I have a Ninja Plus and with a Thermalright bolt-through kit, it's great. But that's because I have a really really hot CPU.(130W TDP!) For anything with modern multi-core processors, the Ninja Mini is probably the best budget option. In general, the wider the fin spacing, the less back pressure and...

I'd look at a big cooler like a Scythe Ninja series. This can easily cool most CPUs with a fan running at half speed(about 7V vs 12). Of course, you don't HAVE to get one from them. Most makers also have similar large tower type coolers. The other option might be to get a bigger passive cooling devi...

I like Mushkin ram as they don't inflate their ratings. Almost all others do and list their maximum over-clocked rating as their speed. Though, to be honest, I never do that. I run at stock memory speeds and so far, haven't noticed any difference in actual use. Memory, in fact, is so hampered at thi...

Mine did that - total brick with the power light working. Drives and fans would spin up but nothing else. Turned out to be that the thermal grease had failed on the CPU due to age. If your CPU has a thermal protection circuit in it, it would likely do what you described - work for a couple of minute...

33.8W for the full system at max load is remarkable. True, the CPU and MB on other systems might use less power, but add in even a budget video card at even 15W at it's suddenly well over that mark.

What about the little via passively cooled boards? Boot the server from a CF/SSD to keep power usage low. http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=597&type=expert&pid=1 A good article, though, on the Nano vs Atom. I like the Nano better, really, because you can get it on a board with a PCIe slot. This a...

My suggestion is to get a board with integrated video and lan. Drop a small athalon/via/celeron in it. Undervolt. Use Linux. Entire os plus setup should fit on a self-booting CD. No HD also makes it less vulnerable to hackers. Set it up to reboot automatically if the power goes off and load the CD. ...

Something to try might be this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celeron The model you're looking for is the dual core Celeron E1400. this is more than fast enough, yet is low power and can be passively cooled. 512K cache effectively makes it equal to an old Pentium D (two core model from 3-4 years ago)...

I see two issues. - first, as everyone has noticed, tight spacing. The problem is that airflow over a heat sink has to reach a certain amount of CFM to work best. Because air itself can only be saturated with so much heat at once(without causing thermal buildup), you need lots of air moving over the...

My fans are set to always be on at specific rpms. Directly wired to the PSU. No problems, ever. Power is power.

Note - an undervolted a bit slot fan(7V usually) is a godsend in any negative pressure build.

A few of my personal ideas. Take this for what it's worth.... Heh, 1 - never over clock. In fact, consider a slight under clock if heat is a factor(some processors get silly hot, others are barely putting out 25-35W). 2 - use fluid bearing fans if possible. As few as possible. Optimally it would be ...

A neat trick is to take some masking tape and make a layer of it behind the grille opening's offset. I sometimes also use a hollowed out fan for this as a bit of extension tube as it were. This keeps a lot of the metal dust out of the case. Oh - I use the fiberglass wheel and carefully grind the edg...

Something to try(note this is MESSY) is to disassemble the machine entirely and use a Dremel to cut out the fan grilles. This, as expected, leaves tons of metal dust everywhere. A small vacuum or a slightly wet wad of tissues and a lot of patience is required for cleanup. This literally doubles airf...

Accelero S1 with the auxiliary Accelero fans. Set them to 7V.

You won't hear it over the other fans in the system, guaranteed. It'll keep the most insane card cool.

Since the video card is the single highest draw of power aside from the CPU, if the caps and components are failing, it's logical that reducing the load to half or thereabouts would lessen their death-song. As for motherboards, I swear by the Gigabyte models with the solid state caps and 8 phase pow...

Turn it up until it stops whining, then get a glare screen. This drops the brightness by about 20% and is highly recommended to reduce eye strain as well.

It's the transformer on the back light most likely.(same as a typical fluorescent bulb - they are noisy all too often)

If you can, look for models that have LCD back lighting.

Or better yet, wait a year or so until the new OLED monitors come out.

No second PSU right now. No biggie. Yeah, pulled everything, no sound. Going to get a 320W PSU and check it out. Then likely get a 4coredual board and a dual core Celeron if the board is dead. RDRAM 1066/RIMM4200 32 bit. 2X256MB Made by Samsung, of course. And a CRIMM (Continuity module) Not the 16 ...

The Thermalright bolt-thru kit SHOULD be used to mount a Ninja+ Rev B Fixed it :) Though, that new Thermalright cooler seems to be much better than the Ninja, AND it comes with a decent mounting kit. Of course, I don't expect Scythe to sit on their butts, either :) Should be interesting to see that...

Looks nice, but I don't need built in graphics - the motherboard most likely will be the ASRock 4CoreDual so that she can re-use the hard drives and video card. Not a bad board for $70. But it needs an Intel CPU. http://www.hardware.info/en-UK/productdb/bGNkbZiVmJrKYMg/viewproduct/Intel_Celeron_E140...

The easiest two ways that I know to crush a CPU for the least amount of code are raytracing for video (CRay for example) and Mandelbrot calculations/sets for CPU. Both look stunning to see as well.

I'm apparently going to be looking for a new MB/CPU combo for my EX's computer soon since hers died... She had a simple ~P4 2.6/800fsb processor and needs something about the same speed or maybe a bit higher. Nothing fancy, mind you. The only thing she cares about is watching videos on her screen wi...

Well, I've got it down to the MB or the power supply. The MB looks perfect condition. The power supply is sort of iffy looking/on its way out, so that's the first thing to replace. Any new PC build would require a new one anyways, so it's good preventative maintenance. Pulling the memory made no dif...

I second this - it's a fantastic low cost option for boards that need downward airflow.

Server(roughly in order of importance, IMO): - ECC memory. I swear by this for servers. Well worth the extra $10 or so per simm. - Dedicated networking card.(nothing fancy - just not on-board/at the mercy of Gigabyte's drivers. Even a $20 dedicated card is usually better than on-board networking.) -...

Can't do that - no bios, no anything. The memory is Rambus ECC and never had a problem. I'll try removing one stick at a time, though(have the required parity/placeholder card). It would be nice to have it be something so simple as the memory(though Rambus 1066/232 pin memory is about $100 per 256MB...

My Ex's PC is apparently dead. - System turns on, PS appears to be fine - fans and drives and such spin up and the green LED on the motherboard is on. - No beeping/error codes, no bios, no anything. No power to USB either. I looked and can't find any burnt components or blown caps. It was running fi...

If you are exceedingly careful, you can also take a Dremel and cut off the 1-2 fins that would hit.(the heat pipes are very fragile, so not recommended except as a last resort - a small nick with the Dremel by mistake will cause catastrophic damage) I've never had a computer that I haven't had to mo...

Honestly, Crysis didn't do jack to my system The two biggest killers were Silent Hunter 4 and Far Cry(max settings for both games of course). All those trees and water effects drawn out to a mile or so... But based upon your description, I'd get a used 8800/9600/etc at least. Video cards are general...