There are many el'cheapo meters that can't measure the power usage of a computer because of reactance.

I've also seen similar reports like this:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... ht=lapping

If lapping can decrease the temperature by 10 degrees those processors have some serious manufacturing defects.

How can they call it silent if the fan is blowing at 1250 - 2800 rpm??? Make it 600-1200 rpm for starters. It's like you've never seen a Zalman before :P Well, I have :) I have a so called silent CNPS7000-Cu in my computer at 5V and it is the loudest noise source I have. It is just stupid that they...

How can they call it silent if the fan is blowing at 1250 - 2800 rpm??? Make it 600-1200 rpm for starters.

GentleGiant wrote:I'd actually suggest the Zalman CNPS 7700-AlCu, or the 7000-AlCu with Zalman's adaptor for socket 775.

I wouldn't recommend those. I have CNPS7000-Cu and the fan is really noisy. The noisiest fan in my system even at 5 volts. Buy Ninja Plus and run the included fan at 5V. It should be silent.

There is also Antivir, a free and powerful antivirus program. It did very well in a recent comparison: http://www.virus.gr/english/fullxml/default.asp?id=82 You can get it here: http://www.free-av.com/ I have also heard that Norton is a resource hog - haven't tested though. It also didn't do very we...

1) But.. Isnt the numbers with the 7900GTX card and everything? I thought a very high power supply was needed for that.. not a 300W one. That is what PSU manufacturers want you to believe. (Ok, 7900 series consumes less power than ATI's high end cards, but anyway). And remember that those number we...

Ninja is not discontinued. I asked from Scythe and they said that they'll start selling Ninja Plus rev.B "end of this month or early next month". It will be AM2 compatible and it will have a different mounting mechanism.

If your task switching is very slow and there is heavy I/O, you must be low on RAM - no matter how much you deny it. 1GB might not be enough for latest games and a few applications (and a crowded desktop?). You could at least find out how much paging is happening while you task switch in cases it is...

i really dont like the direction of the thread. The reason for this kind of comments is simple: 1. You wanted to speed up the boot time of a computer which runs 24/7 for $400. That is not very wise thing to do - but it's your money. A cheap UPS would be a better alternative. On a 24/7 machine thing...

Its a little slow till it cache's things when i first boot up, but mostly when im playing games, and i'm "Alt-Tab'd" out of the game looking things up, or playing music, i find the interface lag is HUGE. This is an easy one. You don't need a new HD, you need more RAM. How much you have now? Double ...

It seems very odd that your reboot takes 1-2min - have you actually timed it?? Better/other alternatives: 1. Start using a Linux which can be configured. My Gentoo boots in 12-15 secs on a slowish Athlon 3000+. If you don't play games it is a viable alternative. 2. Reinstall Windows. 3. Remove all u...

I also think there is no reason to think WD is any less/more reliable than any other manufacturer. All manufacturers have had and will have unreliable units or batches but overall they all are reliable. You can see some numbers in www.storagereview.com. They conduct a reliability survey but I'm not ...

Yes, I also vote for PNG which has great features, very good support and is a free and open format. A question: did you notice any high pitch noise coming from any of the motherboards - especially Gigabyte DS3? I'm actually considering Abit AB9 Pro but I want to know the risk of getting a whining MB...

Just a reminder: raid 0 means that if one of your HDs fail, you lose all your data! Think carefully if the few % speedup is worth it...

If you will be running Linux then I’m surprised that there isn’t a utility similar to RMClock for it. I thought there was such a thing for Cool n Quiet, so I’m surprised there isn’t something for Speedstep. Unless Linux people don’t like Intel! There is the cpufreq subsystem: http://www.k...

Look at these motherboard compatibility pictures (Abit AB9 and Scythe Infinity): http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/cpu/024/scinf1000-ab9pic.html As you can see, the fan is blowing towards PSU, not towards case fan. Is it possible to rotate the HS (not just the fan) so that the fan is blowing towards...

Nah, just get the Nexus. It really is silent and widely used. It provides good airflow at high settings and is very quiet at low settings. I've seen many reports that Scythe S-Flex is not that silent and (IIRC) has some motor noise issues.

One reason for odd readings might be your PSU. If it is the US version it might not have active PFC. This will make the load seem bigger to your UPS. Still it is odd the the consumption went up.

There will always be dust. Either you can have a positive pressure case with intake filters which you clean once a month or you just vacuum clean your case once a month.

Also, there is more dust on the floor so try to keep your case slightly above floor level.

I have no experience on any of those coolers, but a few thoughts: 1. If you want a very quiet computer, Ninja and Ultra 120 will perform better than Freezer as seen in the reviews. It seems that Ultra 120 is even better than Ninja. Sadly there is no data on passive operation. However Nexus 120mm fan...

Listing a 3800+ (2.4GHz) with 4.64W power draw is misleading as it is probably running at 0.9V, 100MHz HTT x 5 mode. Why is it misleading? When a processor is doing nothing it is quite clever for it to undervold and underclock itself. I'm surprised why C2D has so "high" idle power consumption. It c...

Ok, see my thread, there is already one C2D motherboard suggestion which you could add here

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=33424

This still looks inferior to (say) beQuiet! Polar Freezer. PF is very efficient if you open a few PCI slots near the video card. That forces the air to blow directly on the heat sinks. PF also has a very large HS very close to GPU. Maybe the heat transfers better? It would be nice to see actual comp...

EsaT wrote:Here's one review of S12-650E+

http://www.pcstats.com/ArtVNL.cfm?articleid=1995&page=1

I think they are mixing efficiency and power factor...

I agree. It was a nice review but had a few shortcomings: 1. You should always make sure that you are measuring the right thing. In this case the results should be verified by measuring the heatsink temperature with an external thermometer. I don't know where the MB sensor was located so I don't kno...

jharne wrote:No (Sorry I'm very tired and couldn't resist)

Np This is just information that very hard to find and it would benefit all who want to build a silent computer. Core 2 Duos seem to work well when undervolted - we just need to know which MBs allow us to undervolt.

This is the thread about motherboards which allow undervolting of Core 2 Duo processors (socket 775). Please post this information:


1. Motherboard manufacturer and the precise model.
2. Vcore minimum / Vcore maximum / smallest step.
3. BIOS version number.
4. The motherboard has a fan/is fanless.

Efficiency? Is this website called EPCR? Efficiency Personal Computer Review or is this all about Silence? I thought the priority was #1 silence above all things. As long as my computer works, and it works perfect, flawlessly and entirely stable with the latest hardware, and is very very very quiet...

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail - $178 after MIR I wouldn't bother. Going from DDR2 533 to DDR2 800 gives you maybe 1-3% performance boost on average. You will never ever notice that. And at least here DDR2 533 is ...