But the coup de grace has to be the transplantation of the stock NB cooler to the MCP chip. That just cracks me up. He's not trying to overclock his surround sound, is he? If you check the Abit USA Nforce forum you'll find several posts from NF7-S users who swear that cooling the MCP-T southbridge ...

If you did have an incredibly flat surface due to lapping wouldn't you not need to have thermal compound? If the CPU surface and HSF were perfectly flat you would have perfect metal to metal contact and would need no thermal compound. Since I've never seen a perfect CPU surface, there's no way I wo...

No url, no scientific backing, but I know the theory. A slightly uneven surface gets metal to metal contact on the ridges, with the thermal compound filling voids at the valleys. Too perfect a finish eliminates those microscopic ridges and thereby eliminates any direct metal to metal contact and lea...

[quote="darkroom]I found a tool called a case nibbling tool and was thinking of trying that for cutting out the rear grill. Anyone know if this tool is easier/better than tin snips?[/quote] IMHO a sheet metal nibbler is far superior to tin snips bothin ease of use and in the appearance of the finish...

One additional consideration, especially in this age of 10 Kilowatt car stereos and 18" woofers is good old hearing damage. They're not bothered by the noise because they just can't hear it! Hearing loss tends to be frequency specific (at least at first) so the whine that bugs the s**t out of you ma...

On the other hand, I've got an All In Wonder card, and I'm planning to try recording and editing movies at some point. From what I gather, that's every bit as intensive as 3D gaming, so maybe the extra power would be advantageous after all. Depending on the application, you may find your hard drive...

The source is somewhat dated, but check out this link for some good info on Athlon XP production codes. Remember, heat production varies as the square of CPU core voltage, so small differences in core voltage can make a significant difference in temperature. Also, some consider the 1700+ and 1800+ D...

What about all the intricate folding of flat 80-wire IDE cables that some members around here do, in order to clean up the interior of their cases? Does folding 80-wire IDE cables also perhaps allow data corruption? Crosstalk is from inductive coupling between parallel conductors. Ground wire betwe...

For those of us with a SLK3700, what do we do when the cheap, plastic latch breaks off of the door? Anyone run across this problem or is it just me that has lousy luck? :roll: No worse luck than some of us with the cheap plastic door on the Sonata. AFAIK, Antec is the only source for a replacement ...

Next is a layer of 'rubberized asphalt adhesive back' which is about 40 mil thick. Oh boy, when I saw it today at the hardware store it was just a roll and it appeared to be maybe 3mm thick. 40 mil? How could you you get your case back onto the machine 40 mil = 4 cm of junk on it! That's probably a...

I have heard some people say that they did it by touching a hot soldering iron to the heatshrink, but I have never tried that myself. It works, but it's difficult to get a smooth shrink with an iron. Since appearance is the primary reason to sleeve the wires in the first place, better to use a heat...

Gooserider wrote: Agreed, though you might want to be cautious about those. At least some I've seen are real scorchers, just about like an 'electric blowtorch'.

Good point. Definitely watch the temp rating on the gun. It's no help to shrink your ends if you melt through the sleeving.

Heat guns are also available in paint section of hardware/building supply stores. More reasonably priced than in most electronics stores. I've even seen them in the paint aisle of WalMart.