Search found 285 matches

by mentawl
Thu Jul 07, 2011 1:54 pm
Forum: Quiet Prebuilt, SFF and Barebones Systems
Topic: Imac 27" 2011 + Vortex 3
Replies: 5
Views: 4387

Re: Imac 27" 2011 + Vortex 3

AFAIK, the problem isn't from the point of view of the SMART report from the drive, but rather that the Apple drives are actually custom-built with an extra 2-pin temperature connector that controls the fan. I've heard it mentioned that you can use an external thermal sensor of some sort to solve th...
by mentawl
Thu Jun 16, 2011 4:49 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Ultra low power 24/7 box
Replies: 5
Views: 2702

Re: Ultra low power 24/7 box

A much cheaper option with similar hardware to the MSI board above is the Intel D945GSEJT : http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboards/D945GSEJT/D945GSEJT-overview.htm I've run one of these for a while now - typical operating power draw is 11w with a Samsung 320gb 5400RPM laptop drive and a ...
by mentawl
Thu Jun 09, 2011 3:35 am
Forum: Watercooling
Topic: Overclocking -- Concern about Northbridge -- Watercool it?
Replies: 17
Views: 11173

Re: Overclocking -- Concern about Northbridge -- Watercool i

Aye, that's true with the new ones, but the P5N-D uses one of the nForce chipsets, last of the truly toasty consumer-grade motherboard chipsets :). The HR-05 is certainly a good idea with a chipset that prone to toastyness.
by mentawl
Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:51 am
Forum: Video Cards & Monitors
Topic: Radeon HD 4650 - Should I bother upgrading?
Replies: 13
Views: 4566

Re: Radeon HD 4650 - Should I bother upgrading?

Yeah, if you're insisting on going AMD, and are only interested in single-threaded performance, you'd probably be better going for a 3.7ghz quad-core Phenom over the 3.3ghz hex-core. I'm with the others here though - neither chip will come close to a stock Intel i5 or i7, let alone an overclocked one.
by mentawl
Mon Jun 06, 2011 3:05 am
Forum: Site Feedback
Topic: The Official Anti-Spam Thread
Replies: 31
Views: 62378

Re: The Official Anti-Spam Thread

by mentawl
Fri Jun 03, 2011 1:04 am
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: I give you the ANTEC SOLO II
Replies: 177
Views: 246872

Re: I give you the ANTEC SOLO II

Meh, I like the new design. Keeping the PSU up top keeps things compact with no stupidly long cable runs, and gives you extra exhaust over the CPU area for free. Some of you people must change PSUs on a daily basis to be annoyed by the support bar and position of the PSU! Ultimately, the Solo has al...
by mentawl
Mon May 30, 2011 4:25 am
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Whine-proofing Solo
Replies: 6
Views: 2516

Re: Whine-proofing Solo

One other thing to try is to disable EIST in the motherboard BIOS. My main PC's motherboard has really annoying electrical whine/burble unless I disable it, unfortunately :/.
by mentawl
Sun May 22, 2011 3:48 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Help with quiet, low power games / htpc machine
Replies: 13
Views: 3905

Re: Help with quiet, low power games / htpc machine

For what it's worth, I'm running a Pentium DualCore e5500 (2.8ghz) + a 5570 + laptop blu-ray drive + HDD from the 150w PSU in an Antec ISK 310-150. It provides enough power for some pretty decent 720p gaming on my TV (Bulletstorm etc is fun on a 32" screen), and the graphics card is very well behave...
by mentawl
Sun May 15, 2011 7:38 am
Forum: General Gallery
Topic: My Quad-Monitor Rackmount PC and HTPC!
Replies: 13
Views: 24677

Re: My Quad-Monitor Rackmount PC and HTPC!

Ridiculously neat setup, once again :). If I didn't have to haul my big PC out to LANs every so often, I think I'd duplicate the rackmount idea in seconds.
by mentawl
Fri May 06, 2011 3:07 am
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: mini-ITX Case for Overclocking
Replies: 4
Views: 2253

Re: mini-ITX Case for Overclocking

I'm really not that sure you'll be able to run a 2600K at 4.8ghz from a 150w Pico-PSU. A rule of thumb (approximation only) for overclocked power consumption is: Overclocked Wattage = TDP * ( Overclocked clockspeed/ Stock clockspeed) * ( Overclocked Vcore / Stock Vcore )^2 Even assuming you don't ha...
by mentawl
Wed May 04, 2011 2:48 pm
Forum: Video Cards & Monitors
Topic: HD6850 + Accelero S1 rev2 What am I doing wrong?
Replies: 12
Views: 5896

Re: HD6850 + Accelero S1 rev2 What am I doing wrong?

Did you have some decent cooling on the VRMs? Furmark is particularly brutal to them (indeed I'd hesitate to use it for testing an unknown cooling solution), and it's possible those have damaged the card by getting too hot.
by mentawl
Wed May 04, 2011 10:03 am
Forum: Newcomers Briefing Room
Topic: HTPC to replace painful Acer Aspire laptop
Replies: 14
Views: 6461

Re: HTPC to replace painful Acer Aspire laptop

For what it's worth, Hitachi HDDs are not generally known for being quiet or vibration-free. In a cheaper case like that, you may get some quite loud results from one of them.
by mentawl
Fri Apr 29, 2011 5:57 pm
Forum: Newcomers Briefing Room
Topic: HTPC to replace painful Acer Aspire laptop
Replies: 14
Views: 6461

Re: HTPC to replace painful Acer Aspire laptop

Well, clock speed isn't everything, but the E-350 is probably (at best) on a par with the old T2250 Core Duo in terms of raw CPU capability, probably a bit slower. The advantage comes from the fact that the GPU section of the E-350 can accelerate most forms of video/multimedia if set up correctly. I...
by mentawl
Tue Apr 19, 2011 3:07 pm
Forum: The Silent Front
Topic: Empty 120mm fan frame as duct = no case fan
Replies: 7
Views: 8265

Re: Empty 120mm fan frame as duct = no case fan

Makes sense. Have you tried it with the fan just mounted to the back panel, so it acts as a duct to the heatsink by itself? Or do you have a grill on the back panel still and this would therefore cause turbulence with the fan up against the grill? Could always use tape (electrical tape or, ideally, ...
by mentawl
Sun Apr 03, 2011 4:51 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Sandy Bridge + i3-2100T -- why can't I get under 22w idle?
Replies: 37
Views: 23073

Re: Sandy Bridge + i3-2100T -- why can't I get under 22w idl

So.. what gives? Can efficiencies in the PicoPSU and Intel Mobo explain the nearly 8 watt difference in our idle power consumption? Absolutely! Some of the newer Intel motherboards are truly exemplary when it comes to idle power consumption, and I wouldn't expect an Asrock to keep up in terms of ef...
by mentawl
Sat Mar 12, 2011 6:47 pm
Forum: Notebook Systems
Topic: Macbook pro's 2011
Replies: 8
Views: 11446

Re: Macbook pro's 2011

I had a new MBP for about 10 days, but ended up returning it. It ran so warm along the back left corner that it was warning up the qwerty row, making my fingers tingle if I was playing a game o.O. Also noisy as heck, even compared to my 2008 Alienware laptop! I was really quite disappointed, it bein...
by mentawl
Sat Feb 26, 2011 6:13 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Core i7-2600K outpaces Intel top of the line 6 core i7-990X
Replies: 5
Views: 3647

Re: Core i7-2600K outpaces Intel top of the line 6 core i7-9

Eh, it's not really all that surprising, is it? The Gulftown CPUs are a die-shrink of a 2-and-a-bit year old architecture, while the SB chips are less than 2 months old :). The fact it keeps up in some applications is pretty impressive I reckon! More to the point, who on earth considers a $1k CPU to...
by mentawl
Thu Dec 30, 2010 3:30 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Unofficial way to play the original WoW as a Worgen?
Replies: 5
Views: 3089

Re: Unofficial way to play the original WoW as a Worgen?

Fire-Flare wrote:I've never played the game and want to try it, but only after PAYING $70-100 can I play as the race that interests me most.

Anyone know a way around that?
Nope. You want the content, you gotta pay for it, unfortunately =/
by mentawl
Tue Dec 28, 2010 7:54 am
Forum: Newcomers Briefing Room
Topic: Might be out of my league
Replies: 48
Views: 23300

Re: Might be out of my league

Have you made sure the stock fan is being thermally controlled, rather than being at 100% all the time? On the Power-->Hardware Monitor page in the BIOS, make sure that Smart Q-Fan is enabled.
by mentawl
Fri Dec 24, 2010 4:23 pm
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: sata dvd-drive in older computer
Replies: 7
Views: 1774

Re: sata dvd-drive in older computer

If it is a Dimension 2400, you're out of luck with a SATA device, unfortunately - IDE only.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... /specs.htm
by mentawl
Mon Dec 06, 2010 3:40 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Case recommendation. Tempted to get Fractal Design Define R3
Replies: 12
Views: 4698

Re: Case recommendation. Tempted to get Fractal Design Defin

Bear in mind that it's going to be impossible to reduce the noise of 9 HDDs substantially, as there are no cases that I know of that allow you to properly suspend that many HDDs while also muffling the airborne noise of them :/. I mean you are simply wrong: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Nine_Suspen...
by mentawl
Sat Dec 04, 2010 4:39 am
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Case recommendation. Tempted to get Fractal Design Define R3
Replies: 12
Views: 4698

Re: Case recommendation. Tempted to get Fractal Design Defin

Bear in mind that it's going to be impossible to reduce the noise of 9 HDDs substantially, as there are no cases that I know of that allow you to properly suspend that many HDDs while also muffling the airborne noise of them :/. I have nothing to say against the R3, but you need to understand that a...
by mentawl
Wed Nov 10, 2010 2:38 am
Forum: Video Cards & Monitors
Topic: Need new GPU card, not a gamer but something decent
Replies: 7
Views: 3494

Re: Need new GPU card, not a gamer but something decent

Hrm, Photoshop and Illustrator tend to make quite good use of the features of nVidia cards for acceleration purposes. A fanless GT210 would probably do quite well, and nullify any loud-fan issues :). Something like this:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Search.aspx?q=LN29349
by mentawl
Tue Oct 05, 2010 12:31 pm
Forum: Deals, Vendors and Classifieds
Topic: Where to buy Silicone Feet for Antec P182?
Replies: 3
Views: 2653

I'm sure Antec would sell you a spare set of feet if you sent them in a little request via their temporary parts form at http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/Events/us/EuStore/ . I did that to purchase a P183 side panel, and while the setup is a little more ad-hoc than I'd like, I got the panel very quic...
by mentawl
Sun Oct 03, 2010 3:24 am
Forum: The Silent Front
Topic: "best" temp monitoring software
Replies: 9
Views: 10736

I like http://openhardwaremonitor.org/ . Same interface as HWMonitor, but it's free. Can setup temp indicators for the task bar, as well as configure a little Win7 gadget. Considering it's still in beta, it's very neat, and has made its way onto my thumbdrive for PC fixin' :).
by mentawl
Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:39 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Help with speed of wd20ears - 00mvwb0 on win xp
Replies: 4
Views: 3781

Yeah, did you make sure to follow the WD instructions for Advanced Format HDDs? As Jasper says, it's very important for these drives to achieve their rated speeds on an old XP system.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/advancedformat/
by mentawl
Thu Sep 30, 2010 9:29 am
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: 120mm x 38mm fans
Replies: 3
Views: 2236

I'd probably go for one of the Scythe Ultra Kaze 120*120*38 fans - I believe they do 1k, 2k and 3k rpm versions. http://www.amazon.com/Scythe-ULTRA-KAZE-DFS123812L-2000-120x120/dp/B001JI01PQ That's the 2k rpm version - I own one, and while it's definitely not silent at full tilt, it's very smooth an...
by mentawl
Sun Sep 26, 2010 3:10 am
Forum: General Gallery
Topic: Is the Solo too small for my build? ( heat issues?)
Replies: 5
Views: 4313

Re: Is the Solo too small for my build? ( heat issues?)

If they are aware that this small case causes overheating issues, why not make it slightly larger so everyone is happy. I'm kinda intrigued, I've not heard of the case causing overheating issues really. I've owned a Solo, and if anything the cooling on it was actually a little better than my P183 -...
by mentawl
Fri Sep 10, 2010 2:09 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Looking for a TRULY silent drive for an 'open' pc case.
Replies: 9
Views: 4684

Low capacity SSD is the only way to go for absolute silence. Depending on capacity required, there are a goodly number of options.