Search found 258 matches

by kesv
Sun Dec 24, 2006 6:34 am
Forum: Newcomers Briefing Room
Topic: Proposed AM2 computer, input wanted!
Replies: 19
Views: 11628

But why does all manufacturers I have seen, say that the minimum recommended powersupply for a X1900 card, is 450W 30A on the + 12V rail. And 550W, 38 A for a X1900 Crossfire setup then? I hope you know what will happend to a underpowered system? Cuz I doubt that the manufacturers not telling the t...
by kesv
Sat Dec 16, 2006 3:41 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Drive overheating?
Replies: 11
Views: 4113

Yeah wasn't convinced by WD diagnostic tool either, especially after Debian reported corrupt data on a fresh install. Since you are running Debian use smartmontools to look at the SMART data from that drive. Also run the long smart selftest. If there is something wrong with the drive it should show...
by kesv
Tue Nov 28, 2006 9:29 am
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Lack of Full Featured Quiet Budget Heatsink Selection
Replies: 13
Views: 5691

Kesv, can you name some of those cheap aftermarket heatsinks that are worse than the stock ones. Pretty much all that are cheaper than 15€ or so are worse than the heatsink included in the boxed CPU. That same 15€ happens to often be the price difference between the boxed and bulk CPUs. So as a...
by kesv
Tue Nov 28, 2006 8:59 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Low-noise system for using Linux
Replies: 20
Views: 9028

I have now run memtest 86+ for seven hours, 27 times pass and it was flawless. Ain't that enough of a proof? That just shows that there is no obvious memory problem. You still should run a CPU stress test too. Prime95 was mentioned above as an often used option. Also some of the more difficult prob...
by kesv
Mon Nov 27, 2006 12:40 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Lack of Full Featured Quiet Budget Heatsink Selection
Replies: 13
Views: 5691

The VERY good ones, that are expensive. The good ones that are inexpensive. And the crap that you get when you buy your CPU. Almost, but unfortunately a bit too simple. The heatsink that you get with your CPU when buying the boxed variety isn't actually that bad most of the time. It's usually the f...
by kesv
Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:55 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Critique my new system
Replies: 5
Views: 3036

I thought the 850 PSU would maybe be needed if I added a 2nd GTX ? The person selling you the stuff might want you to think so. It's worth to read the PSU FAQ: http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14231 Note that just as important as the total power output of a PSU is the load it wi...
by kesv
Mon Nov 20, 2006 1:56 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Low-noise system for using Linux
Replies: 20
Views: 9028

Concerning graphics, I can cut performance here. I will never ever play games on that machine. So a rather lousy GeForce will do the job, passively cooled if possible (no noise at all). If you never play games, get the cheapest geforce you can find then. Right now I'd buy a passively cooled gf6200,...
by kesv
Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:03 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Low-noise system for using Linux
Replies: 20
Views: 9028

Re: Low-noise system for using Linux

I am in more or less urgent need of a new workstation as my old one keeps freezing and after that destroying all my data storaged on my hard disk. Have you tried determining why your current system freezes ? If the reason is just a single component it would be much cheaper to just replace that. My ...
by kesv
Tue Nov 14, 2006 2:40 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: AAM only effective during Hitachi test
Replies: 8
Views: 4734

Re: AAM only effective during Hitachi test

My question therefore is, why is it that AAM seems to be incredibly effective when I test it within the Hitachi tool but isn't anywhere near as effective in normal use? The drive is literally going from being astonishingly quiet in the test to being borderline unacceptable elsewhere. One reason cou...
by kesv
Mon Nov 06, 2006 1:15 pm
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: Basic Question: Undervolt vs. Reducing the Fan Speed
Replies: 10
Views: 6447

There are two ways of lowering a fan's speed. Voltage regulation and pulse width modulation. Voltage regulation just drops the voltage fed to the motor. Pulse width modulation (PWM) uses constant voltage, but turns the power on and off in rapid 'pulses' effectively reducing the speed. You can purcha...
by kesv
Mon Nov 06, 2006 1:06 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Curious about Western Digital drives
Replies: 1
Views: 2488

Re: Curious about Western Digital drives

1: Ignoring price differences, are there any reasons not to use an enterprise model in a desktop, single user, non-raid setup? WD themselves state that the error recovery algorithm used by the raid edition drives is not suitable for desktop use. However, what it means in practice is that the RE dri...
by kesv
Thu Oct 26, 2006 12:01 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Samsung 400 GB: good choice for AV use with a Mac laptop?
Replies: 16
Views: 7833

I'm more confused about the internal interfacing. From what I've been told I can only use a standard IDE drive and not a SATA drive. Can someone confirm or deny this? If I can indeed use a SATA drive I should buy one for the extra speed over IDE drives I guess. External enclosures are usually made ...
by kesv
Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:21 am
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: Need a good 80mm fan
Replies: 2
Views: 2412

Re: Need a good 80mm fan

Since my case has a 80mm fan slot behind the harddrives, I decided to get a little cooling for them. I need it to be pretty quiet at full speed and still have a decent cfm. The fans listed in the recommended section are still good: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article63-page2.html Note that any ai...
by kesv
Sun Jul 23, 2006 12:24 pm
Forum: Power Supplies
Topic: power supply quality and hard drive reliability
Replies: 4
Views: 2674

Re: power supply quality and hard drive reliability

From time to time, I've read articles/reviews that link the reliability of hard drives to the quality of the power supply's output--the stability/smoothness of the DC, I guess. A quality PSU is bound to help, but a PSU alone is not enough. The quality of electricity in your building is another fact...
by kesv
Fri May 26, 2006 3:25 am
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: What's the least you can get away with?
Replies: 9
Views: 4980

Re: What's the least you can get away with?

I have a 3500+ Venice running with the stock cooler and it idles around 31C. Using an 80mm adapter, what's the quietest fan I could get away with using, and still maintain good temps while gaming? Idle temps are not really indicative. You need to monitor the loadtemps. I think you should just go ah...
by kesv
Mon Apr 17, 2006 1:27 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Pentium 4 System Running Slow, WHY?
Replies: 9
Views: 4248

Yes. UPDATE: My friend ran HDTach, and again, mind you this is on a CLEAN install of Win XP x64 without any real software installed. CPU Usage: +-2%: 86% Avg/Sustained Read: 3.5 MB/sec Random Access: 15.7ms Looks like for some reason or other, the system is not using DMA modes for drive operations,...
by kesv
Sun Feb 12, 2006 4:39 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: new mobo, files still there?
Replies: 8
Views: 3389

Re: new mobo, files still there?

Unfortunately my HDD was S-ATA, so I'm wondering if the data will still be accessible to me when i get back the new board. SATA is really just another way of physically transmitting the data. Logically there is no difference from older PATA drives. Your system is still reading and writing blocks of...
by kesv
Tue Jan 10, 2006 2:25 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Server at home
Replies: 27
Views: 10165

At this point, I'm not using RAID at all -- just counting on smartd to detect potential trouble and shut down the system :) I hope you have backups, because by the time smartd detects a problem your data can already be corrupted. Also smart only predicts some 50-60% of possible failures. Incrementa...
by kesv
Thu Jan 05, 2006 6:14 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: SMART: Raw Read Error Rate problem
Replies: 1
Views: 1715

Re: SMART: Raw Read Error Rate problem

I'm not sure whether it's just the monitoring that's malfunctioning, or my hard drive is really gonna die soon. Any input? Usually, if the smart monitoring for the drive works at all, it works correctly. Most of the logic for smart is embedded in the drive firmware and the monitoring software just ...
by kesv
Tue Nov 29, 2005 5:33 am
Forum: The Silent Front
Topic: Loud Xbox 360
Replies: 88
Views: 100999

I think you would be quite surprised. It may be 3 cores, but they are greatly simplified in comparison to modern PC CPUs. I think 25-35W would be a good guess. On another hand, expect the GPU to be more around 60W. Really? That's interesting. ArsTechnica did a pretty good job of analyzing the XBox3...
by kesv
Mon Nov 28, 2005 11:22 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Booting from an external hard disk
Replies: 5
Views: 3021

Re: Booting from an external hard disk

Is there a significant performance hit? USB2.0 can reach a speed of 480Mbit/s. That works out to 60MByte/s. So in theory it won't limit the transfer speeds of a single harddisk. However, if you look at tests of usb hdd-enclosures at places like Tomshardware, you can see that only a few of those enc...
by kesv
Fri Nov 25, 2005 3:56 am
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Does M-ATX boards fit in ATX cases?
Replies: 6
Views: 3219

Re: Does M-ATX boards fit in ATX cases?

Also, how many mounting holes do normal Micro ATX boards have? I think my motherboard is strange because it has 4 mounting holes: one at each extreme corner of the board. What board is it ? If it only has 4 holes it might not be a MicroATX board at all. The specification shows nine mounting holes f...
by kesv
Thu Nov 24, 2005 4:37 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: HELP with cpu cooling/noise advice needed
Replies: 2
Views: 1735

Re: HELP with cpu cooling/noise advice needed

my cpu is running too hot at 51 decrees C Is it now ? 51C sound reasonable for a 3.4Ghz P4. Depends if that is idle or load temp ? Idle doesn't really matter much. Just make sure that your load temp is less then 70C and the machine runs stable. For the rest start with the recommended sections. Btw....
by kesv
Thu Nov 24, 2005 4:13 am
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: Please help me identify Speedfan temps
Replies: 4
Views: 2907

Re: Please help me identify Speedfan temps

1 - Do you know a way to find out what the different temps are? I've used Prime95, but I just can't figure it out. There isn't a fast rule which temperature is which. Usually the maker of the monitoring chip has issued a recommendation, but the motherboard makers don't always follow that. Generally...
by kesv
Wed Nov 23, 2005 1:47 am
Forum: Power Supplies
Topic: Antec NeoHE "High-Efficiency"
Replies: 606
Views: 580299

Makes sense. So I should go with the 550W since it has higher amps on the 5V and cross my fingers? Depends on if you are willing to experiment or not. While replacing the Smart Power I was told that the shop was aware of some issues with Epox motherboards and the PSU in question. My recommendation ...
by kesv
Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:22 pm
Forum: Video Cards & Monitors
Topic: Upgrading my Matrox G550 - music computer
Replies: 2
Views: 1795

Re: Upgrading my Matrox G550 - music computer

Good colour and non-hogging of the pci bus is a requirement, and to be better at GTA than the Matrox! PCI ? Graphics cards have used their own bus for a long time. Even the Matrox G550 was more common in its AGP incarnation. Any traffic between the gfx card and the cpu does go through the fsb conne...
by kesv
Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:04 pm
Forum: Power Supplies
Topic: Antec NeoHE "High-Efficiency"
Replies: 606
Views: 580299

Looks like it won't work on a GA6CX PIII board? Note that they talk of amperage on VCC_CORE which does not directly translate to amperage on 5V line. VCC_CORE for a P3 is something like 1.6-1.7V ? Anyway while it does draw on the 5V line in old motherboards, it is transformed from 5V which means th...
by kesv
Sat Nov 19, 2005 7:35 am
Forum: Power Supplies
Topic: How compatible are ATX12V v2.0 PSUs with older systems
Replies: 0
Views: 1864

How compatible are ATX12V v2.0 PSUs with older systems

I have a system as follows: Athlon XP 1800+ QDI Kudoz 7E/333 (Via KT333 chipset) ATI 9100 (passive) SP80 harddrive DVD-RW drive This combination doesn't draw much power. I've measured the typical AC powerdraw to be 145W at full load, which should make around 95W of component powerdraw if we assume 6...
by kesv
Sat Nov 19, 2005 6:23 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Compaq IDE HDD problem
Replies: 3
Views: 1752

Re: Compaq IDE HDD problem

Hard disk interface Ultra-ATA/100 Hard disk controller Ultra-ATA/33 Is what confuses me. The way I would understand that is that the harddrive itself has an interface capable of Ultra-ATA/100, but the controller in the machine only supports upto Ultra-ATA/33. I don't really know anything about the ...
by kesv
Sat Nov 19, 2005 6:13 am
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Problems installing AOP-6400
Replies: 2
Views: 1819

Re: Problems installing AOP-6400

Then i saw that the new cooler came with screws, so i removed the white clips to make room for the screws, but when i tried to screw them in they didnt reach through the motherboard... Based on the instructions it doesn't look like the screws are supposed to go through the motherboard, but instead ...