I've got a newbie question and i've got the newbie's answer (hopefully you old hands can set me straight)
q: How do i search to forums and get a useful result for a common term?

eg. Zalman 7000
esp. terms that show up in many ppl's sigs...

AFAIK you just can't. Anyone else know different?

1) I don't think that the search picks up on sigs.
2) Answer: modify the search for more specific terms. What do you want to know about the Zalman 7000? Modding? If it's right for you?

When there's a wealth of information about a product, you'll have to be more specific about what sort of information you're looking for.

Hey, thanks, folks! This was a pleasant surprise, to see two replies right away--and addressing my main concern even though it's technically off topic.

Sthayashi, this actually is not that unusual a question, I think. One or two posters mentioned it higher up in the discussion, saying that it comes up fairly often. Certainly makes sense to me, especially since summer is right around the corner...

Just in case anyone has anything more to say on my specific case, I've added the specs for my system in my signature. Mobo Monitor 5 is telling me

CPU=51 centigrade
Case=38 centigrade

when room temp is about 81 fahrenheit. But I haven't had time to puzzle through the 'Calibrate Your CPU Temp Reporting' article yet to make sure the readings are accurate.

BTW, it would also be helpful to have some more indications of how search terms work. I put "how hot is hot" in the search box, checking the "Search for all terms" bullet and got over 3827 hits... I still don't know how it works if one puts search terms within quotes. I assume it ignores the quotes. I can't imagine that phrase occurs 3827 times in the forum.

This thread is reminding me of how much I've learned since I started it. I now know about the recommended limit for drive temperatures.

Case temperatures are often meaningless since they refer to an unspecified thermal diode that may or may not be close to semi-hot components (like the northbridge or the voltage regulators).

You can't search for a phrase just yet on SPCR. Sadly, the best way to do that would be with google (Search: "How hot is hot" site:forums.silentpcreview.com)

But there are 3827 threads that have the words "hot" and "how" (I think 2 letter words may be dropped, but I'm not certain of that).

I saw them on the HDD Testing Methodology page, so they're still around.

Great, i didn't know about that. Thanks for the tip
That will be very useful.

Now that Motherboard Monitor is no longer supported, I find myself without a complete answer to the question "how do I tell how hot my PC is running?".

I use almost nothing but ASUS motherboards, and ASUS provide a really useful program called PC Probe (now PC Probe II, with added glitz/bling!).

On Gigabyte motherboards there's a utility called EZ-Tuner which can show fan speeds and CPU temp, but no motherboard temp (there may not even be a sensor).

But as for other motherboard brands? I have no answer. I tried the last Motherboard Monitor on a friend's new PC (not supported) it reported CPU temp of -50 degrees C, and motherboard temp of 98 degrees C. I kinda doubt both of those

I think this would make a nice FAQ, but although I have the Q, I only have a partial A.

After the host of different "Is this a good, quiet overclocking rig?" threads i've knocked this together. It still needs a lot of work, suggestions on the back of a postcard.

Is a quiet overclocked PC possible?

It's a bit of a contradiction, overclocking generates more heat than running the parts at stock speeds. This gets even worse if you're going to overvolt the CPU or GPU, as such you will never (unless you have more money than bill gates and no girlfriend to spend it on) get as quiet a computer with overclocking. This guide is to help you make a compromise between noise and power. This doesn't include watercooling, phase cooling or anything like that, it may be added later.

Why overclock?
There are two groups that overclock, the poor and the rich. The poor buy the nicest parts they can and overclock to get more performance, gaining joy from making a £300 CPU do the work of a £600 one. This guide is mostly for those people.
Then there's the ones with enough money to buy the top of the range gear, and want more power from the parts, for these people this guide is useless, or next to useless as watercooling becomes more and more relevant the higher your budget gets and the higher your goals become.

Bad Points:
Overclocking will put your parts under more strain than they are supposed to have. It will reduce the lifespan, maybe even fry the chip instantly. There are also reports that it makes you impotent, but these are still unconfirmed. Overclock at your own risk, you will void your waranty 99% of the time if you do so.

Good points:
I've got a 7800GT graphics card that scores higher than a stock 7800GTX, a 4400 X2 CPU that runs at 2.6Ghz stable (about the same as a 5200 if AMD doesn't change the numbers system too much). This is by no means an impressive increase, search around if you doubt this.


Planning.
Proper prior planning prevents piss poor pentium purchases. If you're going to overclock heavily then plan for that from the start, otherwise you will find out that you made a stupid mistake, i did. Research the components you're thinking about, find reviews and read more than one for each part you are going to buy.

The build:

Case: In short airflow is king, however we're not here to make a Delta equiped monster that you have to chain down when the fans run at full speed.
So for a quiet overclocking case what do we look for?
1) Good airflow : Your parts will get hot, if you're relying on the PSU to exhaust the heat then you're an idiot. Quiet cases normally use low speed 120mm fans to exhaust the heat, by using these fans at higher speeds you can get excellent airflow.
2) Room for your parts: Putting an overclocked 4800 X2 and 7800GTX 512 into a shuttle PC will not work, even with delta's at full speed you just wont' manage. Also think about room for suspended drives, water cooling if you use it and how you'll install the thing.
3) Noise proof casing: There's nothing like letting other people do the work for you, so taking something like a p180 or p150 that is designed to be very quiet will help knock down the volume of those 150Gig Raptors you've got there.
Suggestions:
p180 A modern classic.
p150 Even better than the p180 in some ways but a smaller case and not as pretty.
Lian Li cases in general are worth a look.
Coolermaster stackers are also good but harder to slience, better for water cooling rigs.


CPU: This is the heart of your computer, without it there is no computer. If you're going to buy a machine now then i'd buy a dual core AMD chip, the new P4s may equall the 4800, but they won't beat them. This may be altered in future days when the new P4s are released.
Dual core! But which model? The best value DC chip is the Opteron 165, it's compatible with 99%* of all 939 boards, cheaper than the 3800X2 and overclocks beautifully. However it's like gold dust, so the second option is the 3800X2. If you really must have the full cache of the 4800X2 (like me) then buy a 4400X2, however there is next to no performance increase for most tasks for the extra cache (I didn't know this, mistake 1).
Suggestions in order of (my) preference:
Opteron 165
3800X2
Single core AMD chips


Motherboard: The best overclocking board at the moment is the DFI range, however they have a chipset fan which makes quieting it a lot harder to silence, better to go for a passive design. The A8N32-SLI and A8R MVP are both passive and great overclockers, unlike the earlier editions of the A8 serries. Other good options exist, but i'm not listing them at the moment.

PSU: Power stability and noise aren't contradictory, read the reviews and recomended options. You do not (NOT) need a 600W PSU, in real terms most 450W PSUs could handle a high end overclocked SLI system. For comfort go for a 500W, if you really are buying top of the line stuff thoughout then by all means buy a 600W, but its' a waste of money imo +ime.

RAM: 2gb is the optimum these days for a new build, 1gb is more than useable, but the newer releases do start to like having more, battlefield 2 for example gets smoother if you've got more than 1gb of RAM to play with. If you're still reading then you're thinking AMD, in which case the two groups of people will seperate briefly. Those with money to burn should buy top of the line high speed RAM, check anandtech for comparative reviews. The poor should just get half decent value RAM, again check www.anandtech.com for reviews. The difference is less than 10% for a 100% increase in costs. If 10% is worth an extra $150 then by all means go for the nice stuff.

HSF: SI-120, Scythe ninja with Nexus, Thermaltake big tower, zalman 9500, all are great heatsinks, the difference is more down to personal preference than anything else. I can't pick everything for you.

Hard Drive(S): Raptor 150Gig (enterprise) if performance is king, or the WD Caviar range if it's merely important, or spinpoints if you remember that we're on SPCR. www.storagereview.com has comparitive reviews of almost all hard drives around and is very good at this stuff.

Graphics card: This is where you should spend the most if gaming is your thing. It's possible to overclock any card, the ATI 800s can be unlocked (sometimes) to become 850s. The 7800GTs are very very nice cards and mine overclocked beautifully when i bought it. Either buy one with a Zalman heatsink installed or buy an eVGA card, they have a waranty that covers swapping out the heatsink. XFX does good cards too, but the waranty is not as good as the eVGA one (my second mistake).
For which card in particular to buy, it's budget dependant, i may add a list of suggested cards at different values later.

Sound Card: Personal preference again, but if your speakers cost $50 then you are an idiot if you're paying $150 for a sound card and expect to hear the difference.

The short version is to decide what you want before you buy anything. If noise is your nemisis then DON'T OVERCLOCK. If you want to have a quiet PC 90% of hte time and a monster when you game then it's easily done when you know how (Rivatuner and speedfan are essential btw).

Links to case studies to be inserted here (i'll find a few threads from the systems forum that get followed through the process for people to read.)

end

Thoughts?

Sarcasm and the politics of envy have no place in an SPCR FAQ.

While i deplore your lack of sense of fun you're also right, will correct it.

I'm assuming you do think it's worth keeping/correcting.

Bob_the_lost --

Yes, it's worth refining & then posting as a stand-alone item. I will do that once you've brought it up to a more polished level. Thanks for your effort so far.

One comment.

You make a few comments that imply what you mean, but don't say it outright. As an experienced user, I can easily pick up on what you are trying to say, but I'm not so sure a beginner would. Try and make your advice as explicit as possible.

Absolutely. In hindsight I was probably a little bit harsh in my previous post, I can see the comment in the spirit it was intended now, and it adds a lighthearted tone to an otherwise serious article. Please don't feel that you need to delete it on my behalf, the addition of emoticons might make the humour more obvious (ie )

Also, you might like to be a little more diplomatic in the finished version, comments like this:



are less abrasive than something like this:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=14232 has a link to a post that no longer exists. The link is in this section:

Q: Can SPCR review this (heatsink/powersupply/case/fan/hard drive)?
A: Yes. We don't generally buy samples but rely on donations from users and contributions from sponsoring retailers and companies. If you would like to see a product here on SPCR, don't write to MikeC. Write to the company and/or its distributors and ask if they would send a sample to SPCR for review. Or read what MikeC suggests.

Q: I have silent cooling and need a system stress stability test, what's a good overall solution?
A: Try ATITool. Despite the name, it can test both Ati and Nvidia systems for thermal stability and graphical artifacts. GPU, CPU and chipset will be stressed, and there is reporting for graphical artifacts, GPU temperature and runtime. Do note that the load applied is static, and games for example apply a varying load: a system stable at full tilt may still be unstable with constant shifts. Compliment with monitoring software like Speedfan to observe additional statistics. Both programs mentioned can also adjust your system's settings.

Good enough to enter in the FAQ? I'm thinking the System Advice section. I wrestled with this myself as there was no straight official answer, but after reading the few SPCR VGA reviews I realized what ATITool could do. It gets my CPU and chipset just as hot as StressCPU did, which in turn got them as hot as Prime did. It also adds the benefit of full steam from all hot components, so realistic overall results are achieved.

Update: Added note about the difference between the test and real-life applications. Added note about additional monitoring. Added note about system adjustment. Added note to notes about realistic overall results.