The P180 simply isn't a quiet case - expectations too high?

[stupid]

Since I don’t own either the P150 or P180 I will try to offer an outside view on the P180.

I have to say that I don't think its any quieter than my previous case - an aluminium (a big SPCR no-no) Lian-Li V2000 case - with suspended HDDs, Acoustipack Deluxe damped sides / HDD blocks, rubber screwed 2xNexus 120s + 1xNexus 80mm fans.

It is quite obvious the stock P180 has more or less the same acoustic characteristics as a case that has been highly modified to reduce noise. While the intent of the statement is to obviously criticize Antec’s design, it actually has the opposite effect. The fact that this case is “merely” the equivalent to a case which has been highly modified to reduce noise means that the average person can simply purchase a case which has very good sound isolation without the need to do any work whatsoever.

Is this a silent case? Apparently not, and as many posters have stated, it was never meant to be. I think it is necessary to state that the only time a PC is truly silent is when it is off, without going to extreme measures like that Zalman silent case (don’t know it’s name, only heard of it). So what can you do with a powered down computer? Nothing.

As MikeC stated, it is not the case that produces noise, but it is what’s inside the case that does (when the PC is on). That being said, there a minimum threshold of noise that produced by all of the components. Each component may be quiet enough not be heard individually, but taking into consideration all the components there is bound to be some amount of “leakage” that will end up being audible.

For example, you are in a room with someone who is whispering on the phone and is barely audible. Now add another, and then another, and then a few more. Each additional person speaks with a whisper on the phone and one person is no louder than another. When the room is filled with10 people, well it’s no longer as quiet with only one person on the phone is it? There is a cumulative affect.

Each component produces a minimal threshold of noise from vibrations. The vibrations can be minimized, but not negated passively. A suspended hard drive still transmits vibrations through the air and some of the vibrations will make it out of the PC case. A thick enough case will have increased dampening potential, but will also increase the cost.

Based one what I’ve read, the P180 seems to be doing a good job for what it was designed for. Asking any more from it may be impossible without modifications. I believe someone mentioned the law of diminishing return. That is quite true; it is cheap and easy to make a quieter PC case out of a noisy one. But as the case becomes quieter and quieter it comes more difficult and potentially more expensive to achieve your goal. As an example, say a case has a really loud 120mm fan okay, spend $18 + shipping to get the Nexus 120mm Black & White that’s rated at 16dBA. What, still too loud? Need something that can move a decent amount of but produce less than 16dBA of noise? Well that’s going to cost you more, a lot more. There is link at SPCR to a spreadsheet of fans that someone has put together (I don’t remember which post). I was searching for a particular 120mm fan; I think it was NMB Tech DC4710NL-04W-B20-P-00 which was tested at 8dBA and 24.6 CFM at 5 volts according to the spreadsheet. Yeah, I found it; the going price was $50 before shipping and no pin connectors from the manufacturer.

To summarize, noise is a given, you can’t get away from it, the more you want to lessen it, the more time and money it will cost. But it will still be there.

Before I end my post, I want to offer a potential and expensive solution. That is active noise cancellation, place microphones inside the computer case that is connected to noise cancellation electronics that will output white noise to speakers within the case that cancels the noise from within the case itself.

Sounds intriguing.

Sounds expensive.

[Aris]

Amen bro! I agree 1000%.

Now, start looking for a mini-ATX sort of case that is constructed decently, and has good airflow. I haven't been able to come up with anything that I'd be comfortable using. The closet contenders are the In-Win mini-ATX cases, and they're fairly cheaply constructed, and look sort of cheesy as well.

well this goes back to the whole "specific situation" thing i was talkin about.

what you need to do is find a case that fits as close to your needs as you can get, then mod to make it perfect for you. for me i've found that case, and yes it will need some modification to do what i want, but i think it can be done and look proffesional when finished.

Casetronic C138

8x8x4 inches. i cant wait to drop it at a LAN party

i'm gunna mod an 80mm panaflo L1A into the front for cooling, and to keep things quiet. and i'll toss out that pos fan in the back.

i went with a pentium-m motherboard, and a 7800gt video card. the motherboard i picked also does its own dc/dc conversion and will be used with an ac/dc external adapter that plugs into the mobo. which will allow me to take the internal dc/dc psu out of the case that comes with it making room for the video card and the front intake fan. the video card cooled with a thermalright v-1 ultra, and the cpu with a passive copper heatsink.

the entire system will have only 1 fan, the 80mm panaflo. it will be fast, it will be quiet, and it will be small. perfection IMO.

[jaganath]

noise is a given, you can’t get away from it, the more you want to lessen it, the more time and money it will cost. But it will still be there.

I suppose I agree with you in one sense, as EVERYTHING in the world produces some amount of noise (rocks, leaves moving in the breeze, etc) even if it is inaudible to most humans. But I think if you can get the noise from your PC below the ambient noise in it's location (usually a bedroom or study) subjectively to you, the observer, it (the PC's noise emissions) will for all intents and purposes cease to exist (or at least be imperceptible). I also disagree slightly with the implication that silencing your PC need necessarily take large amounts of money; if you plan your rig well and only use SPCR-friendly components (passive PSU, A64 CPU, Samsung hard drive, onboard graphics, passive mobo) you can actually build a "silent" rig for a little less than the standard beige box from your local PC superstore.

[stupid]

But I think if you can get the noise from your PC below the ambient noise in it's location (usually a bedroom or study) subjectively to you, the observer, it (the PC's noise emissions) will for all intents and purposes cease to exist (or at least be imperceptible). I also disagree slightly with the implication that silencing your PC need necessarily take large amounts of money; if you plan your rig well and only use SPCR-friendly components (passive PSU, A64 CPU, Samsung hard drive, onboard graphics, passive mobo) you can actually build a "silent" rig for a little less than the standard beige box from your local PC superstore.

I agree with your disagreement.

Ambient noise should be taken into consideration. I was assuming a silent room so even a low amount of noise is audible.

Regarding the amount of money necessary to silence a case, I had in mind a performance rig. Naturally it is more expensive to reduce noise generated by high-end parts. But the arguement was that there must be an acceptable level of noise at some point. If there are people out there who are willing to spend $50 on an 8dBA 120mm that can push 25.4 CFM then more power to them. Some people are more sensitive to sounds than others, so a few $$ spent on silencing a case may be enough to quiet down a PC for some people, but not everyone.

[JazzJackRabbit]

Amen bro! I agree 1000%.

Now, start looking for a mini-ATX sort of case that is constructed decently, and has good airflow. I haven't been able to come up with anything that I'd be comfortable using. The closet contenders are the In-Win mini-ATX cases, and they're fairly cheaply constructed, and look sort of cheesy as well.

well this goes back to the whole "specific situation" thing i was talkin about.

what you need to do is find a case that fits as close to your needs as you can get, then mod to make it perfect for you. for me i've found that case, and yes it will need some modification to do what i want, but i think it can be done and look proffesional when finished.

Casetronic C138

8x8x4 inches. i cant wait to drop it at a LAN party

i'm gunna mod an 80mm panaflo L1A into the front for cooling, and to keep things quiet. and i'll toss out that pos fan in the back.

i went with a pentium-m motherboard, and a 7800gt video card. the motherboard i picked also does its own dc/dc conversion and will be used with an ac/dc external adapter that plugs into the mobo. which will allow me to take the internal dc/dc psu out of the case that comes with it making room for the video card and the front intake fan. the video card cooled with a thermalright v-1 ultra, and the cpu with a passive copper heatsink.

the entire system will have only 1 fan, the 80mm panaflo. it will be fast, it will be quiet, and it will be small. perfection IMO.

Forgive me for being sceptical, but I'm kind of curious how this will turn out. Please post back when you are done with the project.

[Aris]

Forgive me for being sceptical, but I'm kind of curious how this will turn out. Please post back when you are done with the project.

the case is already on the way, should be here any day now since i ordered it last week. i ordered the case first because it will take the most effort and time to mod to get it exactly how i want it. the rest of the pieces should all just slide into place. i may have to take a dremel to a few of the pins on some of the heatsinks on the motherboard to get the v-1 ultra to fit, but that wont take long. i had to do the same thing to get my zalman cooler to fit on my current motherboard.

the ONLY thing im worried about is the video card length. it will be 200mm (8 inches), which btw is the exact depth of the case. first i'm going to try and mod the case and the video card to make it fit. i figure i can take the power receptacle on the back end of the card and put leads on it to extend it so i dont need to plug a power cord into it from the back end of the card. still it will be a tight fit. ive also considered cutting a slot into the front of the case to allow the card to extend slightly out the front of the case.

if all else fails, i'll just put a smaller PCB video card in it, like the 6600gt or the upcomming 7600 card which are only 180mm (6 inches) long. which would fit with room to spare.

either way it will be a very viable gamming rig.

[gbeichho]

/start-rant
think about it, how many optical drives do you REALLY need? me personally, i only use my optical drives to install software, and occasionally rip some music. 99% of the time they just sit in their doing nothing. then theirs hard drives. i dont know about you, but my 120gb drive only has 40gb of data on it, and now i can get notebook drives that are just as big or larger at a fraction of the size/noise/heat. the ONLY things i can think of that would fill the large capacity hard drives being produced today is video content, very large amounts of mp3's, or a large file server. even then, 2 hard drives can get you up to a terabyte. lastly theirs expansion slots on the motherboard. there was a day not to long ago when i would never buy a board with onboard ANYTHING! the motherboard industry has done very well since then and i believe most onboard devices are very good. the only exceptions being video and sometimes audio. right now i have a full atx mobo, and i have 1 card in it, and its a video card. the onboard audio is good enough for me. even if it werent, that would be a max of 2 expansion slots needed.

OK, I so disagree with a few things here. Onboard video is very limiting and especially so because boards that come with it have a lot of associated limitations, but that's only one card. I always add a fax/modem to every machine, so there's my two cards right off that bat. A tuner card rounds it out to a nice 3, but that is a good number, no need to go much past that.

As for HDs. I don't know what you're using your PC for, but 40GB is pretty limiting these days. Firstly, you are a fool if you plan to have any sort of disaster recovery with one HD, and if you've never had a hard drive fail on you, then you're really lucky, but be ready, because one WILL fail.

So 2 HDs minimum. 3 of the most common -- and growing more popular by the day -- applications for the computer will continue to gobble up wads of disk space:

1) Pictures
2) Music
3) Video

And how about backing that stuff up? I know TWO people who were willing to pay $2000.00 CAD to have their HD recovered because they lost all of their photos. How about all those home movies you don't want to lose? Or those MP3's you paid for?

There is a good reason to use a big case like the P180 -- it has tons of space for HDs (don't forget the Ninja takes up half the case).

You're right though.

15GB of space is OS + installed applications (try installing Adobe, Office and 1 other graphics package).
< 10 GB in files
10GB in drivers, and downloaded software, patches etc (if you store them on the HD)
The rest is music, pictures, and videos.

Back about 4 computers ago, I went small case. Never again. I spent so much time futzing and cutting my fingers on the metal in the case, only to gain a bit of floor space under my desk? Not worth it. I'm not advocating a full tower (I did that in a previous life too) but the P180 is just fine.

George

[Aris]

OK, I so disagree with a few things here. Onboard video is very limiting and especially so because boards that come with it have a lot of associated limitations, but that's only one card. I always add a fax/modem to every machine, so there's my two cards right off that bat. A tuner card rounds it out to a nice 3, but that is a good number, no need to go much past that.

well you can get pci-express video cards with tv tuners, but i'll admit that ultra small isnt for everyone. i do think that its for most people though. 5 pci and a pci-express that you get with a full atx board is excessive i would say for just about everyone. you could do all of your expansion needs with a micro atx board at the max.

As for HDs. I don't know what you're using your PC for, but 40GB is pretty limiting these days. Firstly, you are a fool if you plan to have any sort of disaster recovery with one HD, and if you've never had a hard drive fail on you, then you're really lucky, but be ready, because one WILL fail.

So 2 HDs minimum. 3 of the most common -- and growing more popular by the day -- applications for the computer will continue to gobble up wads of disk space:

1) Pictures
2) Music
3) Video

And how about backing that stuff up? I know TWO people who were willing to pay $2000.00 CAD to have their HD recovered because they lost all of their photos. How about all those home movies you don't want to lose? Or those MP3's you paid for?

im not saying 40gb is enough either, im just saying thats what i use. you can easily get a 100gb+ notebook drive for fairly cheep. as for "disaster recovery" you dont need 3 hard drives in your system to be safe. its called an external backup drive. ive got a notebook drive in an external enclosure that i can backup all my data from all my computers. if you need to archive data, then thats what you can use your dvd-r for. i have never had a system with more than 2 hard drives in it, ever. i dont know anyone personally who has, unless it was a huge file server. you can get a notebook drive up to 160gb now, with more space on the horizon comming soon.

dont get me wrong, im not sayin small is for everyone, and i can see the need for large amounts of expansion, but not for the majority of pc users. most of the people i talk to to determine the best computer for their needs just want something to surf the net, check email, instant message, and play computer games. they dont need somthing the size of the p180, or the p150 for that matter, to accomplish their needs. i'm also of the mindset of "as long as it works its good". i dont open my case on a daily basis to check stuff out and swap stuff and tinker all day etc. i just want to get online, get in my games, get on the forums and have it work without any hassles. which i think most people want too.

[stupid]

I would tend to agree that having just 1 hard drive; no matter how big is simply not the way to go unless you back up your data on a regular basis. It is always good to have another drive just to back up your data especially since drives are very inexpensive now.

I have 3 hard drives in my Antec Aria HTPC. The 3rd drive is basically for backing up my music and video so if the 1st and/or 2nd drive dies, then I can at least restores the data from the 3rd drive. If for some reason my entire HTPC disintegrates then I'll be pretty pissed off, but I can restore the lost data from my backup DVDs. On top of that I have all my music in my iRiver H140. So for video I have two restore points, and my music has three restore points.

I highly recommend backing up data because I ripped some of my DVDs to DivX onto a new 120GB Seagate, but it died after only 2 months. To add insult to injury my 3rd drive to back up everything to arrived the day after and I did not back up those DivX files onto DVDs. In the end I did not really lose anything but time because I had to re-encode a part of my DVD collection again.

[jaganath]

you can easily get a 100gb+ notebook drive for fairly cheep

Hmm..how cheap is "cheep"? Here (the UK) 100GB notebook drives are over £100 (almost $200).

[nici]

Now if only other cards than graphics cards started to use the PCIe interface so PCI would be history! ATM you only need one PCIe slot for the graphics card, and cant use the other slots for anything.. I want a PCIe soundcard.

[Aris]

i truely believe that 2.5" hard drives are the pc format of the future. just like when they switched from 5.25" hard drives down to the current 3.5" drives. people will look back and be "OMG i cant believe you all used to use drives that big!". Their smaller, their quieter, they produce less vibrations, they use less power, and you can actually fit more disk capacity into the same physical space with them. 4x 2.5" drives take up the same space as 1x 3.5" drive. 4x160gb=640gb. the only thing really knockin them right now is price per gigabyte. others may point to speed, but honestly, no matter which hard drive you use, it WILL be the bottleneck of your system. if you use more system memory then it will swap to the hard drive less often. you can get cas3 ddr2 paired 2x1gb sticks for under 200 bucks now.

i also believe the pc industry will switch over to slim optical drives as well.

as stated by many people on this forum, as well as the site reviewers, if you truely want a silent system, then you should be using 2.5" drives.

[JazzJackRabbit]

Aris
I'm just sceptical that one single 80mm panaflo in exhaust configuration can cool your entire rig. While most of the components are not that hot (except the videocard), consider what you are putting them against - you are betting that one single panaflo will be enough to cool a P-M CPU at 1.7-2.0Ghz, a very hot 7800GT, ram and laptop HDD. The last two although don't need much cooling, their heat will contribute to the overall system temperature. I simply think 80mm fan will not be enough.

BTW, I'm pretty sure that V-1 Ultra GPU heatsink takes more than one slot, so depending on the position of the PCI-E slot on your motherboard you may have a problem.


Concerning your conversation with gbeichho, I think you're a bit close minded. Sure, I agree, for the absolute majority of the users one hard drive is more than enough and a passive 6600GT is powerful to play the games and everything else can be integrated (sometimes even the video card). However, a very substantial portion of users require more than that.
1.DVI outputs. I use a large monitor at home and while the picture is pretty good with VGA connection, DVI is slightly better. So far I am not aware of any integrated motherboards that feature DVi connection. Moreover, I use dual monitors and once again, as far as I am aware, no integrated solutions provide dual outputs, so I need an external video card.
2.Sound. All integrated sound solutions have poor sound quality to put it mildly. I'm not talking about game performance here, I'm talking about SNR ratio, crispness and clarity. If you look in the offtopic section a lot of people on this board have very good sound rigs, and part of the reasons they are here is because they want to listen to music, not their computer droning. As such, integrated solutions are not acceptable, unless they feature digital out (which must be bit perfect), and in which case those people must have very good external DA converters.
3.HDD storage. Yes, I don't need more than one 80Gb hard drive for the OS and all of my applications. I would have even used a laptop harddrive in an enclosure to completely silence it, since it's home, I can live with laptop hard drive performance. However the problem is I have a lot of music and videos stored on my hard drives and I want to access them anytime I want. Ideally, I would have built a separate file server and moved it to a different room, however I don't have an extra room, I don't even have a house, so this is not an option. The only other option for me is to integrate those hard drives into my main system and quiet it down as much as I can.

So as you see, full-size atx solutions are more than warranted. A lot of people simply can't fit all hard drives and expansion cards in mini atx case.

[MikeC]

i truely believe that 2.5" hard drives are the pc format of the future.... as stated by many people on this forum, as well as the site reviewers, if you truely want a silent system, then you should be using 2.5" drives.

The transition to 2.5" drives started when Seagate announced this as their goal two years ago. See my first 2.5" HDD-related larticle: IS the Silent PC Future 2.5-inches wide?

Also, look for a 160GB 2.5" 5400rpm drive from Seagate this month. Think perpendicular as opposed to longitudinal arrangement of magnetic data on the disc for higher arial density. This is coming to all HDDs from all brands. It's how they're going to make 2.5" high enough capacity at lower prices to make them more competitive against 3.5". Who knows, they may have a terabyte in a single 3.5" within 12~24 mos.

[Aris]

Aris
I'm just sceptical that one single 80mm panaflo in exhaust configuration can cool your entire rig. While most of the components are not that hot (except the videocard), consider what you are putting them against - you are betting that one single panaflo will be enough to cool a P-M CPU at 1.7-2.0Ghz, a very hot 7800GT, ram and laptop HDD. The last two although don't need much cooling, their heat will contribute to the overall system temperature. I simply think 80mm fan will not be enough.

BTW, I'm pretty sure that V-1 Ultra GPU heatsink takes more than one slot, so depending on the position of the PCI-E slot on your motherboard you may have a problem.

it will be an intake fan not an exhaust. hard drive doesnt need cooling, and wont be in the path of the airflow. Ram isnt really an issue either as i dont overclock. the only 2 major heat sources in the case will be the video card and cpu, and if you look at the case with the link i provided, you would know that the video card will be on a riser and be parrellel to the motherboard (GPU side up). the v1-ultra is to take that heat from the top of the card and move it to the bottom, between the video card and motherboard. yes i know the v1-ultra takes more than 1 slot, i will be taking a dremel to the gpu side of it to allieviate this issue. the fan will be positioned to blow cool air directly onto the heatsink of both the cpu and gpu at the same time, and then the air will be exhausted out a slot between the rear mb i/o panel and the video card on the back of the case. direct air path from front to back. the fan will be about 5mm from the cpu heatsink, so cpu cooling wont be an issue especially considering im replacing the stock heatsink with a pretty beefy copper one.

the air wont really have any viable paths to move other than the way i describe because as it enters, on the left is a pci-e riser card blocking off almost that entire side of the case, on the right will be the hard drive and hard drive mounting plate blocking off almost that entire side of the case, motherboard on the bottom, video card on top. the cool air will have no choice but to move directly to where its needed (the cpu and gpu heatsinks), then out the back of the case. now i know for a fact an 80mm fan is more than enough for the cpu. the v1-ultra was designed for an 80mm fan to keep it cool, and while it wont be directly mounted to it, it will be within a few inches blowing right on it with no way for the air to miss it.

and as i said before, if all else fails i'll just use either a 6600gt ,or if its out,
the 7600 video card which has a much lower heat output as well as a smaller form factor. even if i had to do this it will still be a very viable gamming rig.

this wasnt just an overnight "hey this looks cool, let do this" descision. i've thought this project through for over 2 months now, asking questions on forums, reading reviews, checking specs, and i'm very confidant that it will work, and work well for what i want.

So far I am not aware of any integrated motherboards that feature DVi connection. Moreover, I use dual monitors and once again, as far as I am aware, no integrated solutions provide dual outputs, so I need an external video card.

i dont really know how this topic came up in the first place, i never suggested that most people, or any people for that matter, should use integrated mb graphics. on the contrary i believe i said that a video card is the expansion slot that most people need.

as for motherboards with DVI outputs, ive seen quite a few. i did a search on newegg real quick and found this MSI K8NGM2-FID and that was only under amd boards, and only one retailer. i'm sure if you looked around you could find other boards with dvi outputs onboard. its not as popular as onboard vga connections but they are becomming more and more available.

2.Sound. All integrated sound solutions have poor sound quality to put it mildly.

the currend intel integrated HD sound chip is the equivelant of a sound blaster audigy. which for most people is plenty good enough, even for gamming. the majority of people are not audiophiles. i would consider myself to have a pretty high standard for music, and most onboard HD sound solutions are good enough for me. i do prefer digital outputs, and is somthing i look for when looking at motherboards. the board i have picked out for this project will have both coaxial and optical in/out jacks via the spdif internal i/o port.

onboard sound has come A LONG way from just a couple years ago, and its only going to get better.

3.HDD storage. Yes, I don't need more than one 80Gb hard drive for the OS and all of my applications. I would have even used a laptop harddrive in an enclosure to completely silence it, since it's home, I can live with laptop hard drive performance. However the problem is I have a lot of music and videos stored on my hard drives and I want to access them anytime I want. Ideally, I would have built a separate file server and moved it to a different room, however I don't have an extra room, I don't even have a house, so this is not an option. The only other option for me is to integrate those hard drives into my main system and quiet it down as much as I can.

So as you see, full-size atx solutions are more than warranted. A lot of people simply can't fit all hard drives and expansion cards in mini atx case.

sure full atx has its place, just not in the mainstream like it is now.

if you go to average joe's house and open up his dell system, he'll probably have 1 hard drive, and 1 optical drive (mabey 2), a video card, and mabey a sound card. along with that he'll have about 3-4 empty expansion slots on the motherboard, 2-3 5.25" external bays empty, and a couple 3.5" internal bays empty. thats ALOT of waisted space.

and that doesnt just apply to people who buy prebuilt systems. alot of people with custom pc's that they either built themselves or had a friend build for them will have a very similar situation to the theoretical one listed above. i know i currently do, and most of the people i personally know do.

audiophiles, personal fileservers, and people with a boat load of video's and music, even if you put them all together, would be a very small percentage of the entire pc userbase.

EDIT: this point is further substantiated by the explosion of the SFF market. more and more hardcore gammers are showing up to LAN's with a shuttle box instead of a full atx tower.

[zikje]

I'm rather surprised. The case is just very nice in my opinion. I don't have any problem what so ever with the doors. They work perfectly. The HD is silenced with the white rubber thingies. Only seek noise is getting true vaguely, because it's not a closed compound as for example a SilentMaxx HD Silencer. The idea of putting the PSU in a seperate compartment at the bottom is 'cool' in all meanings of the word. The P180 combined with a Ninja is just an amazing combination. Sure you can make it quieter by adding noise dampening material inside the case and around the HD's, by using Nexus fans. But it's really a quiet case. The way the panels are created is also very smart. I love this case.

The only problem with it is that the lower PSU position makes cable management a real hell. Especially for the 4-pin connector. But as a case it is really a good base for a silent computer. Better then other cases in my opinion.

To get a quiet computer you will always have to use silent components, dampening materials, suspension stuff and so on.

[gbeichho]

if you go to average joe's house and open up his dell system, he'll probably have 1 hard drive, and 1 optical drive (mabey 2), a video card, and mabey a sound card. along with that he'll have about 3-4 empty expansion slots on the motherboard, 2-3 5.25" external bays empty, and a couple 3.5" internal bays empty. thats ALOT of waisted space.

That's the same average Joe that ends up paying $2K to recover all the pictures he took over the last 5 years when his single HD fails.

External backups have their uses I agree, but that won't get your system back up and running without a huge outage. I don't know about you, but losing my main machine for more than 1 day is a real problem. Are you planning to re-install you whole machine upon HD failure. That in itself will take days.

As for CD-R. I don't know about you, but not one of my partitions fits on a single DVD anymore. Plus, I don't trust them for long term storage. For media (like TV shows, home movies, bought MP3s, or even the days of effort to RIP all of my owned CDs) that's out of the question for DVD-R.

[spolitta]

way too much off topics in this thread.

[Aris]

External backups have their uses I agree, but that won't get your system back up and running without a huge outage. I don't know about you, but losing my main machine for more than 1 day is a real problem. Are you planning to re-install you whole machine upon HD failure. That in itself will take days.

im pretty sure most people would do just fine without their computer in the time it takes to RMA the drive and get a replacement.

if your computer NEEDS to be working all the time for work or a buisness or somthing then thats another story completely. thats not a home computer, thats a work computer. people use home computers to check their email, instant messege people, surf the net, play some games. nothing life threatening if its not their for a week.

you also overexagerate the possibility of hard disk failure. you talk about it like it happens all the time, and you constantly need to be on the alert for it to happen any miniut. the only people that have that mindset are IT proffesionals in charge of servers and work computers for buisness's.

ive had a computer and have been building computers for over 8 years now. out of all the ones i built for other people and myself i've only had a hard drive fail once. and yes it was a pain in the ass, and i went without playing world of warcraft for a little over a week. but it wasnt the end of the world. just a mild inconvienence. its definatly not bad enough to have me run raid-0 reduandant drive systems in all my computers. i'll stick with just backing stuff up on an external hard drive and my single internal hard drive.

[hofffam]

Aris - I agree with some of the basic points you make. That is - don't most PCs have way more capacity for expansion than required? The discussion started with the P180.

Your points for many should drive them to a mini-Mac, which is even smaller than your new system, and has almost no internal expansion capability. It is also why so many people use laptops instead of desktops. Why don't you use a laptop? A modern laptop has every thing you say you need.

My problem with what you say is you keep writing as if you know what the typical home user does with their computer. You seem to think the typical home user just uses AIM and plays WOW. My 70 yr. old mother would agonize over loss of ability to email her relatives overseas. My 70 yr. old father would fret if he lost his politics-oriented letters to the editor. And my children's homework files are damned important and teachers don't accept "the hard drive failed" as an excuse.

My computer has 8 Gb of nearly priceless digital photos of my family accumulated over the last 8 years. I have 100 Gb of music. My Quicken files are very important to me. I have a family tree stored. In 8 years I have lost two hard drives. Each was a major problem for me. So a single hard drive is not acceptable. So I back up data regularly. Yes - notebook drives are small and quiet, but they are noticably slow loading large files (like photos). Memory and cache don't help initial load.

I'm probably more typical of SPCR readers except I'm not a gamer. I have a TV tuner card, a RAID card, a modem card, and a USB card. I need my slots.

I agree the P180 is too big for me - but I can see why it is NOT overkill for many. Same with ATX motherboards and terabytes of storage.

[Aris]

Why don't you use a laptop? A modern laptop has every thing you say you need.

the only thing keeping me from notebooks is video upgradability. if they ever standardize the video expansion capabilites in notebooks then i wouldnt ever own a pc again. but the way it is now, i dont wanna shell out an additional 1000-1500 bucks every year because my video card wont run the new game that just came out that i really want to play.

My problem with what you say is you keep writing as if you know what the typical home user does with their computer. You seem to think the typical home user just uses AIM and plays WOW. My 70 yr. old mother would agonize over loss of ability to email her relatives overseas. My 70 yr. old father would fret if he lost his politics-oriented letters to the editor. And my children's homework files are damned important and teachers don't accept "the hard drive failed" as an excuse.

i use the term "typical home user" looking at the people in my life. my mom and dad, sister, older brother, wife, friends, grandparents etc. none of them would fret over the loss of computer access for a week or two on the random off chance that their computer broke and needed to be repaired. i am probably one of the only people, other than people i know online, that would really be upset at the loss of a computer for more than a day.

as for the homework issue. its called pen and paper. turn it in, and if they say it needs to be typed just explain the situation. any respectable adult would understand that this isnt somthing that happens all the time, and to show a little lieneancy.

I'm probably more typical of SPCR readers except I'm not a gamer. I have a TV tuner card, a RAID card, a modem card, and a USB card. I need my slots.

almost every motherboard released now a days supports raid and more usb 2.0 ports than you would ever use. my mini-itx board has 8. you can also get pci-express video cards with built in tv tuners. even if you were a gamer, and wanted a seperate tv tuner card, and a modem card, and a usb card. that would still all fit on a micro-atx motherboard.

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yeah we are a bit off topic, i apologize. i initially posted on topic, but i guess my offtopic rant caught a few peoples attention. it wasnt my intent, i just had to get some stuff off my chest. hence the /start/stoprant. it might be best if reply's to my posts and all of my posts (excluding my original which is on topic) got moved to its own thread. mabey "Full ATX MBs/Cases too much" in "off topic/not silent"

[gbeichho]

ive had a computer and have been building computers for over 8 years now. out of all the ones i built for other people and myself i've only had a hard drive fail once. and yes it was a pain in the ass, and i went without playing world of warcraft for a little over a week. but it wasnt the end of the world. just a mild inconvienence. its definatly not bad enough to have me run raid-0 reduandant drive systems in all my computers. i'll stick with just backing stuff up on an external hard drive and my single internal hard drive.

I guess my record is actually better. One HD failure in 15 years of PCs. But I suspect that of my friends 40% have experienced at least 1 failure in lesser time frames. There are a lot of people blissfully ignorant of the fact that they will experience a drive failure sometime. These are the people that store all their personal business information, and pictures on these drives.

On the other hand, I've used my second drive (as an emergency boot) in my computers at least twice a year to restore a corrupted windows registry or boot sector. And Windows recovery and diagnostics is so much easier with a second working bootable windows on a second drive.

[mathias]

Does the typical user need windows, or a 3ghz+ pentium? "Normal people" have no idea what they need and what they don't, why be so overly considerate of what would suit them best?

[Aris]

Does the typical user need windows, or a 3ghz+ pentium? "Normal people" have no idea what they need and what they don't, why be so overly considerate of what would suit them best?

its the job of any good respectable pc builder to make a machine tailored to the needs of the end user.

yes i think the typical user needs windows. if for no other reason than because its familiar.

no most people dont need a 3ghz pentium, and frankly i dont recommend high end P4's most of the time anyhow. most people also dont need a PSU higher than 300watts, or more than 1 hard drive, or more than 1 optical drive, or a floppy drive. and you know what? i feel its my responsibility to inform them of all of that and the pro/cons for each choice BEFORE i recommend to them what i think they should get.

why be so overly considerate? because most of them, for me, are family. and even if their not i treat them as such.

[JazzJackRabbit]

Aris
You still blankly overgeneralize everything. You don't know what people need and you won't know until you ask them and thouroughly explain all choices. You say they don't need a second hard drive, but if you've explained them the reason for a backup harddrive I'm sure most would have considered the possibility. You say they don't need more than one optical drive, and yet how many would have chosen a second DVD-ROM because they are usually faster at ripping DVDs or a separate CD-writer because they are usually much better at copying copy-protected CDs if you explained all choices to them?


I know you said that you inform them of all cons/pros of every choice, but do you really? I get the feeling that even if you do, you still heavily overempathize your 'compact factor' theology. You may like small PCs, others may not. Your 'minimalism' is apparent, I can see it in your every post. Seriously, how can you think that slim OD are the future? That's ridiculous, there is not a single slim dvd-writer that provides acceptable burn quality. The burn speeds are also abysmal, the most you can get is 8x and that is at huge expense of the burn quality. There was a lawsuit against apple because the dvd writer they included in their laptops wouldn't burn at more than 2x when it was advertised as 8x. Just goes to show how good of a product slim writers are. And don't forget that slim writers are also very fragile, noisy and less reliable, at 24x they are as noisy as 52x cd writers. Yay? Not for me.


Like I said, I see you like small PCs, every post of yours says it, but don't push your ideology onto others. Not everyone is like you. In fact, most people aren't.



BTW I have P180 and it's just the right choice in terms of size and expansion possibilities. In fact if anything it's a little small because there is very little room for further expansion. Yes, I do take all four 5.25 bays (concerning your reply that you need only one optical device). One fan controller, two optical devices, one CDwriter for copying copy-protected CDs and one DVD writer for writing DVDs. There is also a space between them because as I have found heat adversely affects DVD writing quality so I leave a space between the drives to let the air draft cool them. With one drive in a mini case it WILL overheat and the burn quality WILL go down the drain.

You obviously dismiss many unfavourble facts like no expandability, poor burn quality, poor suitability for a wider range of applications other than web browsing and checking email just to make your small factor more appealing to others.

[jaganath]

..

[JazzJackRabbit]

..

Getting a little toasty, aren't we?

Anyway, I didn't remember your entire post before you deleted it so I'll answer some specific things I can remember. Ironically all turned out about OD, everything else, needs exact quote to argue.

1. Slim OD aren't likely to improve. It's the fact you and Aris fail to see. There are physical limitations to the clamps that hold CD in the slim drives which limit the top speed. Slim CDs have been available for notebooks for a very long time and they top at 24x, slim DVDs top at 8x, both have about the same rotational speed, so if they haven't been able to improve rotational speed at all in the past 4 years, what makes you think they will improve now? There are also physical limitations on the clamping assembly that holds and dampens CD/DVD vibrations as it spins. Sure, given enough money you can improve those things, but 1) you won't get around the top speed limitations 2) it's very unlikely that consumers will be willing to pay the price premium for such drive, and 3) if the slim OD can be improved, so can full size OD too and they will be quiter, they will be faster, and they will be cheaper than slim OD.
2. About the apple CD writer. That's the point, it wasn't a false advertisement. The drive specs were 8x writing DVDs, but in reality, it always dropped the speed down to 2x which shows how poorly slim OD are made.
3. Once again, about OD overheating. So you're saying that shuttle owners never burn DVDs so overheating resulting in poor burn quality does not affect them?

[Aris]

jazz: you act like being the minority in how you use your computer in a home environment is a bad thing, and seem to need to make it seem like its not the minority.

i see it everyday. mom and pop just want things to work. they dont want somthing large and obtrusive that sticks out or goes BLING in the night. they dont want to hear it, they dont want to see it, they just want it to work properly when they need it.

they want a computer to be like a microwave, or an oven. i press some buttons and i get my desired result.

most people never open their case, ever. i know it a hard concept to grasp once you've been in the computer field for a while. but its true. they dont even think about things like dusting it out ever year or so, or not locking it in a small cabinet with no ventelation, and then they wonder why it doesnt work. hopefully they have one with a warrenty that covers it when it doesnt work, but alot of people dont, and to take a computer to the repair shop around here costs on average around 50 bucks an hour to fix. They dont know how long it actually takes to fix it. It usually takes less than an hour, but most places will just make up some random number to make the cost fit what they feel is right for what was wrong.

Heres a real life example. My mom has a computer. Unfortunately i didnt build it for her because i wasnt around when she wanted a new one, and she just went down to the local PC shop and had them put together a system for her. It worked fine for a couple years. Then it started making a horrible sound and kept crashing. The local pc repair shop wanted to charge her 50 bucks just to look at it, and another 100 bucks to fix it. you know what was wrong with it? the MB northbridge fan was going out. it cost me about 10 bucks in hardware, and about 20min to fix. Also she complaines to me how big and bulky it is, and how hard it is to move when she needs to.

Lets go back to your reasoning for 2 hard drives. quick backup purpose in case a drive goes bad. makes sense to me and you. you know what would happen if that exact same scenario happened at my moms house? she would call the local repair shop and say "it doesnt work", and lose a week anyhow just getting it their, repaired, and picking it back up. even though it only really takes mabey an hour to switch the drives. she doesnt open the case, how is she going to know that. even if she did know, she wouldnt know HOW to do it. I spent an hour one night on the phone with her just trying to get her to check some jumpers on the motherboard. I think it took me about 15min before she even knew what a jumper was. And even if i was there to quickly show her, and tell her how it all works, she wont remember. she doesnt want to know, she just wants it to work.

Then you talk about DVD ripping, CD ripping, needing fast reliable copying, like you do it all the time, and you need it to work reliably and fast all the time, and you probably do need it.

Mom goes to the store and buys a dvd if she wants to watch a movie. she sticks it in the dvd player hooked up to her tv. the thought of even putting it into the computer to check the extra dvd-rom stuff on it doesnt even pop into her head, let alone ripping/burning it for backup purposes or piracy. same goes for cd music. What she does do as far as this subject is concerned is download some music from the internet. It's the new "in" thing, its quick and easy with iTunes and doesnt cost much, plus she doesnt have to shop all over town for that one favorite song she wants to hear. Then she burns it to a CD so she can listen to it in the car. Thats the extent of most peoples burning needs. which can be fullfilled with one optical drive.

i pick slim optical drives mostly for the form factor. its small, and yes i have a thing for minamalism. why have somthing 2 feet tall, over a foot deep and almost a foot wide to surf the net when you can do it with something as small as 8x8x4 inches that sits on the desk next to the monitor. your basic mom and pop are in this exact same frame of mind. they just want it to work, like the microwave always does.

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and as i stated before, many times now. no small is not for everyone. your a prime example as an end user that needs a full atx tower and motherboard. but your average joe doesnt need all of that. which has been my point all along. i'm not saying "lets get rid of atx mb's and cases", i'm just saying "lets take more time to look at smaller more effiecient form factors", and i'm not the only one. SFF computers are all the rage lately, and seem to only be getting more and more popular.

[JazzJackRabbit]

Aris
Well, that made much better sense/impression now that you properly explained it.

Anyway, I do not act like it's a bad thing being a minority. I realize, that my home computer habits are a bit more sofisticated than typical, but I do not think the scenario you described with your mom as an example is a majority either. Just this weekend I was really surprised seeing a 30-40 year old woman asking which videocard is better for gaming so you never know.

I think another reason for our argument is "need" vs "want". The end user may want one hard drive, but if he wants his personal photos/videos/email be safe (often the thing end users never worry about) he NEEDS a second hard drive, even if it's external USB one. I had a coworker come to me once asking why his newly burned CD won't play in the car. The end user may want a slim optical drive, or for a better example the cheapest one, BTC for instance since they are dirt-cheap, after all it's still a drive, it should work, what can go wrong, right? But if he wants his CD-R to play in the car or a reliable backup of his photos, not a burn made on memorex CDs with a BTC which will report a successful burn but won't be readable anywhere, he NEEDS a good drive.

So yes, the end user will survive with a small machine, with a single hard drive, with a single OD which is likely to everheat all in a small SFF case that is often very loud and very hard to mod. But then again should anything happen, he will wonder, why his family photos were lost, why his CDRs won't play in a car, why he can't play newest videogames and why is his PC so loud. So you see it's not really a question of what user wants, but what he needs.

[mathias]

It's not a question about who is the majority or the minority; it's not a one biped, one vote system. It's a question of who does the most with it, a question of who spends the most time using it or who puts the most effort into tweaking, choosing and personalizing it. Although money can be substituted for effort, that's what macs are for. But they're not very popular, now are they?