I am running XP, and I had toyed with the idea of running Linux on the system, but shyed away from it. Why? Because most of the apps that I run are on Windows, and the ability to log in remotely through Remote Desktop is a big plus for me. :) I know there's SSH, but it's not the same as Remote Deskt...

Really? I'm sitting at a 2.66GHz Cel D right now with the stock heatsink, and it rarely goes above 45C. That's also with the stock thermal pad. Maybe I just got a particularly good one here... *shrugs* Then again, we've seen plenty of examples of people effectively cooling Prescott systems, even wit...

My new/old system

Specs aren't much to write about, but it's very very quiet.

So... I know the specs aren't really much to talk about these days, but this computer has been my little pet project for the past couple of months. Ultimately, the core of this system is going to be my file server (probably in a different case), since I'm going to be getting a HighPoint RAID card, a...

Western Digital has had a couple of bad batches of drives. If ever you see a drive with 2MB of cache - stay away . They're built cheap, and sell cheap. In other words - boo. Other than the 80GB and 120GB drives with 2MB cache, Western Digital drives are pretty rock solid IMO. The recent Caviars are ...

If you can, get the WD Caviar 500GB instead of the Barracuda. Seagate unfortunately hasn't been working on keeping drives quiet, and with the WD drives suspended, you'll have a hard time hearing them in a good case. I tend to go with ASUS motherboards, just because I've never seen a dead ASUS mother...

I'm not sure if the OS will be able to shut down the RAID hard drives when they're not in use. You might be able to configure this from the RAID card's control software. Yes - some of the HighPoint cards have web administration. The RocketRAID 1740 for example (PCI, SATAII, RAID5 supported) has the ...

If this is purely a file and print server, then I wouldn't worry too much about the CPU power of the system. Chances are your network would bottleneck before the system slows down. For a simple file server, you probably won't need 1GB of RAM. 512MB should be enough. For a RAID controller - Highpoint...

250Gb HDD : $75 Epia mini-itx all-in-one : $95 Mini-itx case: $30 (? too lazy to go find a link atm..most DIY's probably have a case and PSU laying around they could scavenge for free) FreeNAS : $0 (or one of several similiar OS options) Foldershare : $0 total: $200 You forgot the RAM there - and t...

Very interesting. I'd be interested in seeing one of them up close and personal. What's quiet to one person would be a racket to MikeC. ;) I have my PS2 in my entertainment center, behind closed doors because of the fan. I've got wireless controllers, so I don't have to worry about cables either... ;)

I've been using my laptops as my primary computers for a few years now, and I'll probably never go back. The ability for me to have my computer, my files, my settings - all that with me wherever I go - that's worth it to me. My current laptop is a Dell I6000. Not necessarily a silent laptop, but it'...

I actually like the snow! Sure, it makes driving a bit trickier, but that just takes practice and a lot of patience. What's nice about this for me is that it's actually snow and not the usual weather of rain, rain, and more rain. When it's snowy out, you get inside, and you can just bundle up right ...

Hehe... you don't like the snow Mike? I love it. Although I will say that there are a lot of crazy people on the road. First thing that people should know about driving - if it's raining or snowy out, put on your headlights!!! For gosh sake people, you need to make sure you're seen! I'm looking out ...

@jaganath - Thanks for your support. It's a pleasure to be part of the team. Yes, you're right about the fins on the heatpipes. They're far to tightly spaced for a low airflow environment. The fan controller doesn't really seem like much of a controller either... other quieter power supplies tend to...

I've got pretty much the same as you do, so I'll let you know what I've done and am going to do. 1) Ditch the stock heatsink for a Zalman 3100+ w/ 80mm SilenX fan (fan does not do what it advertises). I'm probably going to be upgrading this to the Thermalright SI-97 soon (best SocketA cooler availab...

@BrianE - Thanks for your reply. I was actually thinking of the original Stacker - to be honest, I didn't even know about the 830 until you showed me the link. :wink: Your points about the hard drive noise are completely valid, but I'm not too worried about seek noise. The RAID setups that I've got ...

Thanks everyone for your replies. @McBanjo - What I meant by the small case not having enough cooling was that things were far too cramped in there, constricting the airflow. Yes, a slightly smaller case will have more airflow than a slightly larger, but then there comes too small - this was too sma...

Hello everyone, I've been a long-time viewer, but first-time poster here at SPCR. I've been reading up on silent-ing my computer and I've got quite a ways with it. I've currently got a fairly old system: Athlon XP 2000+ 1GB PC2700 nVidia Geforce II MX 200 (yeah baby...) 200GB Seagate Barracuda 7200....