Found this while looking for a simple fan controller. No fancy LED display. No RPM monitoring either.

http://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-FP33B ... 001NPEBI8/

Thanks for the responses. I guess I should have bolded the word "hypothetically". I realize that a low rpm fan would be an optimal solution. I just wanted to know the best passive heatsink. That's all.

If you guys don't mind me steering the thread back towards the original topic, I would be interested to know the best passive cooler for a demanding application such as an overclocked i7. Let's just assume, hypothetically, that an active fan solution was not possible. Price and case size also are no...

I have a ASUS Radeon 3850 and the Accelero's VRM heatsinks don't really fit. The adhesive quickly failed to work, so now I just use Ceramique on the VRM heatsinks. While I wouldn't recommend it if you move your computer around a lot, so far it's doing the job for me.

I have the hd502hi. It's mounted to a very poor (in terms of vibration/sound dampening) aluminum case. Vibration is virtually non-existent. Idle noise is present. In addition to a typical hum, mine has a high-pitched whine - probably not normal. Somewhat disappointed considering the spec sheet liste...

The auto settings are probably not helping you. I would set them to manual and work from there. The newer boards have more functionality but in turn are more difficult to tweak. I found when I upgraded to a newer mobo I had to learn how to adjust NB voltages, memory timings, and fsb values just to g...

You can have windows turn off your monitor after a period of time. It won't be completely turned off, but having it in standby mode or whatever is still better than a screensaver.

http://www.buy.com/prod/3-5-500gb-5400- ... 33868.html

It says it's temp. out of stock, but I ordered one anyway to "get in line" over the weekend. To my surprise, it ended up on my doorstep today. There's no word of it being sold in the US anywhere else. YMMV.

Frostytech has reviews of both. To quote their reviews, for the s1283, "The aluminum fins measure 0.35mm thick and are spaced 1.75mm apart." As for the s1284, "Each aluminum fin measures 0.4mm thick and is spaced 2mm apart from the next."

I'd be very interested to see how it compares to the single platter Samsung and Western Digital offerings, e.g. Samsung F1 320GB, WD3200AAKS.

FWIW, Tom's gets lower power consumption with the newer 1TB drive.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd ... 77-13.html

Pardon my ignorance and thanks for the help. I never thought of using a fanmate/resistor. But I think the best plan for me is just to buy a pwm fan with a lower RPM minimum, now that I've cleared things up. Thanks again.

If you don't have any issues with 8.12 there's no reason to upgrade. If you look at the release notes there's no new features or fps improvements.

I'm using the xigmatek s1283 pwm fan to cool my cpu. The problem I have is when I set it to run at 10% speed (I can't go any lower using Gigabyte's Easytune) at idle temps, the fan runs at around 930 RPM. Looking at SPCR's review of the s1283's stock fan measurements, 930 RPM is about 10V. Does this...

Your choices are fine. And you won't have a problem cooling that system with a single fan.

It's probably the pushpins. "Bad" thermal grease as opposed to better stuff would only make a difference of a few degrees. Solid contact between the cpu and heatsink is the key.

I have the same front panel audio problem with the same mobo (EP43-DS3L). I also get the whine from the video card being stressed (Radeon 3850 for me), but it's barely audible and easily ignored. The same can't be said for the front panel audio whine.

A quick google shopping search of fanmate 1 returned more than a few results.

You can easily run a e5200 passive with a decent heatsink, as long as you have an exhaust fan nearby (which it seems you have). I have a passive xigmatek s1283 + e7200 and it runs way cooler than the stock heatsink/fan combo. Just find the cheapest heatsink you can find that gets recommended here.

Are you overclocking your CPU? Because if you're not, there's no reason to have your cpu fan running that fast for a e8400. Try tinkering with the bios or get a software program like speedfan or Gigabyte's Easytune to adjust the fan speeds.

I wouldn't say killing; you'd be getting amazing performance from either of ATI or Nvidia's top of the line gfx cards. People just make a big deal about which is #1 for the sake of argument when realistically the performance differences are just a few fps in games.

I'd stay away from the newer Gigabyte models if you want full fan control. None of the 3-pin headers can be controlled.

FWIW: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/0 ... 0-512mb/11

Idle power consumption of the 4670 is strangely higher than the 3800s.

I would think it depends on the card. I have an 3850 from Asus, and the noise is pretty bad with no fan control. So far I've seen nothing but actively cooled 4670s. I think because they have to run it at higher speeds to compensate for the crippled memory bus it won't run that much cooler than curre...