Search found 176 matches

by Gorsnak
Tue May 11, 2010 8:28 pm
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Titan Fenrir & CM Hyper 212 Plus: Direct Touch Revisited
Replies: 71
Views: 45576

Oh come on. There's always been a strong element on SPCR of trading performance for lower noise. One of the early articles was about how to under clock your cpu to bring heat down so you could slow your fans down. My sense is that SPCR's movement has been towards more performance-oriented gear, not ...
by Gorsnak
Mon May 10, 2010 4:03 pm
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Titan Fenrir & CM Hyper 212 Plus: Direct Touch Revisited
Replies: 71
Views: 45576

Well this is a timely review indeed. I'm about to reload my old crate with the latest goodies, and have been waffling on a cpu heatsink between an HR-01+ and a Megahalems. The HR-01+ can't be had at newegg.ca and so would mean a second order, extra shipping, etc, and the Megahalems has me concerned ...
by Gorsnak
Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:40 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: scratchbuilding a case
Replies: 6
Views: 3385

The easy way to deal with mounting 5.25" drives and expansion cards is to disassemble an old case and use those parts of it. That's what I did when I built my wood case.
by Gorsnak
Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:17 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Insights on Home-Made MDF Case?
Replies: 25
Views: 15599

See, that's what I get for not reading most of the thread. :lol: It wouldn't be terribly complicated to add a grounding line - just run your 18 gauge line to the wall socket, use a banana plug to stick it into the ground. It probably isn't necessary, though I suppose you're running some degree of ri...
by Gorsnak
Sun Feb 07, 2010 9:16 am
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Insights on Home-Made MDF Case?
Replies: 25
Views: 15599

While it isn't an mITX case, there is an article on building a wooden case. There have been a fair few numbers of articles and threads of wooden cases on internet, other than airflow and the time to actually build it, it's all pretty straight forward. There are some good tips in this article, and w...
by Gorsnak
Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:11 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: A wooden case - Should it be shielded/grounded?
Replies: 31
Views: 14423

Haven't had a lick of trouble wrt RFI in my case , and I put in no shielding whatsoever. I can say quite authoritatively that using 2.4GHz cordless phones, cell phones, etc next to the case results in no problems at all. It is grounded via the three-pin power cord, and the psu chassis is connected b...
by Gorsnak
Sat May 09, 2009 9:36 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Silverstone Raven EATX Tower Case
Replies: 29
Views: 22818

It's had the internal components replaced a couple times, but the case still works marvelously. Outside of optical drives spinning up it's virtually always below ambient. And what more can one really ask? The down side is that since my computer never makes any noise, I don't read the spcr as much. :...
by Gorsnak
Sat May 09, 2009 8:25 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Silverstone Raven EATX Tower Case
Replies: 29
Views: 22818

Dagnabbit, they stole my bottom-sucking intake & psu airflow isolation setup. Who do I sue for royalties? :lol:
by Gorsnak
Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:56 am
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Building a wooden HTPC case... advice?
Replies: 3
Views: 2755

Expansion and contraction is almost exclusively due to humidity changes. Heat has pretty much no impact. That said, plywood or mdf or whatever have an advantage here because of the expansion/contraction thing. Switches: ease of removing them from a donor case will depend on how the case in question ...
by Gorsnak
Mon Apr 16, 2007 7:00 pm
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Doug's Quiet Wood Case PC
Replies: 40
Views: 43830

Neutronium would be more effective I'd think.
by Gorsnak
Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:18 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Doug's Quiet Wood Case PC
Replies: 40
Views: 43830

Hey who necroed my article thread? :D Isaac is entirely correct. There simply isn't enough room inside a PC case to do much about anything other than high frequencies. Mass is the way to go if you're trying to contain noise. Re: motherboard isolation. I tried some soft grommets and the like, and it ...
by Gorsnak
Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:17 pm
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: electrical Whine -- what to do?
Replies: 18
Views: 6606

The coil has to dissipate a little heat, but you only have to put enough glue to stop the wire vibrating. "wire vibration?" Yes. Coil whine is caused by rapid vibration of the wires in the coil, which in turn is caused changes in the magnetic field around the coil due to the current passing through...
by Gorsnak
Wed Feb 14, 2007 4:07 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Carpet damping
Replies: 7
Views: 5008

Vinyl is nice for adding mass to thin computer case walls, but I doubt you'd see much effect adding it to a particle board cabinet. Thick carpet is a reasonably effective sound absorber, though not up to the standards of purpose-made acoustic foam or high-density fibreglass. The main thing to rememb...
by Gorsnak
Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:08 pm
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: My experience with long monitor cables
Replies: 17
Views: 7714

I've installed data projectors at the end of 150' VGA cable runs and had perfectly acceptable results. The cables weren't cheap, but they certainly weren't $300/m. A buck a foot sounds about right, perhaps a bit low but not by much.
by Gorsnak
Sat Feb 03, 2007 8:59 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: PS Isolation
Replies: 10
Views: 5019

Yes, this achieves the same effect as the divider in the P180. The only issue I can see with the TJ09 layout is if the PC is placed on carpet it will suck up a lot of dust/fibres. That has not been my experience. I don't have a TJ09, but I do have a bottom-feeder. Both the psu and the main box inta...
by Gorsnak
Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:24 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Doug's Quiet Wood Case Mk II - HTPC Edition
Replies: 11
Views: 7415

Oh, don't worry, there will be updates and pictures and details galore. Currently the project is a little stalled trying to verify the nature of a Liteon 831S dvd drive. My BIL's supplier rep says it's a tray load, in spite of being described as "slot-in" and looking for all the world like a slot lo...
by Gorsnak
Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:53 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Doug's Quiet Wood Case Mk II - HTPC Edition
Replies: 11
Views: 7415

Well don't you just have all the answers. :) Why the hell didn't I think of that? I've got a little clearance between the mobo and psu. Not much, but should be enough. A little experimentation suggests that the atx power connector has just enough length. I think I might move the front chamber intake...
by Gorsnak
Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:13 pm
Forum: Video Cards & Monitors
Topic: Gigabyte 7900GT with VF700 stock - quiet?
Replies: 8
Views: 5700

I would expect that the Gigabyte model with the vf700 doesn't come with a fanmate, so pointing out that you can use a fanmate to control the fan speed may not be entirely relevant.
by Gorsnak
Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:10 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Doug's Quiet Wood Case Mk II - HTPC Edition
Replies: 11
Views: 7415

Found an internal IDE Liteon slot drive at Frontier for $95. Very tempting.
by Gorsnak
Sat Sep 30, 2006 11:54 am
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Doug's Quiet Wood Case Mk II - HTPC Edition
Replies: 11
Views: 7415

I'm starting to like the idea. Due to space constraints it'd have to have a psu cutout too, but in a way that's a good thing, as it could double as the support holding the psu up off the case floor, and the side of the short duct to the exhaust slots. It would leave the hard drives and dvd as the on...
by Gorsnak
Fri Sep 29, 2006 8:36 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Doug's Quiet Wood Case Mk II - HTPC Edition
Replies: 11
Views: 7415

Hmm. You missed slots for the ide cables, but that's an idea. I was thinking of going around the back of the dvd drive, not just butting against the bottom. The dvd drive is hanging from the top, though, can't be attached to a hypothetical divider. The plan is to have the bottom and back one piece, ...
by Gorsnak
Fri Sep 29, 2006 11:12 am
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Doug's Quiet Wood Case Mk II - HTPC Edition
Replies: 11
Views: 7415

Thing is that the dvd overlaps the motherboard by 1 1/4" plus the length of the power molex (the dvr card possibly overlaps the dvd as well, but I don't have exact dimensions for that), so I can't put any physical barrier between the front and back of the case unless I make it substantially deeper o...
by Gorsnak
Thu Sep 28, 2006 6:03 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Doug's Quiet Wood Case Mk II - HTPC Edition
Replies: 11
Views: 7415

Doug's Quiet Wood Case Mk II - HTPC Edition

So I recently put a bunch of zoomy new parts into my wood tower case ( see gallery thread ) and I have all the parts of the old socket A system sitting on the coffee table. Now it occurs to me that the old system would run MythTV very nicely with the addition of a Haupppage dvr card and possibly a l...
by Gorsnak
Sun Sep 17, 2006 1:39 pm
Forum: Video Cards & Monitors
Topic: How hot should a passive video card get?
Replies: 22
Views: 15286

Have you looked at typical stock coolers? Some newer ones aren't too bad, but a great many of those that are designed to keep the card to a single slot are not very good. They have tiny little blower-type fans that move hardly any air through heatsinks that simply don't have a lot of surface area. T...
by Gorsnak
Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:03 pm
Forum: Video Cards & Monitors
Topic: How hot should a passive video card get?
Replies: 22
Views: 15286

If it was idling at 77, I'd guess it would have been well over 100 under load.
by Gorsnak
Sat Sep 09, 2006 3:50 pm
Forum: Video Cards & Monitors
Topic: How hot should a passive video card get?
Replies: 22
Views: 15286

65 is fine. Lots of stock actively cooled cards run ~90C under load. Basically, if you're not getting any artifacts, it's not too hot.
by Gorsnak
Fri Sep 08, 2006 5:10 pm
Forum: Video Cards & Monitors
Topic: 7900GT- VF700CU or buy a VF900?
Replies: 3
Views: 3455

This isn't quite directly relevant, but I've got a vf900 on an X1900GT, and it keeps it plenty cool even at the lowest speed. If I recall correctly, the X1900GT runs at about 80w to a 7900GT's 55w. So the vf900 should certainly cool the 7900GT at the lowest speed.
by Gorsnak
Fri Sep 08, 2006 5:07 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: P180 computer just built...kind of loud
Replies: 3
Views: 3752

vitaminc wrote:The major source of noise is probably your gfx card coolers. so get an Arctic cooling HSF or a Zalman.
I took "7800 GTX with Accerlo" to mean he has an Arctic Cooling Accelero on the card.
by Gorsnak
Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:18 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Probably a silly question!
Replies: 11
Views: 5527

Alternatively there's probably an Arctic Cooling hsf that would do a decent job on the 2000+ for minimal cost. I don't know that you'd want to hang a heavy tower heatsink on it anyways, as lots of Socket A boards didn't have holes for bolt-through mounts. Mine sure didn't, and I wouldn't want an ult...
by Gorsnak
Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:14 pm
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Softmounting the MB?
Replies: 8
Views: 4415

Well, I've already voided my graphics warranty by sticking a zalman vf900 on, but isolating the zalman fan is no small trick. It'd actually be less work to softmount the motherboard tray than it would be to mod the zalman. Now, simple rubber grommets might not be enough to completely eliminate my re...