You could pull the card and activate onboard sound. If everything plays nicely, reinsert the card and try again. If there is no sound, the card is probably dead.

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116950 Pentium G3220, just 10$ more MoBo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157451 ASRock H81M-ITX, 30$ less, which leaves room for 8GB RAM or a different case. The Gigabyte is thin itx, no need to pay more for thin.

If you need FreeBSD and Windows7 (won't recommend 8.1, personal dislike) then the most logical way would be install one and virtualize the other. It doesn't matter which one you pick as a host, AFAIK there are pretty good solutions for either. If you want to play a game or two, I'd install Win7 and ...

Well, if SSDs do wear out at some point in consumer pc use can be a interesting topic. But don't you have to backup often and regularly, no matter which HDD or SSD your running? So with the exception of premature hardware failure, which would be covered by warranty, i fail to see the drama behind we...

http://geizhals.de/asrock-q1900dc-itx-9 ... 11762.html

German price search page.

Lieferung in weitere Länder auf Anfrage.

means something like Delivery to other countries on request.

That's really odd: my experience (not that wide, a few cards, to be fair) is exactly the contrarian one, any graphic card which worked well with SpeedFan was an AMD Radeon one, and I didn't find any HD 7000-series which didn't worked well with SpeedFan (3 out of 3). Obviously, YMMV (and as noted by...

Actually, a 7750 or R7 could be cooled with any decent 80/92mm fan@5V. Take a 92mm Noctua for example, if i remember correctly, some people said they won't notice this fan inside their case even when running @7V. So why control something you cannot hear anyway? Seb_Rad (?) said nearly the same about...

quest_for_silence wrote:In case, a fan tied onto the very same graphic card would be more probably that not more effective and less noisy than any intake fan.

True. But then i could not brag about using a fanless gpu

@dhanson865

You're totally right about the speed-thing. The difference is huge.

The question is, in everyday consumer use, who would notice those differences and in which scenario? Most people won't, that is my experience so far.

I'd start with 1 outtake and no intake. Using intake fans only had three reasons in the past: - you need some air breathing over your HDDs - your front intake surface is severly restricted - you run positive pressure setup Since you run a R4 for a case, air flow should be fine without any intake. I ...

@Luca

thanks for the enlightment. One of the reason to stay and participate here: You'll learn something new every day

I have a few questions: -why Server2012? Cost you an awful lot more and i fail to see any advantage -as sugested, soundcards can deliver a certain quality, if you want more, get an external DAC -SSD size for OS seems outdated, 256 GB is affordable. 128GB for Server2012 seems a bit low btw. -all that...

german review, ignore everthing say they about noise

seems a bit starved on the intake and probably virbration prone. But good looks

In the beginning, yes Asrock has been a subsidiary of Asus respectively Pegatron. But if I remember correctly, the bond between those companies has been cut and nowadays Asrock is an independent company, at least no ties to Asus any more. Edit: Asrock belonged to Asus and now belongs to Pegatron, wh...

Asrock bashing is so 90ties, dating back to the K7S5A. This one seemed to run either forever or not at all. But Asrock products have proven to be on par with the contenders in recent years, so don't let yourself get fooled by those who did not pay attention the last 3 or so years. If it was my build...

Take a look at Asrock's offering: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97E-ITXac/index.us.asp Intel NIC, good fan control afaik and is in the same price range, at least in germany. CPU socket better placed than on the MSI boards. I'll doubt that you will be able to fit anything larger than a TX2 on those...

Well, since it is an mATX case, taking no ATX board isn't surprising, but if you require an ATX case, then I picked the wrong one. I guess if you do not plan on using an overly large GPU, this case can be made somehow quiet, but not as easy as other proven silent cases. As always, choosing good look...

You're right, but it's sooo cute

I like the Aerocool DS.

http://www.aerocool.com.tw/index.php/ch ... nformation

Cost a little bit more, but i like the looks and the compact size. Still only one 5,25 in front.

Just want to add that you should go with the LP-version of your RAM. Those RAMs with a "cooler" do not add any value except for the marketing dept, they may cause trouble when mounting cooler or CPU fan.

If you do a quick format of your ssd you should be fine to proceed for the new install.No secure erase needed and no performance loss or windows trouble. After all, W7 is far better than XP and really stable and robust AFAIK.

The PNY OPTIMA ssds get bashed for delivering with a Silicon Motion controller in test samples but shipping with a LSI Sandforce in customer sold models. Stay away from it. PNY simply states that both controllers would deliver "the minimum speeds" advertised, but sadly PNY does not state min. speeds...

Try the following:

Right click unallocated space, create partition, check size, format NTFS, add drive letter.

To initialize you need to right click on the first box, where the drive info is located, not unallocated space.

Well, I wouldn't call that a "design", a "map", a "feature": rather, either a bug, or sort of a computer implementation of the omnipotence paradox. But exactly this is todays reality: APUs seem to fail for those who game. That in theory they are pretty powerful doesn't matter if real world FPS or s...

There's one question left:

Who will game with a FM2/FM2+ cpu? And which games will run?

If you chip in a dedicated GPU, then any i5 or i3 + Mobo combination will yield better performance and probably lower energy consumption. What is it i'm not seeing here?

I'm sorry to read that the Advance has disappointed. The non-advanced did fairly well for the price and i have build one that is fairly quite, but not silent. Some testing showed that the GPU temps improved when removing the slot cover beneath and blocking the mesh parts of the side panels with card...

The Vegas and the Apollish are essentially the same fans as in http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1280-page5.htm (T.B. Silence product line) Haven't read anything about the Cluster before, but it is derived from the Twister product line, which was tested as noisy with audible bearing noise. The Tw...

If the Enermax are ruled out, there are no more options left. Every other LED fan i have heard of is more noisy than any Scythe.

You might get away with some chinese LED strips from ebay or something similar from case modding shops.

If you pair Kaveri with a GPU, does it still make any sense compared to an i3/same GPU? Intel used to charge more for the CPU, but will equally consume less power when taxed. With former AMD APUs, the i3 was the overall winner in performance and efficiency, but lost out in the price department. How ...

You might feel to get involved according to viewtopic.php?f=32&t=64958

Wouldn't be a cheap shot tbh, but could cut down waiting-till-review-time drastically