I have the ASRock 939 Sata2 motherboard right now. It allows for a nice upgrade path if you have decent parts currently that you want to use. It has AGP and PCIe slots, socket 939 and the AM2 slot. It performs well and doesn't cost much. Assuming new cpu designs don't sprout and render AM2 useless. ...

Having the angled cover for the top is also a good idea for those with a cat. You know a cat would be all over a quiet, warm surface if it's flat enough. I've heard that the thermal properties of cat belly do not improve the cooling of a PC, when one lays on top of a warm surface...

Make the duct like a cone, the tight end wrapped around the fan, and spreading out to include the entire filter area.

If you have the clearance behind the case for it, you can make a wire box and wrap it with the foam. It can attach to the normal fan opening, but there is much more surface area for air to be pulled through the foam to help with flow. Just make sure your exhaust is vented away from this of course.

Humm.....I think you left out an adjective. It should have read "the world's major monotheistic terrorism tolorating religions". Sadly, many religions have been used as an excuse to harm others. How many hundreds of thousands of arabs were killed during the various crusades, and how many thousands ...

Don't forget that while the mini-itx boards from VIA aren't the fastest cpus out there by a long shot, they have built in video chips designed for streaming video. Many many folks use them for DVR machines without a problem. They won't be great for a gaming machine, but for watching/recording video ...

Over the last 4 years, M$ has been working with the government to create a highly secure system, the project was/is called Palladium. http://www.epic.org/privacy/consumer/microsoft/palladium.html has info on what it's about. One of the goals was to make software licenses tied to hardware IDs, so tha...

Yup, I've tried other systems and like I mentioned if I could play the games I like without having to do serious coding to get partial compatibility I would. I tried working with Wine on Linux a while back, but I don't have the time and coding skill needed to make the games run on Linux. Thus I make...

The only reason I still use M$ is because game companies are tied into proprietary DirectX. Get a solid emulator for Linux that can handle a majority of games without having the end user code parts themselves, and there's little reason to settle for M$ anymore. I believe M$ and the govt. were workin...

Hi Stealthgirl, I've seen several systems where the heatsink for the cpu doesn't have a fan attached directly, but instead the fan is blowing air through the heatsink towards the rear case grill. If the fins on your video cooler were rotated 90 degrees so that they allowed airflow along the length o...