I had once mounted a case intake fan that, over the course of one month, fed enough dust into the < 1 year old VGA fan to kill it. Also, slightly off topic, I recently had the MB case fan header die after ~2 weeks of use. I caught it quickly as I had been monitoring temps and fans closely, having ju...

I like them both, but for different purposes. I like SpeedFan for its charting capability, and MBM for its logging and high/low/ave chart. SpeedFan can also log (not that you say that it can't) Personally, I've found the log function to be too limited to be of any use to me. It outputs the followin...

I was also considering installing an Arctic cooling VGA silencer, which should theoretically help in blowing air out. I've got a socket 478 Prescott 3.4Ghz running on a P4P800SE with the Swiftech 478 cooler with a 92mm M1a Panaflo and AS5. Not exactly quiet but not annoying given the room it's in. ...

Ditto here. Got and installed it last spring. Seems I only saw a 1-2c rise in temps but I did install it at the cusp between cool and warm spring temps and didn't track the temps in regards to ambient so that rise may have little or nothing to do with the PowerSnooze. I did like the kit: easy to wor...

hey all, I got a little situation. My PIII fan is alot of noise, probably the loudest component in the PC. I want to get a 92mm or 80mm (@ 5 or 7 volts) fan on top of the existing heatsink. The challange is on how to connect the heatsink to the plastic socket without the pins wich are connected to ...

What if I left the orginal fan plugged in, waited for the machine to finish booting, then remove the fan? Would the machine continue to check the fan status even after boot? I've unplugged various fans while the system was running to isolate noises and have never had a problem with the system shutt...

Many motherboard RPM sensors consider the fan "failed" if its spinning at less than 2500rpms or so. When cool at startup the PSU is probably spinning too slowly to be acceptable to the mobo. I have an HP with a transplanted Antec PSU that doesn't have fan spped output. The bios, however, wants to s...

Apart from that, is there any other reason not to? In my home office setup I've got 2 towers sitting side-by-side. They are mere inches from a wall at the back and are surrounded by 11" deep bookcases on both sides (bookcase, tower, tower, bookcase with roughly 10" total side-to-side clearance). Th...

....Florian Schneider, Ralf Hütter, Karl Bartos. I can't remember the fourth guys name..... Wolfgang Flür HAH! Been poking around here for a few months and this is the first I've heard of this. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDSUB040406221811391908&sql=B4sri28oc055a shathal, if you d...

K&N filter material is cotton....and needs to be oiled slightly to catch dust. I don't think it would work well if left dry. IMHO....sucking a little oil into an internal combustion engine won't hurt anything. But I wouldn't want to do that to a computer. :? I had thought the same thing about the o...

Hi Bluefront, The problem is surface area. If you put a flat piece over your fan, you will cut down the airflow quite a bit....maybe 50% or more. Then you'll find that filter will clog quickly, further reducing airflow. That's why pleated filters are so much better....more surface area. Of course it...

As I've mentioned before, I don't have Heatsink mounting holes in my motherboard. This alone limits the variety of heatsinks that I can use. One thing that I do have on my motherboard is potential places for mounting holes. All the places where the WOULD be a hole looks like a hole that has been so...

Btw, isn't 44 C a pretty hot temp for a hard drive. Mine is in the high 30's and I'm thinking that's too high. Over time anything over 35 will wear down your HD is what I have heard before. 44C getting up there, but the drive is spec'd at 55C. I am concerned in regards to what temps I will see when...

I would be interested to hear about any experiments you have done. I am interested to see if sucking air in the front vs. the side or top is more effective overall. My hard drives are pretty warm, and I have always wondered about sucking air in the front of the case for that anyways. Unfortuately I...

I have a sonata and was wondering what are some good mats or pads to look at. I dont want to spend alot, just a quick minor fix for my case, thanks :) Jblinkj182, A couple months ago I stumbled across Power Snooze in the QuietPC USA bargin bin . I see they still have it listed. For $27.95 plus a fe...

For future reference, does IBM or any other big OEM do this? Compaq used to do this on their computers for a while. It was a pretty nasty thing to do. Also, many moons ago, I worked for a company that had HP Vectras. I remember them mentioning HP used a motherboard that was different from AT and AT...

Ok, I just tried a 1N4733A diode and it works. It's rated as: 5.1V. 1.0W, 49mA. That spec doesn't make a deal of sense. W = V x I, so a 1W 5V1 zener will handle 196mA max. The Fairchild datasheet shows various properties at a 49mA test current, but this is not the max. The Fanmate construction has ...

You could get a matching Ohm Resistor that has better heat tolerance (see: fatter resistor). Yes, make sure you are using at least a 1/2 watt resistor. I'm using that in one of my systems and it is cool to the touch. The other system uses doides (two 5.1V in parallel). This drops the voltage to 6.9...

esn or others: What's your recommended way of connecting the conductors of the diode with the cables? I bought some fan cable extensions, cut a small portion out of the middle of the + wire and soldered in the diodes. I used shrink tubing to insulate the diodes and marked the connector with the res...

I'm looking for a pair of Silent Drive 2002C for my pair of Hitachi 7K250 80GB drives and plan on either suspending them or putting them at the bottom of the case with some sorbathane underneath them. Do you have any pictures with your bubble wrap method? I may try that though for some reason I'm a...

How do I turn on the machine turning the CPU fan off, the thing will cook won't it (in fact I think there is protection, if the fan is not plugged in it won't even start?). Th P4 has thermal protection built into it. This is rather dated (Sept. 2001) but it provides good background info. http://www...

How do I turn on the machine turning the CPU fan off, the thing will cook won't it (in fact I think there is protection, if the fan is not plugged in it won't even start?). Th P4 has thermal protection built into it. If it gets to hot, it'll throttle down the speed. I've stopped mine from spinning ...

Yes, you read right: lightning as in a lightning storm. http://news.com.com/2100-7337_3-5179422.html?tag=nefd_top This is a very wild idea. And, while I tend to think the people at Purdue know a thing or two more than I, this seems like a really bad idea. It'll be interesting to see if this goes any...

I've come up with a unique case/cooling design, unlike anything I've seen before. And I'm looking to sell the design/plans before I go public and post pictures on this website. Perhaps I can work a deal like I sell the design, and sign a form not to design any new computer products for a year.........

I notice that a significant amount of the remaining sound in my case is being heard through the front of my case. ......The remaining opportunity is to dampen the lower front of the case to reduce sound coming out the front of the case. The question is, how do I dampen but not overheat the hard dri...

I've been using split tubing to wrap my wires. Not quite as neat as shrink tubing or nylon mesh wrap, but easier to apply, remove and reuse. Wires that are too long can be doubled up inside the stuff. I've used plastic zip ties to close off the end but recently found silcone tape and tried it out la...

And Radio Shack just happens to sell these in pairs. Thanks! Ok, I just tried a 1N4733A diode and it works. It's rated as: 5.1V. 1.0W, 49mA. Note that the amperage is 1/5 what you specified. Is this a problem for an 80mm L1A Panaflo? You should use 2 in parallel. The L1A draws about 100mA at 12V off...

Ok, I just tried a 1N4733A diode and it works. It's rated as: 5.1V. 1.0W, 49mA. Note that the amperage is 1/5 what you specified. Is this a problem for an 80mm L1A Panaflo? You could do a better job, probably cheaper as well, with just a zener diode in the fan wiring. http://www.cpemma.co.uk/graphic...

Since no one else has replied, I'll throw in my 1/2 cent worth. Not exactly the info you're looking for but I have 2 very different machines with HDD's enclosed in the Smart Drive 2002 box. Comp1 is a PIII 1Ghz office machine with a 30Gb IBM drive. The drive is sitting on the floor of the computer o...

Or I can re-read the previous message and realize the 4V7 = 4.7 volts and 5V1 = 5.1 volts. DOH! And, ya, I keep thinking I need to get a multimeter. Nearly every multimeter I'm aware of can tell you the voltage drop of a diode. Just set the dial to the diode setting (it looks like a schematic drawin...