Search found 175 matches

by bgiddins
Sun Nov 16, 2008 10:17 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Thermalright ULTRA-120 Extreme, RPM + one or two fans?
Replies: 3
Views: 2343

If it's of any benefit, my Xigmatek HDT-S1283 has a PWM fan included that runs at about ~800RPM, I believe the performance of the S1283 is comparable to the Ultra 120. I'd go with the single 1200RPM Scythe as a starting point, unless other posters have found that this fan is not effective for the Ul...
by bgiddins
Sun Nov 16, 2008 3:58 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: WD VelociRaptor: A Triple Crown
Replies: 125
Views: 97296

Just a note on AAM - I found that you can check/modify AAM in Linux with the following command: sudo hdparm -M /dev/sda ...or whatever your device is. My WD3000GLFS had a level of "254", which equates to "fast" - I set this to "quiet" with the following: sudo hdparm -M 128 /dev/sda I run a few VMs c...
by bgiddins
Sun Nov 16, 2008 3:26 am
Forum: The Silent Front
Topic: Intake fans...next to useless?
Replies: 29
Views: 22201

I had another post on here about some Arctic Cooling PWM fans I was running as intake fans. When controlled by PWM, they're near-silent... but push very little air. The main temperature differences I see compared to them being off are NB and mobo temps, with a few degrees difference, so they still h...
by bgiddins
Sun Nov 16, 2008 1:46 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: Samsung SE-T084M/RSWD: Slick, slim, external optical drive
Replies: 33
Views: 24893

You know what else this would be good for? Eliminating 5.25" bay DVD drives - I have a nomal DVD drive in my Antec 300, and am now considering how I could fit a Lian Li 3 x 5.25 HDD adapter in my case - but the DVD drive takes up one bay leaving only two 5.25 bays open. Given I only use the drive fo...
by bgiddins
Sun Nov 16, 2008 12:39 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Using SATA drives with IDE motherboard
Replies: 11
Views: 4450

There's also variants on that item that plug directly into the motherboard, allowing you to use a SATA cable. You'd need a molex to sata power adapter though, but cabling would be neater.
by bgiddins
Fri Nov 14, 2008 2:34 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Silent laptop... Levono?
Replies: 7
Views: 3454

Macbook Air? Overpriced and overhyped. What software? Well given the original poster's interest in a SILENT laptop, the Macbook Air with SSD might be a viable option. I don't know if they use a fan or not. I was asking if there's any specific software in the required usage as a courtroom laptop - i...
by bgiddins
Fri Nov 14, 2008 1:09 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Silent laptop... Levono?
Replies: 7
Views: 3454

What are the new Mac Airs like?

Is the software required Windows only?
by bgiddins
Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:53 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Q9550 E0 - stock cooling
Replies: 14
Views: 8786

Re: Q9550 E0 - stock cooling

Idle: 32/32/30/30 100%: 49/49/44/46 Well after a few hot days (27C ambient) the CPU temps began to creep up at 100% - I was getting the following (or higher) on the stock cooler: Idle: 32/32/30/30 100%: 59/57/56/58 Even saw a couple of spikes to 60 very occasionally on some cores. Still within limi...
by bgiddins
Tue Nov 11, 2008 4:56 pm
Forum: Newcomers Briefing Room
Topic: Newbie First Build - Are These Temps Safe?
Replies: 5
Views: 2962

Wow - those load temps are very similar to what I'm getting on my stock Intel cooler, without overclocking, with a lot more airflow through my case. Shows off how well the HR-01 Plus performs. At idle I'm getting 32/32/30/30 - probably because of the amount of air passing through the case. Funnily e...
by bgiddins
Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:26 am
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: Front fans in Antec 300
Replies: 5
Views: 2830

Not yet - but there's 3 HDDs and I'll be adding at least 2 more soon. It's primarily a development machine running multiple VMs, running Folding@Home between work, so it's often at 100% CPU.
by bgiddins
Tue Nov 11, 2008 1:23 am
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: Front fans in Antec 300
Replies: 5
Views: 2830

GRR!!! Very unhappy with the Arctic Cooling PWM fans. I've just spent about 30 minutes trying the different fans in my case on different headers - the AC fans were only running at ~550RPM because of PWM - moving them to a non-PWM header resulted in ~1560RPM. So they were only spinning at one third s...
by bgiddins
Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:22 am
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: Front fans in Antec 300
Replies: 5
Views: 2830

Just checked - 25mm is the maximum fan depth for these front two bays.

Seeing as I have nowhere else to move these fans to, and I can't return them, I'll just leave them be for now.
by bgiddins
Mon Nov 10, 2008 6:17 pm
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: Front fans in Antec 300
Replies: 5
Views: 2830

Front fans in Antec 300

What is the maximum depth of the two optional front fans that can be mounted in the Antec 300? (at work and can't check my case which is at home). I've got two Arctic Cooling AF12025 PWM fans, and I'm not convinced that they're really doing anything, and that they are being restricted by the fan fil...
by bgiddins
Sun Nov 09, 2008 2:27 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: WD 1TB Or Seagate 1.5TB ?
Replies: 9
Views: 6569

One additional minor consideration could be watts/gigabyte - not important for truckid's original question, but worth considering under different circumstances (example: RAID array). Can't wait for a 1.5TB WD GP drive - it will certainly level the playing field. You're spot on about the watts/terab...
by bgiddins
Sat Nov 08, 2008 3:54 pm
Forum: Power Supplies
Topic: New Corsair HX450W
Replies: 52
Views: 33948

That PSU looks fantastic - I just bought a VX450, if this had been out I would have been all over it.
by bgiddins
Thu Nov 06, 2008 2:29 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: WD VelociRaptor: A Triple Crown
Replies: 125
Views: 97296

I asked a similar question in this post (similar looking adapter too): http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=48741&start=30 The consensus was that suspending the drives was recommended. I'm still thinking about the 2.5" adapter one day - my drive doesn't need the icepack, when running...
by bgiddins
Wed Nov 05, 2008 7:46 pm
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: WD VelociRaptor: A Triple Crown
Replies: 125
Views: 97296

I'm wanting to use two 150GB Velociraptors in RAID0 inside a CM Cosmos 1000 for my next build. Unless you really need the speed from RAID 0, I'd go with a single VelociRaptor and wait for reliable SSDs to hit the market. Oh wait, that's what I have done :) I bought a 300GB VelociRaptor, carved a 10...
by bgiddins
Tue Nov 04, 2008 4:31 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Q9550 E0 - stock cooling
Replies: 14
Views: 8786

Hi Nick, Thanks for posting that - have you set any other voltages besides VCore? I have only dabbled mildly with OCing before - this board looks to have a dozen different voltages alone that can be set, let alone RAM frequencies, timings etc. I'd like to bump mine to even just 3GHz if I can do it w...
by bgiddins
Tue Nov 04, 2008 4:15 am
Forum: Watercooling
Topic: What is the better material of radiator(copper or aluminum)?
Replies: 6
Views: 9226

Isn't it simply a matter of looking at the thermal conductivity of the materials? Copper is a better conductor of heat than aluminium. The only benefits of aluminium are price and weight. I hate it when the primary design consideration is "what will people buy". Function should always come first. Yo...
by bgiddins
Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:00 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Q9550 E0 - stock cooling
Replies: 14
Views: 8786

Interesting - I just cranked up the two fans (120mm & 140mm) on the Antec 300 to see what impact there would be on system temps - the NB temps dropped about 6 degrees, but the core temps went up anywhere from 2-4 degrees each! Dropping the case fan speeds back from high to low saw the NB temps rise ...
by bgiddins
Sun Nov 02, 2008 8:59 pm
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Uses for 800MHz PCs?
Replies: 8
Views: 3413

If you don't want to use them yourself, there's generally organisations that accept PC donations for charity groups or the underprivileged - they may want them to build some PCs and stick Linux on them for someone. Sounds like you just need case, PSU and HDD - old IDE drives are cheap and plentiful....
by bgiddins
Sun Nov 02, 2008 2:51 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Q9550 E0 - stock cooling
Replies: 14
Views: 8786

Thanks for the figures - they should be a good starting point. Using lm-sensors, VCore varies from 1.08 to 1.2V - I need to check the BIOS to see what it displays as in there. Anyone using the P5Q-VM board - the "out of the box" BIOS version of 0202 only had two OC profiles that could be stored - in...
by bgiddins
Sun Nov 02, 2008 3:42 am
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Q9550 E0 - stock cooling
Replies: 14
Views: 8786

Undervolting is on the cards - I'm waiting for a power meter to arrive (want to test stock power consumption of PC), then will bump the processor to 3GHz (faux-Q9650 :D) and see how low I can undervolt for efficiency.
by bgiddins
Sat Nov 01, 2008 3:04 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Q9550 E0 - stock cooling
Replies: 14
Views: 8786

No doubt - they're geared towards stressing the CPU - I'm not sure for example if the combination of VMware and Folding@Home utilises all of the available L2 cache etc. What it does show however is 100% clock cycle utilisation across all four cores - and as this is a machine only used for developmen...
by bgiddins
Fri Oct 31, 2008 4:46 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Cooling solution for Q9550
Replies: 3
Views: 1927

Running at 50/50/47/50 - with PWM, the fan is only 750rpm and is quieter than any of the case fans. There is an air inlet on the side of the case that is still drawing a vacuum, so the two front fans aren't really necessary, but I added them anyway as I have three HDDs including a VelociRaptor, and ...
by bgiddins
Fri Oct 31, 2008 3:32 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Q9550 E0 - stock cooling
Replies: 14
Views: 8786

Repeated the test - after about 3 hours I was getting 51/50/48/50.
by bgiddins
Fri Oct 31, 2008 3:31 pm
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Cooling solution for Q9550
Replies: 3
Views: 1927

This post is about 3 threads down the list :)

viewtopic.php?t=50756

Stock cooling is fine.
by bgiddins
Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:30 am
Forum: CPU Cooling
Topic: Q9550 E0 - stock cooling
Replies: 14
Views: 8786

Q9550 E0 - stock cooling

Here's some interesting figures - I'm running Ubuntu Server 8.10 on an Asus P5Q-VM. The CPU is an E0 stepping Q9550 quad core - I thought I'd try and push the CPU at default BIOS settings with the stock Intel cooler to see how hot it would get - so I've installed VMware Server, and added 3 VMs each ...
by bgiddins
Tue Oct 28, 2008 12:46 pm
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: cases with PSU at bottom
Replies: 11
Views: 6741

Antec Three Hundred
by bgiddins
Mon Oct 27, 2008 7:14 pm
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Asus P5Q-EM and G45
Replies: 15
Views: 8516

lucas82 wrote:Instead of buying a $135 motherboard wiht video on-board, why don't you buy a $52 motherboard and a $80 video card?
Heat and power consumption may be a consideration.