I've never heard of a warranty paying for down time or getting replacements delivered fast enough for any type of enterprise application. On the software side I know many people who make their living futzing with software in enterprises applications they don't have warranties either. What they do is...

I have a CyberPower pfclcd ups, the smallest tower style one. With an efficient PC it has plenty of power to run a while and then shut down safely. I think the surge suppression is supposed to be good although I've never had crummy power or lightning to test it with. It also has kill-a-watt type of ...

I couldn't resist.

I guess I'm a fan of Xigmatek HDT heat sinks. My first was a Gaia and it does its job quite well for a $20 heat sink. My next is a S1284 that I got for $19 in the bargain bin and I upgraded with a $10 crossbow mounting kit for socket 1155 compatibility. It has four staggered heat pipes and should pe...

I want to sheath my cables so that's one of the first things I started today but before that I bought one of those handy coolmax PSU testers with LCD screen. The tester is cool, you begin a test by plugging in the 20 or 24 pin ATX cable and the ATX12v 4 or 8 pin cable, then you press a button which ...

The "new" PSU actually fits! No PSU case mod required. The cables do need some work. Three cables need work so it looks like I may have to open the case and solder but its not as bad as the first PSU which needed a longer 24 pin ATX cable. First I have to extend the four pin ATX12v connector. Second...

I checked my tracking and found that my new PSU is on the big brown truck, out for delivery today. I also did a little Google search and found that the PSU only misses 80+ platinum spec by 1% at 20% and 50% load. Looking at the length of the cables, I may only have to modify five wires, all crimps, ...

Well I'm about to head to the post office to pick up a package from Hong Kong. My order from modDIY is here! I also think I found an ATX size version of the PSU with gold certification. It is more expensive but comparatively still cheap and should arrive soon. Hopefully I'll be soldering and wiring ...

http://www.sapphiretech.com/embedded/product.aspx?pid=ipc-ft3gs&lid=1 I'm not sure if its available now but boards like that will be available at some point. Quad core, Radeon 8400 graphics, 16 GB max ram. I'm pretty sure AMD has figured out the 23.976hz issue so its a safe bet for video playback. I...

Intel integrated graphics can stutter during HD viewing due to a frame rate bug, if you are sensitive to that, go amd or else wait for Haswell to see if it gets fixed. I think the AMD Richland APUs are starting to show up, they should give improved performance and energy usage compared to the curren...

All I know is that I'm very impressed by my capstone. The cabling is nice with braid and heat shrink to keep things clean, the exterior has a nice black crinkle finish, the 140mm fan is very quiet but not completely silent. The things I can't see but like knowing are the low ripple and Japanese caps...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182262 Rosewill Capstone 550m. 89.99 -20% + free shipping ≈ $72. That's modular cabling, 80+ gold certified, Super Flower OEM and should run almost silent like my 450m. I would suggest the 450m but it works out more expensive without the 20% o...

If you are considering different motherboards to reduce cost, I'm trying an Intel dz75ml-45k which I got for $79 from Superbiz. Its mini-ATX so expansion is slightly limited but the only other feature missing compared to a z77 board is the ssd hard drive caching which I wouldn't use because I'm goin...

Modern integrated graphics can do the job in many cases. No card is pretty silent, energy efficient, etc.

WD makes many flavors of hard drive. The red is kind of a hybrid between the green drive and the RE enterprise drives. It has the low rpm and a few of the energy saving features of the green and some of the anti-vibration and reliability features of the RE and a warranty that splits the difference. ...

With things like the NUC we are moving closer to module computing, like legos for computer. I suggest if you are going to change things, create an entirely new paradigm instead of trying to fit a few sub-optimal systems together. Along those lines I would try to find a way to mount a GPU behind the ...

In my opinion, if you have the fan headers low rpm pmw fans are the way to go. You can set the speed in bios or a fan utility depending on your motherboard. Don't get too hung up on cfms, WD reds run cool and you only need enough air going in to keep the interior temp reasonable and that's not much ...

Before you buy that i5, look on Intel's site for the Xeon e3-1220v2, e3-1225v2 and e3-1230v2. They are all close in price to the i5 but have certain benefits. The 1220 has no graphics but since you're going discrete you might appreciate the extra 2mb of cache more. The 1225 has graphics and the larg...

You might look for a GeForce FX 5900 agp card. By now lots of high end agp cards are being thrown away. You might find one cheap now and its 2-3 generations newer than the GeForce2. On the other band, support is discontinued and I think its only a directx 9 card which is why those systems are being ...

Another thing: were you using the crossbow or crossbar? Mine is the crossbow which is very similar to the original LGA775 mounting with the push-pins replaced with the spring and screw hardware, add a back plate and slightly changed hole spacing. The crossbar version is quite different and a good id...

I can understand the adhesive. If you've seen the Gaia mounting bracket, that one uses some standoffs to attach it to the motherboard before the CPU cooler is installed. With nothing to hold the bracket in place installation might have been a job needing about 3.5 hands so I appreciated the adhesive...

I got the CPU cooler bracket I was waiting for, quickly populated the motherboard, screwed it in to the case and when I test fit the power supply: it doesn't fit. Its taller than ATX standard so it covers up the row of USB and assorted headers at the bottom of the motherboard. I've got one hail Mary...

I was a little nervous about the fit after reading various reviews of the bracket kit. I was optimistic after I put the kit together without the cooler. Now I know that the kit works perfectly and is pretty easy to install. It took me maybe 10 minutes to go from a bare motherboard, a CPU, two sticks...

It seems like 3tb drives are the sweet spot for GB/$, I would suggest that 3tb red if you can stretch your budget a bit. If you like modular power supplies that run pretty quiet, Newegg has a Rosewill Capstone 650m I think which was actually cheaper than the 450m ($72 shipped) and its 80+ gold... Fo...

I just got my ACK-I5363 Crossbow bracket kit.

I will be installing my HDT S1284 CPU cooler later tonight.

Without my motherboard or heat sink, I can't check it for fit quite yet but the pieces of the kit seem to fit each other.

Fingers crossed, it looks like it will be an easy install.

All of the i3s, i5s and i7s are Xeon with features turned off.

The Xeon e3-12*0 processors do not have onboard video so a discrete graphics card is required unless you're building a headless server so unless you were expecting onboard graphics, the lack of HDMI would be moot. The processors with a 5 instead of a 0 have integrated graphics. Intel's web site has ...

I think the one place where integrated graphics has discrete beat is in idle current. I don't see the point in discrete unless you add some real GPU power, that 7750 is kind of weak in that respect. If you need something better than Intel graphics but still in the low end GPU realm, look at AMD APUs...

If you are going for a discrete video card, an Xeon e3-1230v2 could save enough money to pay for a nice heat sink upgrade.

If you need integrated graphics, an e3-1245v2 will still save a few bucks.

Less than $5.

That Dell brick is tempting but not having a brick is nice too. When you have a roomy case, the small size of the pico is a non-factor but the lack of fan is nice I guess.

No pictures yet because if this works well I'm going to buy a few more to mod before revealing the secret.