Here's a sample for you from Newegg: Thank you very much for the recommendations! I was also looking at the Antec NSK-3480, so the case is probably a keeper. Yep, 2GB RAM will be plenty. I won't be running VISTA. I'm thinking of probably installing Ubuntu, as I haven't played with Linux much, but I...

Intel E5200 2.5GHz Wolfdale dual-core is only $73. I'll look further into the AMD graphics chipsets. Thanks for the tip. I'm just getting started researching this build, so I could go any way with it. System cost isn't the prime concern, but I would like to keep it under $400 w/o monitor. That's loo...

I'd like to assemble a small system that will reside in my music practice room where I spend a couple hours a day practicing guitar and keyboards. I'll be using it exclusively for web browsing, playing online Flash tutorials and instructional DVDs. It will run either Linux or Windows XP Pro. I need ...

I bought an Arctic Fan 9 and an Arctic Fan 12. The 9 is mounted on a Thermalright XP-90 CPU heatsing to cool an AMD A64 X2 3800+ and the 12 replaced an Antec Tri Speed fan in a P150 case. The Arctic Fan 12 appeared to cause intermittant system crashes in XP when connected to the motherboard system ...

I'm planning on replacing my 36gb raptor with the new 150, that much is certain...when I'll have the money, well, I can wait. What I am willing to spend is money on a high capacity storage drive. I'm torn between 3 drives, the Seagate 7200.9, WD Caviar RE2, and WD Caviar SE16. The RE2 and SE16 seem...

Well, 10% faster than 1500 is 1650. I won't argue about an extra 50RPM from 12.4V, so we're up to 1700. Bring it here to Klamath Falls (4100 ft elevation) and I guarantee over 1750RPM. And the fan would still be in spec! :D Say, do you live in Denver? A long time ago I spent a year in Santa Fe NM, ...

I just built a new system with a 10k WD Raptor 74GB as the main system drive. The case is an Antec TX-635, with the usual removable three-drive bay that has become ubiquitous in so many cases in this family. The noise I'm hearing is seek noise, not whine and reverberated throughout the case - it sou...

Is it unusual to see that kind of variation on a fan's speed? My 12V rail is reading about 12.4V, so that could account for about about 50rpm. The fan is a Nexus 80mm spec'd at 1500rpm that I'm using as an intake fan in my front drive bay. It's connected to a 3pin header on the mobo and the speed is...

jj - that's just crying out for a side panel duct. Dremel, bit of thin foam and some cardboard and you'll have nice cool air for your CPU :) The case actually has a duct - one of those extendable jobs, but it had to be removed just to clear the heat/fan assembly. There's also a second, smaller open...

I just installed an SI-120 tonight. Here's a potential problem that I haven't seen mentioned: The heatsink is so tall that once you mount a fan on it, particularly a 38mm thick fan, there may not be much room between the top of the fan and the case's side panel. I'm no engineer, but I would think th...

What's the difference between these fans, besides RPM monitoring?

After the second NeoHE (A3 at s/n label, s/n starting 0512) that do behave badly, as it requires much more than stated 1A @ +12V line to power on Ah, the saga continues. Stay tuned, I'm sure the A5 or A6 or A107 revision will _really_ be fixed. In the meantime, follow these 15 easy steps to RMA you...

This summary’s objective is to clear up any confusion pertaining to Antec’s NeoHE power supply series compatibility issues that have come up, as well as some other points. Maybe it's just me, but I've read this post several times and it's _still_ not at all clear whether or not Antec is confident t...

Consider an NAS instead of rolling your own. Check out Infrant and Thecus, both of whom have four-drive NASs. Thecus is also coming out with a five drive NAS. Thecus NASs are based on a storage platform that Intel is offering and I think we'll soon see a lot more consumer storage offerings built on ...

Thanks, guys. I'm leaning toward the XP-90, having come to pretty much the same conclusion over the weekend. I'm putting an SI-120 into the new Athlon 64 X2 rig, so the XP-90 looks good. The retail package looks like a fairly good deal, but I suppose I'll have to be prepared for the fan to be less t...

And , we're talking about TDP, mostly much higher than you ever will get your CPU to use, even in worst case. And , max TDP is even less important now when we've got individual TDP . Ok, then how about a (hopefully) simple question. Given that you have a choice from a vendor selling two parts: Athl...

I didn't know until today that you can buy both the steel and copper north bridge heat pipes direct from ASUS for $15 for either one. http://estore.asus.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=2535&catid=136 Apparently they fit the entire series of ATX sized A8N boards. This means that you could replace the north ...

I'm building a new system but will probably keep the system below, so I'm looking for a quiet, fairly inexpensive (under $30 with fan) CPU cooler for the skt 478 P4 3.0 Northwood in the system shown below.

My first thought is a Zalman 7000 AlCu. Any better choices at that price?

Greetings, As the new, proud owner of an E4 X2 4200+, I'll point out the 89w and the 110w numbers are for the maximum on the fastest speed of any of the models at that stepping. I'm able to undervolt mine to 1.275v (but not to 1.25v), so at .075v below the stock 1.35, I am able to run it "passively...

I just found the two processors being sold in retail packaging side-by-side at ZipZoomFly with a $7 price difference. http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductList.jsp?ThirdCategoryCode=010423 The only discrepancy is that while AMD shows them as having the same part number when in retail packaging, ZipZ...

AMD refined the 90nm process for their CPUs. Now there is less electron leakage which means that less heat is created as a result of inefficiency. That's basically it. It don't think there is a huge price premium between the 110w and 89w versions of the same CPU. Consider this a small product refre...

How about off to the _side_ of the desk so that you don't have to remove any drawers?

There's also this Via C3 contraption for $102. Comes with the 800mhz C3, takes DDR and has 2 pata and 2 sata controllers. Add ram, hard drives and a wireless adapter. Not too shabby. Reviewed here. And it received pretty positive review on newegg. Nice find. The VIA barebones sounds ideal. A case, ...

Hi Jay, another Squeezebox user here. Where does the server need to reside in your home? There's a need for making a desktop computer silent because it's almost always in the same room as the user. There's a need to make an HTPC silent for the same reason and the fact that you're likely to be listen...

Confusing... what's the difference between these two CPUs? The lower numbered X2s, the 4200+ and 3800+ each have two versions (all 89w) based on either E4 or E6 steppings. I belive the latter have Toledo cores with 1/2 the cache disabled, vs. Manchester cores. But I can't figure out the difference b...

On the Thermalright web site, they recommend a particular Panaflo 120mm x 38mm deep fan for the SI-120. What would be the chief difference in using a 25mm deep fan instead? Can the 38mm fan achieve better CFM than a 25mm at a given SPL?

I'm building a new Athlon X2 rig, but I'm starting to give some thought to quieting down my current system. It may end up staying in the same room, so it's either going to be quieted or shut down. Without question, the single biggest noise contributor are the two rear 80mm fans, which are not low sp...

I built my current system with 1GB of ECC memory (see below) and I have no real way of telling whether or not the ECC made the system any more reliable, but I _can_ say it is absolutely the most stable system I've ever owned. After I built the system shown below for my home system, I built two more ...

Yeah, false alarm. I saw the chips at Newegg and a couple other vendors labeled as Socket 478. As someone else said, they're targeted as mobile chips and actually are a new Socket 479 pin layout. See the Anandtech review, below: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2627 Interesting ar...

I'm building a new dual core Athlon system, and have been completely out of the loop when it comes to Intel CPUs. I just noticed that they have a series of dual core socket 478 chips, fairly reasonably priced, fairly low clock rates, and pretty low voltage. I haven't researched yet whether any of th...