Here's a s754 board with the 430 plus DVI for under $80! K8NGMPro I also believe it comes with a component/s-video bracket, perfect for a budget HTPC. Unfortunately seems they didn't implement gigabit lan or HD audio. Though the Asus A8N-VM does claim to have HD audio. (Magic-Pro is a local brand, b...

Linus, excellent work on your Back-of-LCD PC. How did you manage to get your LaScala case to be held up by the LCD? I see a photo of a mount, but it seems quite recessed and a little low on the screen to be the only point of support? BTW what is the size of your LCD? It was pretty simple, really. T...

Yeah you only wish, it would overvolt. I have ballistix as well and it's a bit dissapointing that the RAM voltage is fixed at 2.6v. Actually I was more interested in undervolting as the RAM seemed to run hotter than normal. I am hoping to run this system with a DC-DC power supply in an Aria case as...

Do you want to include a Core Solo/Duo "pre-configured barebone" as well? In which case there's the new Mac Mini now that it runs XP with most of it's functionality.

(minor point, dimension is spelled with an s)

QuietOC wrote:Again your VIA 3DMark score is T&L/CPU limited. Run the 6150 with software T&L and the same processor and see what the score is.

Not sure I understand what you're saying here (it's late and I should be sleeping), with Software T&L I get a similar score of 4526.

Question for you guys, which set of slots do you have your RAM installed in? I seem to remember the manual recommending the blue slots (closer to CPU) if you only have one pair, which was the slots I used. But doing some testing today I moved it the outter (non-blue) slots and Sisoft benchmark seeme...

I never thought of running 3DMark, IMO if you plan to do any 3D gaming even very occassional, you'd be better off getting a dedicated graphics card even a budget one. Despite so many new chipsets being brought to the market (even by the two graphics kings), none of the onboard solutions can handle m...

The prices for those seem quite reasonable at less than $500. If you add in DVD drive, 512MB RAM, 60GB HDD, OS, building fee, and shipping you're probably looking at more than $600, the price of the Mini Solo shipped. With the Mini you're also getting wifi, bluetooth, remote, gigabit lan plus a sma...

QuietOC - sorry the Pundit didn't work out for you. I swapped in some Crucial Ballistix RAM and my Pundit was able to automatically set the right clock and timings according to SPD (200mhz 2-3-3-8 ). It worked fine one stick in either slot, or with both sticks. I ran SiSoft's memory benchmark and ca...

doudou Yes the first thing I ran was Speedfan, all details/screenshots on my blog page. Unfortunately 4.28 didn't pick up any voltage/temp/fanspeed sensors However it does pick up 2 speed controls on a FDC37n972 chip but it doesn't have any affect on the fan. Diane Keep in mind if you plan to put th...

Don't think a mb swap is possible; not only would size, CPU socket location, plus back panel ports have to match, but more importantly this barebone uses an external AC/DC brick meaning the mb needs built in DC/DC converter accepting 19v (that round din plug next to the VGA is the power in). Being a...

I was quite tempted to get a HP s7300 series myself, my thoughts on it here , but unfortunately it is only available in the US. From all user reviews it should be noticably quieter than the usual FrankenPC, especially since it uses a cooler running notebook processor. If you go for it, I'd recommend...

Hi Diane, before we forget WELCOME TO SPCR !! :D Sorry can't get through to your link. Maybe you are referring to the HP s7320n? I don't have any personal experience with that model, but it seems like a good valued, small (not tiny), and potentially quiet machine. However it's hard to give you a rec...

I can't figure out how to get the memory to run at PC3200. Seems the motherboard refuses to set it to the right ratio. Stuck at PC2700 which is a shame since its 2-3-2 PC3200. This is the biggest sign of crap motherboard to me--any board that looks like it is letting you set something that it just ...

Thanks to Erssa's link from the iMac discussion I managed to follow the detailed instructions and got XP to boot on my Core Solo Mini. It took some trial and error, and searching forums to overcome some of the problems but overall wasn't too bad; my experience here . It's still somewhat of a Beta so...

... but PSU's tend to have the worst efficiency at the lowest power draw. 430W, 500W and 600W PSU's are total overkill for an awful lot of the people who visit SPCR. If they brought out 250W and 300W PSU's with 85% efficiency, that would be something to shout about. Andy I wouldn't be so quick to w...

Linus, excellent work on your Back-of-LCD PC. How did you manage to get your LaScala case to be held up by the LCD? I see a photo of a mount, but it seems quite recessed and a little low on the screen to be the only point of support? BTW what is the size of your LCD? QuietOC, do let us know how you ...

I haven't gotten around to taking apart my Core Mini, but I suspect it has the same two sources of noise, the notebook HDD and the single cooler fan. From the overall noise level, I am guessing the Fujitsu HDD in my Core Mini is very quiet and maybe even quieter than the Samsung? However guessing fr...

I got hold of the PicoPSU and also the larger PW200M and successfully tested them in a XPM desktop without any problems. Well the 12v 8.5A brick that came with it was defective on arrival, so I had to find a replacement brick and rewire it to the fit the Pico. Details and photos here.

It turns out that once these DC/DC convertors are plugged into the motherboard, there was no more voltage reading on the 12v rail when powered off (which is good). I did some initial testing in an underclocked Athlon XPM desktop and so far everything seems to work fine. More details here.

Photos of Turion X2 prototypes at Hardware Secrets . Interesting choice of displaying it on a Nvidia SLI Power mobile reference board. From this TGdaily report seems it will run with DDR2 so maybe AM2? Also power consumption will be in the "range" of current Turions and just carry a "small" premium ...

I recently got the PW200M DC/DC converter, and i've verified its getting 12vdc with a voltmeter. i dont yet have it plugged into the motherboard, but i tested the output voltages on a molex connector to make sure they were right and they werent. the 12v line was at like 3volts, and their was nothin...

Fugger at Xtemesystems.org details his take apart (and upgrade to a 2.16ghz Core Duo) here. The drive in his Core Solo was listed as a Seagate Momentus ST96812AS.

Alleycat, thanks for bringing back this great idea. I managed to apply this to further quiet a Samsung notebook HDD inside my Pundit and have successfully made it my first inaudible PC (from within 2 feet). Aluminum enclosures and gelpacks were also hard to find where I'm at, but a metallic pencil c...

Thanks to alleycat's idea of a home brew coolpack HDD enclosure , in combination with stealthing the Pundit behind a LCD monitor (a la iMac) http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2676/2249/1600/P1040456.0.jpg I am very pleased that the Pundit has found it's place on my desk and is completely inaudible ...

Erssa wrote:Nice. I wonder how it performs thermally and acoustically compared to the G4.

I did some initial comparisons with my 1st gen G4 1.25 but no numbers, just my impression. Macworld also took one apart and ran some benchmarks.

Apple delivered early and my Intel Core Solo Mini has arrived! My initial impressions here . It does seem quieter than my 1st gen Mini, but oddly my old Mini seems louder than before. It was very quiet perched on a loudspeaker, but now laying on top of a desk I can clearly hear the fan/exhaust. I'll...

I just received my Core Solo Mini with the 60GB HDD. Iprofiler indicates it's a Fujitsu MHV2060BHL, with NCQ suport and Queue Depth of 32. The closest model on Fujitsu's website is MHV2060BH (no L) which identifies it as a 5400rpm SATA2 drive with 8mb cache and rates the idle at 2.6Bels. They mentio...

Aris
Is your 220w brick similar to the Dell Optiplex SX260/270 power supply? Which DC-DC convertor are you using with it? I was thinking to try to match up one of these to a PW200M.

Apple has released their new Mac Mini with the Intel Core Duo/Solo processor and on their website they claim "the new Mac mini is even quieter than the already whisper-quiet previous generation." With my 1st gen Mini, the only noise was the soft hum of the notebook HDD (I put a Samsung in mine) muff...