Looks great, I'm contemplating something very similar. In fact, I already have the same Ikea TV cabinet. I was thinking I'd have to do something for ventilation involving ducts and/or a fan on the cabinet itself. Looks to me like you just left the rear panel off it. Doesn't that panel provide most o...

I don't have load/idle measurements, but instead usage averages from a Kill-a-Watt meter. Home web/mail server: NSLU2 + laptop drive: 5W (yep, 5), 24/7 Home Mythtv PVR & fileserver (Northwood Celeron 2.2) ~75W, 24/7 Home desktop (northwood Pentium 2.2): ~80W, as needed Work PC (dual Xeon): 140W idle...

Indeed, a VIA 533Mhz system would be much more flexible and powerful. Turns out, my 15W draw was an estimate based on incorrect information on the web. I've since run it on a Kill-a-watt meter, and discovered it's only drawing 5W. The NSLU2's benefits then, are that it's very cheap and very small, a...

They've been mentioned a little here, but I thought I'd mention my new Linux web/mail server, which draws about 15W [Edit: actually, 5W, see later post] from the socket, and its only noise source is an external laptop hard drive. It does a fully adequate job of web and mail (imaps) serving for my ho...

This Register Story looks interesting. If it's all true, this is the sort of processor we like - dual core 2GHz @ 7 watts!

... shame about the Apple deal though. Given that Apple's gone Intel we may never see Apple or MS OSes running on it in desk/laptops.

The culture of waste is ingrained, especially in the US. That's what i'm afraid of as a European, especially since I read the first posts on this thread ! Very glad to see that at least a few americans are aware of these issues. The US has the full range - from the most thoughtless wasteful redneck...

I have 2 machines on 24x7 - one's a PVR and one's a web/mail server, and feel slightly guilty about it. The power draw may be quite small (about 60W for each), but 24x7 really makes it add up. I'd like to get a more efficient system for at least one of those, but there are other environmental costs ...

Hey Mike, have you tried plugging the Squeezebox directly into your power amps, avoiding the pre-amp? I seen various reports of it on the net, e.g.: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=17180 I think it involves controlling the volume digitally in the unit, which sounds like a bad idea for...

i have an slk3700 bqe...will cutting my front in rear case grills really improve airflow and silence? Speaking purely from general info picked up around here: Wire grills cut airflow by as much as 25% (MikeC tested I think). My guess is that while the BQE's grills are very open, they're not as open...

I snipped out some grills, and tried to snip each bit individually. Not only was it difficult, the result was a real mess and dangerously ragged. Then I came back and did a straight cut outside the original grill, and it was both much easier, and much neater. It's still a bit rough though, so if the...

The probe is probably slow at reacting and dissipates very little heat in itself. That makes the contact point between the probe and the heatsink much less sensitive to good contact, so you can do fairly accurate measurment without thermal paste there. Good point - I thought along those lines after...

I've got a Dell, which means no onboard temperature monitoring (never again!). I recently picked a thermometer up from Best Byte (who incidentally seem cheap and fast). I've wedged the sensor between the heatsink's fins, at the bottom, and it's giving me some pretty high temps, settling on 65C on Pr...

Multiple windows / tabs do put higher loads on the server. For the sake of our busy server and the rest of the SPCR community, it would be appreciated if you'd limit the number to a handful rather than the 10 and 20 some people are talking about. Idle curiosity, but does this imply there is some so...

You shouldn't think that we are anti-Apple just because we give some criticism!!! But didn't you know, criticising features of an Apple product means you're anti-Apple, just as criticising the policies of the US government means you're Anti-American (tm). If you like something at all, you must neve...

I go in, click "view posts since last visit" I right-click and "open in new tab" every thread I want to read/comment on on each new-posts-page. That usually comes to about 10 tabs open. Now, pete, imagine doing that with IE. 10 windows open. Chances are, windows will pile them all together into one...

You can zoom either text or images in Firefox, but not both linked together. Whoa, how do you do that in Firefox? The zooming of text is built in, with a few accessors - my favourite is ctrl plus the mouse wheel. I do zooming of images with the ImageZoom extension http://www.yellowgorilla.net/image...

I use opera, love the send to tray, irc, and mouse gestures options. I leave open 3 tabs. I love mouse gestures and tabbed browsing. Can't go back. When I last used Opera as my main browser (about 18 months ago), it was faster and slicker than Firefox is even now. The banner ads annoyed me though. ...

Well it s not exactly -40c here :lol: More like -5, very dark, and heavy wind.. I have eperienced under -40c though, in northern Finland, and its pretty cold :lol: ... and, further OT, -40 is the temp at which the idiotic Fahrenheit scale and Celsius coincide. Does anyone know if the above link rea...

Disappointingly, the article ends with: Or, if the noise becomes too much for you, just turn off your system. "I breathe a sigh of relief," Schoer said, "when I power down and hear the relative quiet of the room." It would have been nicer to end with what would have been my quote - "I used to breath...

silverback wrote:Is this a modified 2650? a 2650 with a different drive cage and door rather?

or is there a difference in build quality from the 2650->3000

Er, no, it's a modified 3700 I believe. Arguably a combination of the best of the 3700 AMB and BQE, without a PSU.

That's a great setup - very effective and easy to achieve with little expense. The PSU fan swap seems about the most involved process, though I've done it before and it doesn't worry me. However, does anyone know how close a stock Seasonic Tornado would be in sound to a modified Silencer? I think if...

Wouldn't it be a good idea to remove your fan grills? I think someone on SPCR staff worked out they reduced airflow 15-20%. wow, really?! I had just assumed the impact was negligible, I'll give it a shot. That was my guess too , but MikeC disabused me. Rereading that topic, he says it was 19-24%!

Wouldn't it be a good idea to remove your fan grills? I think someone on SPCR staff worked out they reduced airflow 15-20%. Not that you need your temps to go down, and you may already be running your fans at their lowest working voltage. Still, I would have thought it would only do good. I doubt ca...

By the looks of the XP-90, when you put a 92mm fan on it, there are gaps at the side of the fan, but an 80mm fan would be flush with the fins. It seems counter-intuitive to me that they designed it with these gaps, and even more so the gaps present in the XP-120. Surely this will mean a fraction of ...

Do not feed the trolls...

This guy's just baiting us. After all, what's someone who doesn't care about noise doing on SPCR?

Of course, I'm playing his silly game myself by responding...

will see if reversing the cpu fan so it goes out the duct will make a diff too, I just figured cold air ontp heatsink would be better edit - and my seagate stays a cool 34ºC at all times :) My guess would be that it would cause the CPU temps to rise slightly, as you assumed too... Also, your cooler...

My PSU air duct is now finished. You can see 10 photos here. The photos aren't visible to me :( - I think the world doesn't have permissions to see them. As noted somewhere else, http://www.imageshack.us/ is great, and free, for image hosting, and will even do thumbnails so you could insert just th...

Now, as I overclock a bit (xp2500+@3200+), my temps can get a little toasty (40ºC idle, 50ºC load), but this is with all the fans on full pelt. If i turn my fans down to sufficient quiet levels, my idle temps jump to 50 and I dare not put my machine under any sort of load. Aren't these procs rated ...

So are your mounts on the bottom of the case glued on? If so, what glue? I drilled holes to do much the same thing , but avoiding drilling, and therefore metal filings, is a great idea unless you remove everything from the case. I stupidly risked it, taking some precautions, and got away with it. 40...

So, I'm a bit woried that hdd could be damaged if the case is moved or pushed, like when wife is vacuuming, or kids kick it or hit it with a toy or a ball. Or even he might just forget all about hdd mounting and move the case to vilently. So, rigid mounting is a must. Mayby I'll just put some rubbe...