I'm very much comfortable voiding my warranty and taking calculated risks with my hardware. Any time you run a fan at less than 12V, or undervolt a processor, you run hardware outside of its specifications. It would be better to connect the three yellow wires on the PCIe-to-Molex adaptor, but in my ...

Well, a limitation of solid-state storage devices is they have a limited number of writes. If I were to install Windows on one, the sectors where the swap file and log files are located would eventually die. So the ramdisk is needed for swap files and log files. Plus, it's faster than CF, which is s...

I want to boot windows from a CF card (or SD; whichever is faster and cheaper). The computer has 2GB RAM, three hard drives, and a USB CF and SD reader. I need to do these four things: 1. Boot Windows off the CF card. 2. Create ramdisk in system memory. 3. Copy c:\Windows, c:\pagefile.sys, etc. to t...

Yeah, it boots without a problem and RTHDRIBL (stressful 3D app) runs fine. And look, I can plug in two IDE devices now!

Conclusion: The PNY GeForce 7800 GT only needs one of the two molecies plugged in.

Of course that's what the instructions say. And it's sound advice if it's not difficult for you to follow. But is two the minimum number of required molecies? I can tell you my GF7800GT runs fine, drawing its power from such an adaptor. I've plugged both of the molecies on the same string (the PSU o...

If $100 is more like it, I'll sell you my AGP GeForce 6800, which I ran passively using the VM-101 video cooler, and I'm sure you'd have no trouble running it with a similar, large, heatpiped cooler. I was happy with the 6800 - it played Oblivion (at low detail) on my Athlon XP 2000+. It's a nice an...

I suspect you and I have a different idea of what "silence" means, Mr. McFlmjig. To me, it means that the computer can not be heard, even when one stops and strains to hear, from where the user sits. It's hard to make 145W silent by that definition. If you take a second look, I think you'll see this...

He wanted to exit PC gaming. He feels his 2GHz P4 rig serves him better, being cooler, more reliable, and perfectly adequate. At some point, you decide you have too many PCs, and you get rid of a few of them. Me, I've got five computers in my room, and I only have use for three of them. Yes, I'm gra...

A friend gave me his old PC, with an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ and a GeForce 7800GT. The PC also had a WD Caviar in the throes of death, an AMD retail cooler packed with dust, and an Antec PSU that buzzed loudly even at standby. I've removed all three of those troublesome parts. The CPU and GPU aren't comp...

I'm suprised at the high power consumption of very large LCDs. If I understand correctly, the backlights of LCDs are fluorescent, which typically operate at 20% efficiency (versus 9% for halogens and 5% for incandescent). In which case, there's little that could be done to reduce power consumption s...

A machine with efficiency>100% violates the first law of thermodynamics: energy must be conserved. A heat engine with efficiency > (1-Tcold/Thot) violates the the second law of thermodynamics: entropy can be created but not destroyed. It's a firm physical law, and any machine in violation is a perpe...

I was hoping to see pics of its insides. How big are its heatsinks? Any pipes? Are graphics on a daughtercard? Does it look like a PC inside? Like nici, I dislike the Way-Too-White high-gloss design. While reading the article, thoughts about improving the looks with a can of flat black spray paint c...

My Antec TruePower 500 buzzes horribly, even in Standby mode. Unacceptable, even to mainstream computer users. While researching the matter, I came to the conclusion that a large percentage of Antec PSUs buzz (based on reports from other SPCRers). So, send it back and get something that's not an Ant...

The CWT PSU is unimpressive. It's got tiny little heatsinks. The top third of the PSU is vacant (enough room for a 120mm fan in there!). The cables are only just long enough for my purposes, and there are arguably too few of them. Worst, it's rated for 68% efficiency at full load. Nevertheless, I to...

Have you thought about moving the radiator outside, or to the attic, for summer? That would be really cool.

According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the maximum efficiency for a heat engine such as this one is (1-Tc/Th) where Th and Tc are the hot and cold Temps in Kelvins. Thus, sandwiching a Carnot Engine (nothing has better efficiency than a Carnot Engine) between a 100W CPU at 75°C and a Ninja ...

I have a quiet system that draws 75W at the wall at idle, 145W under load. Excluding the power supply, it's got two Recommended hard drives, and two low-speed 12cm fans. So it's easy to hear even faint coil whine, and that high-pitched squealing is annoying. I modded both my Antec SmartPower 500 and...

The Ninja is said to be 665g. That sounds heavy on paper, but the weight is biased towards the copper base. It feels really light. Came with the right brackets. The amount of force required to attach a heatsink (be it the AMD retail or the Ninja) to my CPU did seem large, especially compared to the ...

Passive X2 4400+ here. My Ninja just arrived today. I knew it was going to be large, but I'm astonished at how tall it is. I measured 155mm from my motherboard's PCB to the top of the Ninja. My mobo + risers are 1cm thick, so I need 165cm between motherboard tray and left case wall. Based on a few o...

I find if you leave a lot of background tasks running (like most people do), some program or service will want to read some file or write to its log, and it's really hard to get the hard drive to which Windows is installed to stay spun down. Even opening Windows Explorer and pointing it at My Comput...

From what I've read, I would expect 10MB/s transfer rate. That's pretty slow. I wonder if it would make using Windows, Firefox, and Office unbearable. But I can buy a 2GB flash drive for $40 (which is cheaper than internal CF drives), and you'd be hard pressed to beat the power consumption and noise...

By what method did you measure CFM?

I second ATW's request for a plot, or perhaps a .xls file from which I can plot flow vs. noise. Alternately, maybe a table with entries for each fan @10CFM.

Sincerely,
Brian

Arrikhan, I'm very happy with this aftermarket cooler I installed. It uses heatpipes to move heat to the north side of the card. It does require a bit of forced airflow, but much less than the stock cooler did. Without a fan, the GPU reached 105°C, and the air below the card smelled way too hot and...

Kudos. Once your power meter arrives, you can begin optimizing your PCs' power consumption. Actually, your power meter looks pretty sophisticated compared to mine. Despite its limitations, my homemade power meter is indispensable. If you're like me, you'll end up pulling your discrete sound card in ...

I've read many reports of people who consider the stock cooler on the 8800 to be quiet, but I have to be skeptical. I've seen a few almost quiet <60mm fans, but none quiet enough for my PCs (even the non-silent ones). Besides, the huge power consumption of the 8800 will force you to buy a bigger PSU...

The also built a kiosk in the library that overlooks the solar panels. Turns out they run several PV cells in series, and it's something like 180VDC they run down to the inverters inside the building. I'm willing to bet that 180VDC -> AC -> 12VDC is less efficient than 180VDC -> 12VDC. However, I ad...

Pic added. AZBrandon, that is some very impressive data. You were able to cut 10W and 10°C without a loss in performance. Maybe I'll try that. I really do like this heatsink since it brings the heat around to the top side of the card. The heatpipes are working: the heatsink's fins are hot enough to...

Great that a friend gave me used hardware that he was done with. However, now I have to figure out how to silently cool this 60W beast. My first attempt: removed the AeroCool VM-101 (wraparound HS with two pipes) from my GeForce 6800, applied it to the G7.8. Temperatures exceeded 95°C before I pull...

http://www.buffalo.edu/UBT/features/energy.html My first reaction was "hey, cool!". Then I read the details. $800k of photovoltaics putting out 100kW of power. Then the power will be converted to AC, and fed into the grid. It'll provide 6% of the building's power consumption. Photovoltaics produce ...

Yes, but add shipping and it's $80. Still an okay deal. I can beat that price, though. I have a 400MHz Celeron that I found by the roadside on garbage day. I dropped it in a custom cellulose case, added $19 in parts, and now it's quieter than my monitor. Of course, your mom can't build a custom card...