kaange wrote:How about this PSU?

That would be great for anyone who wants to case-mod an arc-welder into their computer.

When I still had my car I used to do this for a number of reasons. First of all, my car was old and it needed some time to warm up, before it ran well. I'm sure it polluted less, when the catalysator had some time to warm up as well. It's also far more strenuous for the engine to start, then to lea...

I hate it when people leave their cars idling too, for any reason. And I really hate it when people leave appliances on when they don't need to. I'm sure you all know those people who have the TV on ALL THE TIME, even when nobody's watching it. Not only is it a waste of electricity, the noise alone ...

Yes, as long as it's a socket 939 processor. I don't know if a BIOS update will be necessary, however.

I think this has been discussed on SPCR, maybe under CPU cooling? But yes, it is very similar to a heatpipe, except the phase change is supposed to produce bubbles that circulate through the system, causing fluid to flow. In a heatpipe, the working fluid simply condenses at the "cold" end, carrying ...

In theory, power consumption in CMOS ICs is proportional to fV^2. right, but that's only the dynamic(switching) power. There is also leakage and short circuit power, which probably don't change very much with frequency, hence: from what i've seen increasing clock frequency while keeping the voltage...

I don't know if I would put it inside a static bag while running. The static bag is slightly conductive (on the order of 1 Mega Ohm) so it could cause some funkiness if it was touching the circuit board side of the drive.

In theory, power consumption in CMOS ICs is proportional to fV^2. So, for a constant voltage, a 25% increase in frequency will require 25% more power. Increasing the voltage will increase the power requirement faster.

I kind of like it as well. But it probably requires a small form factor PSU. I imagine it has some sort of micro-ATX motherboard inside, along with some non-standard PSU.

The Scythe Mine is reviewed favorably on SPCR. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article636-page5.html In particular, the Scythe has a better fan. The Tt Mini-Typhoon fan has a stock speed of 2200 rpm, which will not be quiet. Furthermore, the Scythe allows you to mount any 120mm fan, such as a Yate Loo...

As others have pointed out, it is hard to know which laptops will be quiet. I also have a Pentium 4 laptop, using notebook hardware control it seems to draw between 20 and 60 watts of power. I have it underclocked, but that doesn't make a huge difference. Since cost is a factor, you might also consi...

It is pretty much the bottom half of a laptop, but with a couple advantages. It should be a lot cheaper, since you can use a monitor you already have. And being able to use a desktop drive is nice for capacity and cost, if not silence. Unfortunately, I think the P4 kills it. Even people who don't ca...

Unless all overclockerfs have as much sense as the avergae "boy racer" who buys a piece of steaming shit, and then spends a fortune "doing it up" (making it worse) which costs them more than if they just bought a decent car to start with, they dont have the grief, they dont get called a tosser by e...

No, you should have plenty of headroom.

I wonder if any of the people who buy this know that most household circuit breakers will trip if you actually manage to use that much power...

Out of curiosity, what would be the proper way to use springs in a heatsink mount?

So CPUs run off of 12 volts regulated down? Sounds wasteful. Not if they use switching regulators, which can be very efficient. If you search for ColdWatt, there's a thread that has some detailed discussion on switched mode power supplies. In a nutshell, however, the voltage regulators work like PW...

Aris, I think you have the makings of an engineer.

wussboy wrote:In whatever happens, I of course wish you nothing but happiness. And large breasted women. Hell, why not?!

As do I!

Interesting time for this thread, I myself am caught between Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering to study after I've graduated in June... I suppose the difference isn't enormous, however from the unis I've visited, it seems EE is more theoretical and ME is more practical, though both ...

A fair number of EE jobs are in defense electronics, which you may have worked with in the Air Force. These jobs typically deal with designing and testing equipment like radars, radar jammers, surveillance satellites, missile electronics, and so forth. Of course, you'll still need an EE degree to ge...

Just to clarify, isn't there a power supply that comes with the cold cathode lamp? I thought they had their own supply that got its power from the computer's psu. That was the power supply I was referring to, not the computer's. Like I said, I don't have much first hand experience with those, so let...

http://balusc.xs4all.nl/srv/har-cpu-int-pd.php

Here are some pictures of CPUs with the heatspreaders removed, so you can see the actual silicon dice underneath.

I don't have any first hand experience with cold cathodes, but off the top of my head, maybe there's a problem with the cathode's power supply? Maybe it's wearing out and producing RF. That would explain the noise that your speakers are picking up.

heres a test that i created when a similar event happened to my P4 tower...turn it off, remove the heatsink, pop out the processor, and check the edges of the silicon. if any edges look like they're starting to seperate, you've got yourself a problem. How did you look at the die on a P4? I thought ...

Out of curiosity, do you know how quiet those IBM laptops were? I was thinking of getting a thinkpad in the near future.

I looked at the wikipedia page for Switched-mode power supplies, but I don't understand a few things. As I understand it, the switching regulators regulate the output voltage by switching the output of a transformer on and off. This improves efficiency over a linear regulator like a 7805, which wast...

I don't see what's so revolutionary here. It sounds like a slightly more efficient power supply. Their figure says they can generate 200W DC using an additional 25W for power conversion. I'm ignoring their figures for air-conditioning because we have no way of knowing how efficient the air condition...

I guess nobody has any experience with those supplies. Give it a try if you don't have other options, but be careful about noise measurements in product specs and other websites. Products specs are usually outright lies, and many websites use flawed methodology. Good luck, sorry nobody else has trie...

What country are you in? Seasonic power supplies get the nod most often around here; I have one as well and it is very good. Are they available where you are?

I think I'll leave things in their current state. It seems like there's no real advantages to either card, so why bother taking things apart again. Especially since I have no intention of upgrading to Vista. Thanks for the input guys.