systems administrator mantra: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

if you're in the US, you can replace the tricool's with YateLoon's and Zalman Fan Controllers at less than 10$ per.

Sounds like a PSU issue to me, at first glance.

Sure thing. If you're hitting page file on 4GB, have you considered something that speeds up a page file? I'm sort of hot for these A-Card 9010 DDR2 based SSD. I'm probably going to pick up the 9010B [maybe two] with 12GB of ecc-DDR2 and use it for my system drive, and use my gigabyte i-ram for swap...

I'd agree about the stock fan.

Stick your finger in the spinning fan to see if thats the noisiest part.

Quiet is coming last for this machine. Are you sure you're in the right forum? ;) This machine will be running the CPU full load 24/7 crunching numbers, for months on end on a single calculation.... Right. Reliability, cost, and low power are my main concerns (in that order) Overclocking, in my min...

Don't do RAID 5. I would modify that statement to say "If you're going to do raid5, do it right with a proper hardware raid card" For a file server I would always recommend using cheap, reliable hard disks for the OS in raid1 or raid10, and RAID5/6/1/10 for data. be sure to have hotspares. I would ...

even a non-passive cooler can be well worth it, and fairly inexpensive.

I used this zalman on my 7950GT before I sold it.

I'm sure with a little searching you could find a quiter active or passive cooler for your 8800GTS G80

I'd also roll with AMD; you can do it very inexpensively. Small Form factor is always a bit tougher, but not impossible. Look at some of the inexpensive shuttle cases. Maybe this for 160$. Add in an inexpensive dual-core processor for 38$, 2GB of memory for 20$, and maybe a quiet 320GB hard drive fo...

An Intel E7x00 or E8x00 series chip will handle multitasking just fine, unless your planning on doing large amounts of video encoding you wont see much/any benefit of going quad, especially if your only using it as a media PC/light usage tasks. Its up to you, but you can save some money. Also the l...

why a quad core? i'd think a dual core would be plenty sufficient, especially with a video card.

you might consider reusing the existing processor.. the power/heat saved will be some, but not that much. and the performance gain will be some, but not that much.

i'd say replace the 7900GS, though. Maybe look at a 4670.

Note the PS requirements for the video card: "Minimum of a 450 Watt power supply. (Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 24 Amp Amps.)" And the 12V rails rating on your selected power supply; +3.3V@18A, +5V@20A, +12V1@17A, +12V2@17A, -12V @0.8A, +5VSB@2.5A I would be a lit...

I hear this Thermaltake LANBOX case is poular.

I also like this Lian-Li Case, its "Cube"

I'm currently using this one for a file server.

lol. thats super sad. I've had things like that happen to me though too. "so it goes." Let us know what you think of vmware. I'm getting ready to deploy VMware for Microsoft Exchange with an HP-SAN backend, and dinky 1u quad-cores with as much memory as I can cram in them for our in-house email, usi...

I recall the i7's being quite warm chips. Phenom's are also supposedly warm, as well, compared to 45nm C2D stuff. I would consider a 45nm Core2 E8XXX or E7XXX.. both of these would have plenty of power for encoding, gaming, etc, and run cool. Motherboard for these are inexpensive [good ones are easi...

Adding/using a different sound card can fix this, I believe

I'd also recommend some Zalman Fanmates. I had bad luck with speedfan and any motherboard vendor provided software solution. Zalman fanmates are 4$ each, so. Well worth it I think.

I just bought one of these. So far, its a bit faster than my other 6400AAKS, and runs a degree or two cooler. The drives are right next to each other in the lower chamber of a P180. I'm installing Windows 7 on it tonight. I imagine that the 1TB version has similar performance, with a little more no...

Nice review, but a review of the Caviar Black 640 GB would be better. We all know the 1 TB, 3 platters version was loud, so I think a comparison between the 640 GB Caviar Black and the 640 GB Caviar Blue would be much more interesting. I just bought one of these. So far, its a bit faster than my ot...

try 5-5-5-15 @ 1.8v. I had memory failures with 8GB [i've assembled 6 machines with P35 Chipsets] running memory any higher than 1.8V, and timings any faster.

Most 32 bit OS's can't see 4GB. But you might get between 3 and 3.5. When you upgrade to a 64 bit OS, you can.

Clock for clock, Intel Core2Duo Chips are faster than the Classic AMD X2's Phenom II's and Core i7 chips are pretty new to the mix, both have increased performance clock for clock than their predecessors. In the mix, Intel has the fastest processors [i7's and the E8600 pretty much wipes the floor wi...

Yeah, I've had good luck with crucial and geil memory. Lifetime Warranty and cheap. Probably no need for 1066 memory, just get 800mhz.

800$ not including a monitor sounds pretty easy to do. Even 500$ should be possible if you don't really need a video card. Antec Sonata III comes with a very nice 500w Earthwatts supply, and runs about 100$ if you can find it on sale. There may be another iteration of it coming soon. Currently 130$ ...

I think you're making a smart choice upgrading the whole shebang. There are faster memory speeds of DDR2, click here I would just stick with a well reviewed cheap set of DDR2-800 from a popular vendor. You won't probably notice any difference from DDR2-800 to DDR2-1066. I've always had bad luck runn...

I've done it before, no harm done.

have you thought about 2.5" disks? 500GB ones are available for ~ 100$

It's a little more expensive, but you can stick 4 2.5" disks in a 5.25" bay with something like this;

http://addonics.com/products/raid_syste ... s25nsa.asp

Looks solid. I like WD drives lately.

You can get the smallest/cheapest Pico PSU.

If you have gigabit ethernet, get the one with gigabit ethernet. If not save yourself the 20$.



Keep in mind for a few dollars more you can have a full blown machine. Atom on the desktop doesn't make that much sense.

I really like xp 64 bit never crashes, either. 8GB of Memory <3