Thanks, uokked. Hey! That's weird. This pissy public computer won't let me type the letter that uokked's name really starts with. ANYWAY... I swapped in the old mother board, and it fired right up...and then crashed as usual. Yeah, I was worried that the PSU had gone too, but it seems to be giving p...

Gentlemen, I do not mean to impose on the community in an undue way, but I feel we are a bit of a family here. And I need help. If I'm way out of line, I apologize. I don't mean to abuse this board. ...but speaking of abusing boards. Some of you were kind enough to give me advice regarding my comput...

Make sure you document your buying experince on www.resellerratings.com They don't have much of a presence there, so we need to help establish one, good or bad.

The last thing I tried to solder was a jumper relay on my 5145 C64 floppy drive. I had two and I wanted them to be able to copy disks from one to the other. I kinda missed with my blob of solder and tried to pry it off. Well, some of the circuit came up with it. Wasn't pretty. Since then, I've been ...

I wish I could point to hard data, but I have heard and read several places (generally in case reviews) that Aluminum cases radiate heat much better and therefore lead to a cooler interior. I know there's such a thing as "source amnesia" but I'm quite sure I read this comparing two cases whose only ...

Thanks Quokked. I'm not ready to try soldering anything yet, so I just ordered a replacement. I need to take some soldering lessons, though, that's for sure. Can you get a book on soldering?

Hey Red Dawn. I've never watercooled before, but I have done lots of reading and am reasonably intelligent with many university courses under my belt, so you can at least consider what I say! :) I want to give this a shot, and see if I can put some sort of watercooling setup together. Before I do so...

Thanks for the info crisspy. You may be right about the heat pipes transmitting noise, and it's something I've thought about, but I think it wouldn't be that bad in that the pipes would be tightly surrounded by rubber stoppers where they pass through the cabinet, so that would deaden some vibration,...

Thanks Mike. That post was what I needed to hear. So, at least I know it's not the PSU. I'm not sure what else to say, other than it crashes. I'll leave system specs later. When I turn it on and the computer is cold (off all night), it gets to the desktop and then locks up. If I reboot when it's war...

That is a question I would dearly love to know the answer to. I haven't ordered a PSU yet, and if it's a mobo problem, I don't want to waste my money. Any advice on where I could find that information? Anyone? Bueller?

Something that has me thinking is that article about building your own heat pipe. With the meagerest of supplies and know-how, that guy managed to make the hot and cold ends different by less than 2 deg. C!! If that's the case, we could solve a lot of these "resonance" and "frequency" problems by ju...

That just proves your not hardcore, Mike. Ha ha ha ha.

Melchior, look forward to seeing it. Cheers!

And that, my friend, is precisely why you have to have a hinged door. Until they develop teleportation, you will need to have some kind of opening to change your CDs. And while it would be relatively easy to seal a large door on the front of your computer (a rubber gasket, or even weather-stripping,...

Why not just have a hinged door on the front for Cd access? I mean, of all the hours you spend computing, how much of that time is actually spent switching CDs? Even though it would be noisier to open the cabinet and swap the CD, it's only going to be for a few seconds. It seems to me any other opti...

First of all let me start by saying I greatly appreciate all of y'alls input. This is incredibly valuable stuff that I can now be fore-armed with before blundering about on my own. Thanks. The quiet PC cabnet problem is much more complex, has not been studied enough to be well understood and would r...

Awesome post, Mike. You addressed several issues that I was planning. I had planned on making both the top and bottom ducts like your top duct, but it seems this isn't such a great idea. I wonder how putting a couple devolted fans on the ends of the ducts would help airflow? With a 180 degree kink a...

Melchior , I read your article about your cabint you built, and it was really good. In fact, it made me want to build my own cabinet. But I would love some information about the baffles that you built for your air intake. You wouldn't have any drawings or anything you could post, would you? I'd lov...

Hey all. I was wondering if you guys might know the answers to some PSU questions. My computer has been crashing regularily, and I think the PSU may be at fault. But I'd like to know for sure before I replace it (being strapped for cash). I turn the computer on and go into my BIOS's PC health screen...

Thanks for your reply, Mike. I'll check out that article.

I read that article, Mike, but I didn't really see anything that explained my problem. Which means I probably just didn't make myself clear. I'll briefly try again. Ever put a fan in the window? Theoretically it shouldn't matter if you have the fan blowing into or out of the room (there are envorinm...

A curious argument. I read the linked article, and I'm confused as to what your opinion of it was. Did they do something illegal by uncapping their modems? It would seem so. It seems that what happened is a risk you take when you break the law. I think when they installed that software, they were ag...

Something that I've started to wonder about is why PSUs are built so that the fan is at the back blowing out. Everyone knows that you would get much better air flow it the parts being cooled were directly in the air stream of the fan, instead of just being cooled by the air the fan is sucking. Simpl...

Dammit! I hate perspective.

Hey everyone. First time poster.

Thanks for the link to the article. A good read. I many have to try my hand at building an enclosure one of these days. Looks like fun.