the big smoke show... Mostly these have been cheapo supplies that were probably not that great a quality to begin with. In essence the problem is that the PSU is designed with the 5 and 12 volt supplies supposedly seperated and...

First off, anti-corrosives help, and I would reccomend they be used in ANY system, including one that is nominally not mixed. However they only SLOW corrosion DOWN, they don't stop it. The more potentially corrosive the system is (more mixed metals) the faster the anticorrosive ingredients will 'wea...

Basic idea is sound, and I think I've seen others do something similar and report that it worked. A few thoughts though... 1. I would probably split the above water section of the tube to increase the air exposure of the tube interior. Drilling holes in the tube won't do much for air circulation. 2....

DANGER - DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!! The theory is simple, the implementation is more complex, among other things you will need a VERY high voltage power supply - probably on the order of 10-30 KV, approx what you will find on the 2nd anode of a TV, or an automotive sparkplug wire. These kind of voltage...

I find the 12v to 5.5v resistor that comes with some zalman products rather pointless compared to pluging the fan into the 5 volt line, plus it broke. Could I cut of 2/3 of it and reatach it together to make it into a 10 volt adapter? NO! dit: how stupid of me, it's not a "12v to 5.5v resistor". I ...

However be sure not to exceed any power limits (amps) on that lead. Probably not an issue since it's a PSU, but probably wouldn't hurt to check the documentation to make sure.

Gooserider

Rad shops can certainly clean out a core, but the cost may be as much or more than a new core. Alternatively if you can find a way to recirculate HOT water through it, you may be able to get it pretty clean with a commercial radiator flush product. I wouldn't worry about using tap water in the core,...

Leakycar.com used to be a good place to get rads online I've heard (never did business with them but their site looked good), however I've heard they may have chenged lately - don't know. However your local autoshop is also a good place to check out. Best thing to do if you can is figure out exactly...

1) Show me a way of not mixing metals in water cooling Careful component selection - Cu/brass rad, Cu blocks, plastic bodied pump, etc. Cu and brass mix safely, and so do the solders used to put them together. 2) I've been using this typhoon bay res for a while with no problem and i really havent s...

It doesn't matter where you put the cooling on a hard drive to any significant degree. The platters inside circulate HUGE amounts of air, and will rapidly conduct any heat from hot spots to wherever the coolest part of the drive is. (basic mechanisms of thermal transfer)

Gooserider

Wumpus, there is NO NEED for a total rebuild so long as you aren't mixing metals and are willing to just do a periodic *sol flush! All reports I've seen are that the *sol blend is not harmful to WC plumbing and such for short periods of time, and will kill and dissolve all the nasty goop so that no ...

Before putting everything together, I would reccomend doing a bunch of 'bucket tests' to evaluate flow rate. The basic rule is that the faster the flow through the blocks, the more cooling you get, so doing flow rate tests to find arrangement that gives the best flow rate for a given bunch of compon...

Depends on the silicone (check MFG specs...) but probably not - most are designed for reasonably hight temp applications, and will stand up to boiling water temps. There are few things in a PC that should get that hot, so it shouldn't be a problem. The only thing to be wary of is that you need to be...

Try using a rubber strap wrench on the backplate - should give more torque. If that doesn't work, a chisel at a near tangent with a big hammer will break most anything loose if isn't welded....

Gooserider

Nice design but GROSS OVERKILL! A hard drive puts out less than 20W MAXIMUM, and either a side or a top cooler will do all that is needed to take care of it. Putting the drive in a box won't get it significantly hotter as pretty much any sort of cooler will get the heat away well enough. Gooserider

1. There is a thread on ProCooling deals with this, reccomended was '*-sol blend for cleaning (a mix of Pine-sol, Lysol and water) followed with a fairly complex coolant formula that seemed to do a good job as a biocide and anti-corrosive. 2. I have seen copper sulfate reccomended AGAINST as a corro...

Plastic to metal junctions can be tricky (read: prone to leaks) if not done with just the right plastics and adhesives, under just the right conditions. You might be better off to try making your res out of all copper plate and/or sheet soldered together. The basic idea sounds reasonable to me howev...

Forget just where, but I've seen car rads used, reportedly they work pretty well. Keep in mind that the temp profiles you are dealing with in a comp WC system are alot different than what you would have in the apps that any of these products are intended to be used for by the MFG, so experimentation...

Just as a comment, the stuff I've seen on parallel pumps suggests they are bad news unless they are in completely independent loops (In which case it is debatable whenter they should be considered parallel) The problem gets worse the closer the pump's I/O fittings are to each other, with the worst c...

Looks like a collection of 2nd or 3rd rate products put together in a cosmetically attractive but functionally poor design. 1. They mix metals, thus are asking for corrosion problems. 2. Bay res's have a reported tendency for leakage. 3. Hydor pumps have a mixed reputation at best. Semi-hard mountin...

Air blowing through a rad will only be increased in temp by 1-2*C at most. A rad is going to do the best cooling job when it has the lowest possible temp air going through it, which is normally room ambient, ideally from near the floor. So long as you can get unobstructed airflow through it, you are...

If you want to dismantle a fan in a slightly less destructive manner, consider the following... Designs differ, but in general, there is a label on either the fixed or rotating hub (or both). Peeling off the correct label will reveal the fan shaft which will have some sort of retaining clip on it. S...

Here's a late vote for saying to skip the tape and go with an adhesive product, such as a silicone rubber or equivalent. Put your sensor where it belongs, then put a blob of goop over it to hold it in place. I have also heard good things about epoxies, or even superglues. Watch out for adhesives wit...

As mentioned, Gizzo's site is based only on MFG specs. If the MFG is, shall we say, 'optimistic' about their specs, then Gizzo's site will be as well - remember the old computing law - Garbage in = Garbage out! Also his site only lists full voltage performance, but most folks on SPCR undervolt their...

There is a much bigger one - It doesn't work under Linux judging by the description! I have no real interest in having to build a Windows box just to program the thing! Also I was wondering if there is any provision for monitoring temps and fan speeds on an ongoing basis - preferably w/ an external ...

Hmmm.... Looking at the pictures, the NMT-2 seems to have the thermal sensor sticking out in the airflow, which IMHO is a bit of a limitation. Has anyone tried splicing a chunk of wire into the sensor leads so that you could relocate the sensor (say by putting it on the object you are trying to cool...

Re temperature questions in the FAQ's on various areas - I think some mention should be made in each area. Probably not a full dissertation, since as was mentioned, there aren't always a lot of temp questions in a given forum, but at least pointing out the relevant temp related issues that a newbie ...

FWIW, I've found USRobotics hardware modems to be high quality and as reliable as they get. I do prefer external modems now, after a long time preferring internals, I find the lights are handy for diagnostics, and it is slightly safer for the PC - lower risk of damage in case of lightning or other b...