Well, given that the VF900 will work on a 80-100W X1900XTX (I'm not sure exactly what the number is, but you get the idea) and the 6200 is going to use probably no more than 20W and certainly no more than 30W it's more than enough power. I'm not saying don't get it. Depending on availability it may ...

The VF900 is serious overkill for that card. See if you can find one of the Zalman (or any other) passive coolers for something like that. They'll get the job done in any case with any airflow at all and you can probably find something cheaper than the VF900.

Well, If you wait till December or January you will almost certainly want a different mobo for two reasons: 1) Someone will have made a better board and 2) Intel mobos don't exactly overclock. Also, there's a good chance ATI and Nvidia will have updated their product lineups by then so you'll be abl...

You might do better to see if you can find a Merom and motherboard combo to do that. Merom should perform just the same as a Conroe, but it should be lower power as it is the laptop version. That would work for sure.

You know, it's not that Apple won't release a product for a non-existant market segment, it's that they won't release a product they don't want to make. This is one of those things I can't really explain but Apple only releases products that someone in the company (probably Jobs) decides are "cool" ...

Performance differences between different 7200rpm drives are so small as to be meaningless. Yes, you will get higher transfer rates from higher density drives but seek times will always be essentially the same as they are largely limited by rotation rate of the drive. In two drives of identical size...

My advice would be to not worry about SLI, especially as an upgrade path. Unless you're running a 30 inch monitor one high end video card ought to get the job done excellently for quite a while. The problem with SLI is that unless you buy two of the very top end cards (yeah, that's right $1000 for y...

Forgive me if I'm misreading, but have you tried your old CPU heatsink? It sounds like whatever, ummm, creative mounting you managed with the Scythe might be caused a short circuit. That would trip a breaker in the PSU causing it to exhibit the exact behavior you are experiencing. Also, could you ha...

Well, the Sonata 2 grommets are the same as the Sonata 1 grommets. That is, they are fairly hard. I expect them to do something, but not that much to reduce vibration. Remember to fasten the drive screws loosely or the grommets are useless.

There is one other small thing: onboard sensors are not very reliable. They aren't likely to be wildly wrong, but unless you've checked the voltage with a multimeter (across any spare molex will work) you can't be confident in your voltage numbers. In your shoes I would certainly be interested in ch...

It's unlikely to be the power connector that is the problem. PSUs are very simple, they only have three modes: 1) unplugged/switched off 2) switched on in standby only putting out a few watts on the standby lines and 3) on with full power available. The PSU switches between states one and two depend...

The Conroe should be cooler too. TDP for the Conroe is 45W I think while AMD rates the 4200+ at at least 89W. This isn't a fair comparison because Intel TDP means the average power the processor is likely to sustain output at while the AMD TDP is the absolute maximum power the processor can put out....

This is all about chipsets and platforms. Intel can sell a complete package of graphics, chipset and CPU (and does in the large majority of PCs sold) while AMD only offers the CPU. In the server space AMD will now be able to take ATi's chipset knowledge (newfound, I know) and start providing a whole...

I would suggest simply ducting the Ninja to your rear case exhaust fan. This avoids any potential issues with case clearance and also removes all the CPU heat from your case. Depending on your CPU and it's position in the case there is a good chance you could run the Ninja "passively" just using air...

I don't think the case is too wide to be stable with wheels. If you make sure to mount them as far apart as possible it should be alright. You could also try attaching some sort of crossbar to mount the wheels wider than the case. I'd also recommend against gluing them: the P180 is a heavy case and ...

The Dell 3007FPW does NOT require a graphics card with two DVI ports. It requires one with a dual-link DVI port. Yes, there is a difference and yes that is the difference between working and not working. I don't know which video cards have dual-link DVI but I believe most recent ATi and Nvidia cards...

there is absolutely no difference between OEM and retail Windows XP. Well, except the very important price difference. Go get that OEM version.

RDaneel, as long as the 500GB drive is in the same speed range as its competitors then you will not notice any performance differences between the two. To get noticeable hd performance improvements you have to use RAID or Raptors (or SCSI 10k and 15k drives but those are crazy loud) if you are compa...

My advice would be to just pour in some vodka and distilled water, then plug the breathing hole. A 10% ethanol solution should keep bacteria etc. down and since the waterblocks are all gold plated you shouldn't have a corrosion problem. (Yes, they actually do that for a reason, a copper and aluminum...

BrianE, it would take a shockingly bad ground in your house wiring to make the ground fail. After all, if the third wire simply touches the frame in the wall of your house it is a better ground than the current going from the PSU to you to the house frame. But don't play with plumbing and electronic...

No, plastic to mobo contact will not pose any problem as it is a good electrical insulator.

I'd say get a card now. First gen cards tend to not actually be good enough to run the first games to utilize the new DX version. Remember the 9700Pro couldn't exactly run Half-Life or Doom 3 at top quality settings. The x800s and the 6800s sure could though. Current graphics cards have solid implem...

Any PSU will have connectors for the 160GB IDE drive. As for the SATA drives, just get adapters for the standard 4-pin Molexes like Howard says. jonjan, it is not true that a higher wattage PSU will be more efficient or deliver cleaner power. Any quality PSU will deliver power that is sufficiently c...

I'd try freezing your motherboard. That might help make the glue brittle. Then try applying alcohol (rubbing alcohol or maybe vodka). It might dissolve the glue. If that doesn't work, well, look into citrus cleaners and see what kinds of glue removers you can find at a hardware store. Just make sure...

ECC is almost certainly not worthwhile for you. It's useful for servers and such that need to absolutely never crash but in terms of any home/personal professional application, well, about the worst thing a RAM error is likely to do is cause a total system freeze that means you lose whatever you hav...

That new connector is a reporter wire for your PSU fan. Plug it into a motherboard fan header with speed monitoring capabilities and it will tell you how fast the PSU fan is spinning. If they have added speed reporting capability that probably means they are using a different fan in the PSU. If it's...

Well, since you started out by saying that the Globalwin fan is "definitely quiet" I assumed you were happy with its noise level and simply concerned by its airflow. Which led me to my "why do you care..." I still stand by that btw, because as long as the system is stable, it's stable. Solid state c...

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Now that I've answered your questions, why do you care if it barely pushes any air? Is your system stable? Is the CPU temp under 70C? If you answered yes to both these questions then the Globalwin will do just fine.

It's not that no one does low-level formats anymore, it's that you can't. Hard drives aren't designed that way anymore.

Yeah, just do the WinXP set thing. The Seagate disk might have some useful utilities on it though so don't just throw it out, take a look at it first.

SPCR has yet to find a better low airflow heatsink than the Ninja and the Thermalright tower so if you want quiet, those are probably winners. As far as the PSU goes, well, I've heard they fixed the compatability issues but I don't know for sure.