Many of the printers are developed a lot more focused on pages per minute than they are on noise, so I think that for this audience, most would be considered loud. HP sells a couple single function printers that have a "quiet mode". In the 6940 series, it can be selected from the driver and on the 6...

For my main machine, I would probably exchange out my Arctic Cooling Freezer for a TRUE or one of the Direct-Touch heatsinks. For my second machine, I would also upgrade the heatsink, as it is running on one I got for $1 after rebate, and also put a Seasonic PSU in it like my main system. Other than...

Man, this topic makes me realize that I am getting old. Really, this topic should have included air cooling too. Why exclude the usually obvious answer two only consider two extreme cases? When I was younger, I would have loved to experiment with the oil immersion. It would have been fun to play wit...

I love this topic. I was born about 30 years to early. When I was in college (graduated in 1981) I modified my car to run on alcohol, but at the time, my source of alcohol was way more expensive than gasoline, so after a proof-of-concept, I converted it back. I also obtained a permit from the (Burea...

Thanks Felger,

I thought that the cheaper fans were just wired directly to a motor.

That is an excellent question. I do not know about the motors specifically used in fans. I work on products that use small motors, and I have burned up small motors in just that way, and others are much more robust to that.

I will try and find out more on that if no one else answers this.

Good question. You want it to spread out nice and evenly, so maybe you would think glob since that works well for paste, but since it does set up, and the glob takes several heat cycles to spread and get to it's best performance, maybe that would not be best. Anyway, instead of conjecture, here is t...

Yes yes, Thanks jhhoffma! I had said use the paste that was included or use his favorite, but was trying to make the point by all means to use some. I was sort of pointing to the toothpaste article as extreme and just as you said, it worked just for a little while, smelled bad, then made a mess etc....

If you can afford to be patient, sometimes you can find Fry's or Newegg (or probably other places I do not watch) dump a batch of good cases (like Solos or Sonatas) for very nice prices.

Cistron, did you subtract out the hub area?

Hey Dougz, For me personally, I would not like all the open side of that case. You want the air to come in from lower front and then get exhausted up and in the back so the airflow cools everything. That huge side opening looks to short-circuit some of the desired airflow path. Also, just a word of ...

You can see in the very recent Scythe review that basically what you are saying works, although when looking at the details, one of the fans performed a little better than the others at the same speed. I think one factor would be convenience. If you know you want 900 rpm or 1200 rpm, then buying one...

Let us know how it works, that is exactly how I think I would have done it as well. I think that the lines would keep air pockets from forming along the pipes, and with the gaps between the pipes, the single blob method may not work.

Aris,

My son went to basic at Lackland.

Please send me a private message with your address; for someone in the Air Force defending our country, I will gladly send you the part for free. (I just uncovered one on my desk last night, good timing for your message.)

According to the review for that heatsink, it did not get glowing reviews, but also was not bad at all. It did mention that with the stock fan, it was much louder than the company rated it. It looks like either dropping the voltage to the fan, or swapping to a quieter fan should help you significant...

Pagh, Use that paste. or use your favorite if you have one. The comment is saying that the oxidation from the copper does not make the paste work any worse, even though the discoloration makes it look bad. They are not saying that you should not use it. You certainly want a thin layer of something m...

I have only purchsed DDR2 800 myself, so I have no firsthand knowledge how much better the faster RAM might overclock and since that was all I had, if I did see mention of it working way better or anything, it did not stick in my head. I would recommend browsing specifically on that question unless ...

To offset some of the shipping, I ordered 2 Yate Loon 80's, 4 Panaflow 92's, and 2 Yate Loon 120's from Jab-tech which I saw recommended here. That way, combined, it was just over $1 per fan to ship. I know that the slipstream is popular here, but so is the Yate Loon as it is often the least expensi...

I have seen 2 references to fast BIOS's. One is only on Intel boards, and the other is open source bios some folks customize for fast Linux booting. (Since they have the source, they take out everything that they do not need.)

Dave,

I set the affinity on mine manually in the task manager, but I have heard that affinity changer does a good job. 4000 ppd, that is quite nice. I am getting about 3200 from my Q6600's.

Welcome Loomis,

Welcome, nice to see another local. I have relatives working in Hillsboro that will appreciate your CPU choice.

Hi Ashex,

There were just a few of us at work talking about this today. If you can be a little patient, Intel has been showing a board that is not on the market yet, but it looks very nice for this exact purpose.

http://mini-itx.com/2008/03/06/intels-e ... itx-boards

Hi Rodox4, A lot of good choices. I don't have a board as new as the ex38, but the DS4s from earlier chip sets all seem good. I have a couple of Q6600's, and they seem like great deals as the price has dropped. The PSU should be OK. About 200W for each graphics card, with 250 left over for the rest ...

Matija,

I would be happy to give you the CRTs, if they were as cheap to ship as an LCD

They may not be long, but I have 5 of them! (And they might be longer if they were not folding :) ) The true measure for this should be folding points per day, right Iganu? (He would be clearly the ppd leader if his new Xeon 3350 was not having trouble.) Folding right now, I have 2 Q6600's, an E6700...

Failed technology? Man, I would love to be such a failure. Would you rather lug around a sewing machine size Kaypro than use a laptop? And a few folks talk about having problems looking at an LCD. After having worked on CRTs for 20 years, having an LCD is sooo much better. After working several hour...

Are you building the machine for your dad or yourself? If it is a business machine and part time gamer, and he plays a several year old game, sounds like you are putting in WAY more graphics power than he needs, adding way more heat than necessary, and will lose silent in the process. A GeForce 5700...

Modo, Aris said you need more airflow in a larger case, and Felger and I said that you do not.

They are having some credit with the stats since they introduced some very short work units, and did not consider that they would get a lot more work unit reports because of that.

Aris, I picture it a little differently. If you have x-watts going into a box, you will need y-cfm of airflow to remove the heat created. In a bigger box, you may need to add some ducting to direct the air to where it is needed, which will increase the resistance to the airflow, which will increase ...