Wow, you have a hand thermometer as well? Those things do seem to be pretty ubiquitous, that's pretty much how i judge my case temps too. Basically I don't mind things being warm, I am just looking for things seeming either way too hot or there not being any noticeable air-flow. Well, now that you h...

Hmm, decisions, decisions. Had a look at the SG04 reviews and it is a nice looking case. Mike C has previously mentioned that the SG04 (actually might have been the sg03) isn't any good because the PSU is drawing air from inside the case and so will heat up, increasing the speed of the fan and thus ...

I agree about the annoyance of rubbish fan grills on cases but remember hat some of them will be structural, so have a think before cutting large chunks out of your case. If it DOES look particularly structural, either leave well alone or maybe just remove a bit of it (like every other row). As has ...

Hey, thanks for the reply. great info. I haven't had a look at the SG04 yet, I will have a look for reviews. I thought that the 4 and 5 were mini rather than micro, so didn't bother. Yeah, I can't understand the dumb errors that case manufacturers are STILL making. Case design isn't rocket science, ...

I'm starting my research for upgrading my current main PC, which is getting a bit long in the tooth (an AMD X2 4400+, with DDR ram). It has served me well and a recent upgrade of an Intel X-25M 80Gb SSD worked wonders (I HIGHLY recommened that to be a first upgrade before anyone looks at upgrading C...

Hi, I have the asus at3iont-i deluxe, great little board. The large heatsink gets pretty warm (even hot) so best not to go totally fanless, but then i am againts the concept of totally fanless PCs anyway: even if you have huge heatsinks (like this has) you still need at least a SMALL amount of airfl...

All of my hardware has arrived and is setup. Got an In Win BM648 case, which I'm quite liking, although it is a little bigger than I expected (was assuming it would be tiny but it's still pretty decently small). I like that I can fit in a full-size optical drive, though, which reduced the cost and s...

Ahh, yep, I see what you mean. I just found a molex to 2 sata splitter on my desk and it looks the same as the molex on the board, so wouldn;t plug into it. Still, if there wasn't a cable available for it I'm sure it would be pretty easy to buy a couple of cables and swap the various plugs on them t...

Sorry, started replying to this at work and then got distracted by having to do work. Anyway, thanks for the replies. Okay, the molex is correct, it's a molex out, like from a psu, rather than a molex in for a drive. Are you sure that you have molex to sata rather than sata to molex? I was going to ...

Hi all, been ages since I have been around (recently married, which takes a fair chunk of hobby time) but finally got some new hardware to play with and I'm looking to build myself an HTPC. I have chosen the Asus AT3IONT-I Deluxe, which comes with an onboard DC converter and an external 90w ac adapt...

Cheers BB. Mostly we like to just ramble about the strange things that we have learned in our inner (silent) sanctums. A little appreciation is the icing on the cake. If you want a new HD then check out the SPCR drive reviews. When I last bought a new SATA drive the Samsung Spinpoint 250Gb was nice....

Oh dear, another poor soul trapped in the quiet abyss... BB, do you have a cost consideration with the noise? Obviously there is always a limit but how much does the noise matter to you? Once you start listening you will find noise everywhere. PSUs are one of the harder things to affect. I bought a ...

thanks towermax. Sadly this is a standard P4, not a mobile (from what i can tell). I think it came just before the widespread use of Mobile chips. I will try that utility but I get the impression that a chip needs to have specific support for this function. Never mind. I can still clean the heatsink...

thanks jag, I'll give it a go. It looks like the only option really, so anything would be good.

Hi guys, Okay, my girlfriend has a dell laptop with a shockingly inappropriate P4 2.2GHz CPU. From things I have read about these models (SmartStep 250N, or smartPC in UK), you can greatly improve cooling by removing the rubbish heat transfer pad and applying some AS. However, what would REALLY help...