~El~Jefe~ wrote: It is best to use such a material as you saw with water, then it isnt so bad at cooling.

I think that's exactly what you get if you buy a regular bottle of the low-toxicity auto anti-freeze.

I've seen it before, but I don't watercool my computer, so I never thought of that use. And I think regular antifreeze is expensive, so I never went for that stuff; a couple bottles of that stuff wouldn't be cheap! But, I am curious how it works. I imagine computer watercooling is much less demandin...

I see on the bottom of your page you also have an Antec Phantom 500. Wouldn't it be easier/quieter to just use that instead of the Fortron 700 Watt supply? To answer your question though, as long as the additional heatsinks don't touch anything, you should be fine. The hazard, as far as I know, is t...

Neat idea, I like it. Is the amplifier (LM741) set up to integrate the pulses and provide a proportional output, with a MOSFET to provide extra current? Also, soldering 1206s isn't all that difficult, if you have a reasonably good iron, tweezers, and solder-wick to clean up any mistakes. Of course, ...

This is ridiculous. While I doubt the 300W graphics cards will become the norm, I'm sure this will trigger waves and waves of people to go buy loud and innefficient 600+W power supplies manufacturers have told them they need. I thought today's power supplies were already overkill, I can't imagine th...

I have a mobile Pentium 4 3.06 GHz in my laptop, which despite being "mobile" uses lots of power and gets good and hot. The heatsink has very closely spaced fins and get clogged with dust easily. Periodically I clean it out, and there is a vast improvement. Also, I use a Targus pad underneath it tha...

Instead of a resistor, install a diode or two in series. Each one will drop the voltage the fan recieves by .7V.

My first thought was "I must have one," even though I have absolutely no need for one right now. But after the price of the unit, and a power brick, I think I'll pass. However, would it be possible for a person to build their own version of this, using a power brick to provide 12V, and using solid-s...

Good luck, keep us posted. Personally, I've developed a hankering for the Dell Optiplex SFF systems, also because of the little cases.

I would look into all of the previous suggestions, but first I would see how much dust has accumulated in the case. You may have done that already, but if not, take a look and clean out whatever dust there is. Over time you can build up pretty substantial amounts of dust, enough to impede airflow an...

The outside temperature of an enclosure doesn't tell you what the temperature of the hard drive inside is at. It just tells you roughly how much power the hard drive is consuming. Depending on how insulated the enclosure is, the internal temperature could be very much higher than the external tempe...

It sounds like the case fans are the main source of noise in your computer now? Even though you're running them at 7 volts, 1500 rpm is still fairly high. Your temps are pretty good, so you could probably run your fans even slower, I think. Personally I can hear my case fans when they're run at 7 vo...

How many drives are in each enclosure? I have a couple single drive enclosures that don't have any fans and seem to run fine. I don't have temperature monitoring on them, but they're only warm to the touch.

What is this staggered startup thing? Is it something like the graphics card gets powered up after the rest of the system to reduce the amount of current needed at once?

I should have mentioned this earlier, there's a program called CPU-Z you can download that will tell you what processor and socket you have.

I would start by looking at the recommended heatsink articles and reviews here. Find out specifically what processor you have to figure out how much cooling you really need. It's not a socket A intel, because socket A is an AMD socket. You'll need to find the right socket type, as different sockets ...

Read through the PSU reviews and the recommendations section on this site. There are lots of good PSUs there. Also, you may not need 460w, the actual power requirements are discussed in the recommended psus article. As long as you can supply enough current on the 12v rail you should be fine, really.

That syringe does look pretty dangerous... The stuff looks pretty cool though. I wonder if there's any mercury in it. They say you can't use it on aluminum, and mercury does cause extreme corrosion of aluminum. But I feel like if there was mercury in there, maybe there should be some kind of warning...

Sounds good. I think ultimately you'd be happy with either of these cases. Enjoy your new system!

Yes, there is some slightly increased risk of crosstalk when using rounded cables. Every other wire in an 80 wire IDE cable is a ground, the idea being that this would reduce crosstalk between adjacent wires. Theoretically, bundling the wires reduces this advantage, but considering the number of peo...

Huge fan of that site. Actually one of the first places I went to when trying to silence my PC. I enjoy building things myself instead of buying them, especially when it comes to electronics. There's quite a few circuits on that site I've been meaning to build.

Sweet suspension job, ultraboy. I imagine that if you suspended your drives like that, HD noise would be minimal with either case. The Lian Li might be slightly quieter because the drives are covered, but you'll have to ask ultraboy about that, he's got a better suspension job than me so I can't rea...

The front panel definately does let some noise out. One thing I've noticed is it seems like the noise it gives off is pretty directional. So if you point the front panel away from yourself, it seems quieter. Unfortunately I don't have any way of measuring this, it's just something I've noticed. I'm ...

I own a Centurion 5, mostly because I think it's one of the best looking cases you can get and can be had for a reasonable price. The (essentially) open front panel limits your options a little bit; for example, you can't try things like creating positive pressure inside the case. If you had your ey...

I've been thinking of getting that board too. Have you tried any overclocking on it? My system runs very cool with minimal airflow, so I want to try my hand at overclocking. See how much faster I can get without increasing noise.

What about TO-220 heatsinks? Considering the small amount of heat ram makes, they should be more than adequate. And they're cheap, any place that carries electronic components should have them. Here's a link that should clarify things. TO-220 heatsink . They're meant for TO-220 package chips, by the...

Enermax and Arctic Cooling, among others, make temperature controlled fans. http://www.cpemma.co.uk/ has a lot of fan controller plans too, someday I intend to build the temperature controlled PWM controller. Got the parts but not the time. I prefer something temperature controlled too, I don't like...