Someone asked me a question in a PM: with the Asus A8R32-MVP, can a solo graphics card be installed in the lower (secondary) PCIex16 slot instead of the upper (primary) slot? In short, the answer is "Yes". The final picture above shows my 7600GS installed in the lower slot and it boots and runs fine...

Some pictures of my A8R32-MVP with Ninja: http://img447.imageshack.us/img447/227/a8r32mvpa6ag.png Here you can see: * well-positioned CPU socket close to case fan and 120mm PSU fan * just visible one of the aluminium heatsinks on the CPU power regulator MOSFETs to the left of the Ninja - these MOSFE...

@ceselb, I've posted a mini-review of the Asus A8R32-MVP on your other thread, and I can confirm Scythe Ninja compatibility: see here: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... 416#263416

I have the Asus A8R32-MVP . I built the system around 1 week ago: Motherboard: Asus A8R32-MVP CPU: AMD Opteron 146 single-core (default multiplier 10x) Graphics: 7600GS (XFX fanless model) Memory: G-Skill ZX PC3200 2-3-3-6, 2GB kit CPU Cooler: Scythe Ninja (fanless) PSU: Seasonic S12-430 Case: Antec...

Opteron 146 here: same numbers as the 144 which you already have

Opt 146, 939, SH8-E4, 57?C, 44.1W

One of the main uses of TPM is to allow a Windows Vista machine to play HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray. It is expected that no TPM will mean no high definition DVD. In other words, high definition DVDs will not be playable (legally) on a Windows XP or Linux machine. Therefore TPM is really a feature for consum...

Yes, one must always be a bit brave to be an early adopter of the first board using a new chipset. But as you say, I think a lot of the 'noise' on forums is overclocking related, for example people who haven't been able to push the bus speed above 250MHz - and who knows whether the cause is the moth...

(Note: any nForce4 board may have serious issues with certain models of Maxtor Diamondmax 10 and Diamondmax 11 SATA drives. Maxtor have updated the BIOS but downloading and installing it is a pain, and you have to back up your entire drive first. nVidia have not updated their BIOS yet.) Whether you ...

This is to confirm that the Gigabyte K8N series that I mentioned have active fan control on the motherboard, which is linked in with AMD's 'Cool N Quiet' feature ( link to SPCR article . It is called Gigabyte "Smart Fan" and there is BIOS control with five settings: Off, Low, Mid, High and Full and ...

Thanks for this thread, I am putting together a similar system and it is very helpful to hear of practical experiences with the 7600GS. In case it helps, in my experience a stock Antec 120mm case fan makes quite a lot of 'wind' noise, and some bearing noise, even at 5V. In my case I have dropped the...

If AMD listened to consumers I'm sure they would do 65nm Socket 939 chips. There must be plenty of demand from people who bought a Socket 939 motherboard one or two years ago with a basic A64 or one of the early dual core chips in the expectation of eventually seeing 3.0GHz chips, quad core etc. Als...

Some passively cooled socket 939 boards for further research: I do not know what undervolting options these have, nor what fan headers can be found on the board (seems a less important requirement) Abit AN8-32X nForce4/SLI is passively cooled. It is a costly full-featured board, seems extremely simi...

There's a Gigabyte 7600GT with Silent Pipe II just out, dual DVI output. This card is approximately 20%-30% faster than a 7600GS and priced approximately 30% more. There is also a full range of silent cards from Asus, with nVidia 6600, 6600 overclocked, 7600GS, 7600GT, right up to the EN7800GT TOP r...

No, no RAID for me, it will be either JBOD or simply 8 separate hard drives (I think a PC on the network running Windows XP can be set up to recognise that as a single network drive with 8 subfolders - e.g. Photos, Home videos, Music etc). RAID is an anathema to quiet computing, because with a RAID ...

I'm looking at using a Stacker for a mostly passive-cooled system with suspended hard drives - looking at suspending 8 hard drives in there for a 2TB file server. Individual drives will be in the spun-down state when not in use. Low powered under-volted CPU, and the only fans will be three 120mm Nex...

Please note that I edited my earlier post to set out much more positive comments on Ramdisk Plus 8, now that I have got it working correctly. --- (XP actually stripes swap file accesses if you set them up on multiple drives.) That is an interesting fact. But unfortunately striping, and more generall...

I have 2GB of RAM and two hard drives and I have tried this recently with many different combinations. Here is what I have found, in Windows XP Pro SP2: (a) with no swap file set, Windows will create its own swap file of around 128MB on drive C: (very bad) (b) with a swap file set on any drive less ...

Previous brief discussion about something similar in early 2004: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=14716&start=30 I was wondering if there is a Windows tool to identify, and maybe control, drive spun-up / spun-down status? Reason: I have 7 SATA hard drives in my media server system :t...

With multiple drives you can get a nasty "beat" effect where the drives' vibrations affect each other (because the drives are spinning at almost, but not exactly, the same speed) - if you suffer from this, is sounds like a buzzing which rises and falls in volume about once per second. This problem c...

This is perhaps the most recent thread on the topic: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=24870 Cooling is relatively easy - any set up which has a large quiet fan inside the case, pointing at the drives (obviously the drives must not be fully enclosed in their racks) should work, especi...

Among 7200rpm drives with NCQ, in my experience Seagate 7200.8 are the quietest at idle and Maxtor Diamondmax 10 have the quietest seek. So it really depends which noise concerns you the most.

The Athena is a rebadged Sunnytek SNT-125 . It is made of plastic (choice of black or beige) and is available at some places in Europe for less than 10 euros (if you don't mind beige). I have one and despite the plastic it is a good quality product: it is well-engineered and the front handle mechani...

The logo is from DIGN, now this company:
http://www.iuneed.com/products.html

I didn't know they did external HD cases and there are none in the current product line, but why don't you try contacting them?

Duplicate of existing thread: please go to this thread
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=24870

I stopped Windows using the hard disks by turning off the "Indexing Service" - find it under 'Services' in Computer Management (in Windows XP) and set it to Disabled. You should also look up (google) how to switch off 'Last Accessed Time' as the way that works is it monitors your disk accesses and a...

I'm generally very pleased with the S12-430 which I bought in the UK recently. Its fan stays on around 890rpm so it is the quietest moving component in my case I think, with a gentle hum which is less perceptible than the case fans (stock Sonata 120mm fan on 5V; Pabst 24V fan on 5V)and lower pitched...

If you ever need a heatsink for a chip or something, you might find one at this surplus outfit if you are lucky: http://www.mainlinegroup.co.uk/mless/main.php?act=Catalogue&id_sort=8104 I bought a handful of heatsinks from them recently, service was excellent, and the heatsinks are brand new and as ...

Aha (oho, a track in the snow). Kaizer that is awesome information - thank you very much - what a great forum this is. The idea that it is the overheated voltage regulator causing the problems would fit well with another symptom, which is that the availability of SPDIF seems to depend not only on te...

Thanks for a great thread. I like the look of the Gigabyte GA-K8NMF-9 for a quiet HTPC - has every feature I need, and a very neat-looking board layout with the chipset positioned well away from the graphics card and CPU so it should be quite easy to keep it all cool. The only problem with that mobo...

Thank you for those responses. I did look at getting a separate soundcard, but I like the nForce2 onboard audio a lot when it is working (the AC3 encoding ability is great as I only have a digital connection to my amp/speakers); also I would prefer to fix the problem at its source as I don't like th...