X1900XTX at desktop, idle: 165 w X1550 at desktop, idle: 149 w NVIDIA 8000 GTX at desktop, idle: 225 w (!) (I know, I know, I am a game junkie and I got an incredible deal on a new GTX from a hardware editor I know.) Still, it's a mystery to me why my baseline power usage on this system is a whoppin...

I swapped out the X1900XTX for the X1550, and got the following: X1900XTX at desktop, idle: 165 w X1550 at desktop, idle: 149 w so if X1550 draws 20w, that means the baseline power usage of this system, without ANY video card, is 129w . That still seems extraordinarily high.. Oh, and I forgot to ans...

I'm in the process of upgrading my video card, so I pulled the X1550 to see what happens. At desktop idle, with X1550 + X1900 XTX: 185 w At desktop idle, with X1900XTX only: 165 w So the X1550 uses 20 w at idle, I think. This card was only used for 2D work anyway (to support my third monitor), so it...

Thanks for the responses. EIST is definitely on; I can watch the voltage/clock speed/multiplier change in real time using CPU-Z. I'll play with it a bit more, and try removing stuff. Right now I suspect the video cards. Maybe the X1550 is more of a power hog than I realized, or maybe I got a bum X19...

I posted a blog entry about my upgrade to a 85% efficient power supply, based on before and after kill-a-watt measurements.. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000871.html After posting it, I noticed that my IDLE load on this particular system is 185 watts, which is ridiculously high! WTF? Sy...

Despite the ridiculous power usage and heat dissipation, I am still tempted to get a 2900 XT. It's been over a year since my last video card upgrade to the 1900 XTX [w/Accelero S1 mod] and I'm getting very antsy. This is literally the longest I've ever gone with the same video card in my machine-- e...

Do you have by chance any power consumption figures along with more complete system specs? Yes, all the detail is here: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000221.html A few things have changed since the original build, though: - Swapped out two of three 160gb Spinpoints for one 500gb WD RE16...

Thanks. It looks like my upgrade options are severely limited on this platform/socket 479. I can barely find any socket 479 chips at all! I overclocked my 1.6GHz Pentium-M Dothan chip by 10% (and it's undervolted-- gotta love Pentium Ms!) and I can just barely squeak by at 90% CPU usage on these WMV...

My current home theater PC is the AOpen i855GMem-LFS: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article218-page2.html Right now it's running a 1.6 GHz Dothan. I'm looking at my CPU upgrade options for this machine, for possible HD video playback. I'd like to avoid upgrading the motherboard if I can. It uses Int...

wumpus, did you check what kind thermal paste there was under northbridge heatsink when changing it? Yep, if you read through, you'll see that I cleaned and used Ceramique. So all these temps are with *good* heatsink contact. I highly recommend cleaning the heatsinks on the P5B -- the existing ther...

http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/4687/p5bheatsinkssmallbf4.jpg It fits! Barely.. but we knew it would be close. Also, MASSIVE improvement in temperatures! With only the rear case fan going, the HR-05 does get quite toasty under load-- slightly uncomfortable to touch. I set up the low-rpm scythe f...

I haven't gotten the HR-05 yet. It's scheduled to arrive today. I did have several heat-related crashes yesterday. It was unseasonably warm and I was playing Battlefield 2142-- not a good combo! I strongly suspect the northbridge, as usual, since the CPU barely gets warm and the system is rock stabl...

First question: Does the south bridge get hot at all? If it does, I can install a TR hr-05 on there along with the hr-05 on the northbridge.

Err.. did you not see this thread? All the questions you asked are answered there:

viewtopic.php?t=34826

Yep, default multiplier.. no adjustment to multiplier at all; I just raised the bus speed to 355.

There's plenty of airflow in this case. The 120mm exhaust fan is running at a good clip directly behind the CPU, and as you can see from the pics, the CPU and northbridge are neighbors..

I decided that I was unhappy with the temps I'm getting on the p5b northbridge (always unpleasant to touch, and nearly burning when under load-- eg, 80+c ). Even with the cap removed. I went ahead and ordered one of the Thermalright HR-05 northbridge coolers. Like I said, this is disappointing given...

Hmm. I removed the northbridge cap (really a metallic sticker) and it's hard to tell if the results are any better. I can't get a solid reading off the fins using the temperature gun. It seems to make sense that the NB would do better without the cap-- it exposes the fins more and allows more convec...

Ah, I see. That does make sense. The decorative cap on the northbridge probably does reduce airflow somewhat and retains heat.. I'll give that a shot in a sec.

I have no Temperature gun or what-not. Well, you have the Mark I Finger, don't you? Use it! Just be careful and touch lightly, because my northbridge gets to 75c. Do we do the same thing everyone else has been doing with the P5W DH boards? And that is.. what? It is a little disappointing that the d...

Ok, so everything is set back to the way it was, with the exception of the northbridge voltage . Northbridge is set to "auto" instead of 1.55v; memory is set to 2.25v, CPU is set to 1.4625v, and the FSB is set to 355 * 9 or 3.2 GHz. Right now Dual Prime95 has been burning in for about 15 minutes or ...

Well, I got my new P5B and I'm up and running again with a mobo replacement. Memory, CPU, etc are all the same. This time, I took off the NB and SB heatsinks and cleaned off the crappy TIM material underneath, and applied some Ceramique compound instead (well, except where the heatsink covers the VR...

I'm wondering if something about having the X300 video card in the first PCI x16 slot caused some kind of extra load on the northbridge. Normally the X1900XTX is in that first slot, but I was having a problem where the motherboard would only detect the card in the second PCI x16 slot, so I switched ...

Last week I built up a new Core 2 Duo system: - Asus P5B Deluxe (965 express) motherboard - Core Duo 2 E6600 - Scythe Infinity - 2GB AData DDR2 667 RAM And it was working great; it burned in at 3.1 GHz no problem, with dual instance of Prime95 running for hours. As the system was burning in with dua...

So to reitterate, very smart move from Shuttle to bring those ports back. I might agree with you on a typical desktop system. On a system this small, every legacy port takes up room that could be used for modern peripherals . Your insistence on an ancient, obsolete connector is costing the rest of ...

The comparison with the iMac vs. the Mac Mini was done for one simple reason: We've reviewed the iMac. We haven't reviewed the Mac Mini. So what? It's still a wildly inappropriate comparison. The form factor of the iMac is completely different, and it has an embedded LCD monitor. It's quite literal...

Also, on the review: why are we comparing this system to the iMac? Isn't it more akin to the Mac Mini in size and form factor? A friend of mine at work tried to use the Mac Mini under XP as a Windows Media Center box, but the Mac Mini fan ramps up to *very* noisy levels according to him.. so it was ...

You guys would be quite surprised on the number of request we've had to bring PS2 ports back. We still get request to bring parallel and serial ports back. If your customers request you to jump off a bridge, would you do it? Apple makes money hand over fist, and they DON'T do it by dumbing down the...

I'm not sure, but I *have* seen this happen-- a video card that works in one machine and won't even boot in the other machine. First, I'd try to rule out the power supply. Yes, the 7600gs is relatively efficient and should use less power than the 6600gt, but I think it's still possible for the PSU t...

DURING GAMING [ HALO ] - 73

So what? GPUs are rated up to 90c and you almost never have a problem until you get to 85c or more.

GPUs are *not* CPUs and can run much hotter.

What I'd like to know is what the difference would be, performance-wise, between the two above choices? The performance difference is huge, typically 3x or greater in favor of stand-alone graphics cards. However, integrated video has a huge advantage in terms of lower power use. Integrated video us...

I think you guys want the 7600*gt* and not the 7600*gs*. Big performance difference! The 7600gt is by far the best bang for the watt of all video cards on the market right now. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000662.html I just got the gigabyte passive 7600gt for my work PC and I'm blown a...