Can you use SATA SP1614C drives? Microcenter carries those. But there weren't any on the shelves in the store near me; I had to ask someone to check the stockroom to get them.

Would a Nexus 120mm + XP-120 be the optimal silent solution? There is a caveat that the XP-120 is not compatible with all motherboards, exactly because of its huge size that makes it so popular here. The Thermalright website has a motherboard compatibility page describing the problems it has with s...

What exactly is your CPU heatsink+fan combination? I have a 120mm 5V fan on an XP-120 and I don't have this startup noise problem. My fan is powered from the PSU with a 5V Molex connector. Is your CPU HSF plugged in to the motherboard? Maybe you can change fans, if you're comfortable enough with a f...

I second the zip-tie construction. Only slight drawback is that it requires 8 grommets per fan (one set on outside of case, and one set on inside, between case wall and fan). I'm using the stock grommets that came with my Antec SLK3000B (kind of stiff and don't work very well at all for dampening HD...

I like the sibling Soltek SL-K8TPro-939, modulo what appear to be some CPU temperature-monitoring issues. Be sure to examine the motherboard layout closely. On some (e.g., Abit AV8), the 20-pin PSU connector is located on the motherboard right between the CPU area and the rear I/O panel, which will ...

Is this before or after applying the W1.4 BIOS update?

On my SL-K8TPro-939, with the W1.4 BIOS update, the BIOS consistently reports temperatures about 10C lower than what is reported by lm-sensors on Linux.

Aren't fanmates only for 3-pin fans? The TriCool that came with my SLK3000B is a 4-pin fan, so means the fanmate route is a non-starter.

The original motivation for my question was because my Yate Loon fans have both 3-pin and 4-pin connectors. I thought that by undervolting the Molex connectors I'd have to forgo the 3-pin connector, so I wanted to know exactly what I'd be missing without RPM monitoring. Then I realized (from elsewhe...

For inexpensive options: - The Zalman fanmate is for 3-pin fans. - For 4-pin fans you can go with the 12-to-7V adapter (or 5V, if those are available). I don't know about UK availability. But yeah, probably cheapest to find a buddy to do it for you if you are really uncomfortable trying it out yours...

All you have is two drives? If you are buying a new case, you could look at any case with a HD cage, and just suspend the whole cage at the bottom in front of the intake, instead of individually suspending each drive. Look around here for "Thor's hammer". I think there are a few other HD-cage-suspen...

The SPCR article I linked to goes a step further and shows you how to make a switchable fan, but it's definitely in the "above and beyond" category. Your options for a quieter 120mm fan: - Throw more money at the problem. Buy a rheostat or baybus . Or buy a 12V-to-7V adapter . Or even buy a 5V or 7V...

This is where we tell you to go do some homework :x There are also many other websites that describe 7V/5V undervolting with many other pictures. It's very simple. For extra hardware, you will require a pair of tweezers or something. One caveat; if your fan has both 4-pin Molex and 3-pin motherboard...

If you are already doing temperature monitoring of components (CPU, MB, GPU, HDD), is it that important to do fan RPM monitoring at all? It seems to me that it is the temperatures that are important, and not fan speed. I can understand why one would want to *control* fan RPMs (because you thereby in...

If you connect the Molex and rewire it for 5V or 7V, is it still OK to plug in the 3-pin connector for RPM monitoring? Or will the 12V coming from the motherboard header do bad things when it is mixed with the 5V/7V combination from the Molex? It would do bad things. You'd be shorting the 5v and 12...

I have the SLK3000B with a few of the orange Yate Loon 120mm fans (front intake, CPU, rear exhaust) all undervolted to 5V and am very happy with their (lack of) noise. The loudest thing is a slight hum which I think is due to front panel vibration from the HD cage (I just have them grommeted in the ...

I think fabre's asking if there are any cases with intake fans in the 5.25" areas. I'm guessing "no", although it should be simple enough to co-opt two empty bays and stick a big fan in there. There other thing fabre might be asking is if any cases come with a 5.25" bay slot cooler, and for that, I ...

I don't want to make you feel bad about your choice (just saw this thread), but I didn't like the Abit AV8 motherboard, and actually sent it back. The problem was that the PSU 20-pin connector is in an awkward location, right between the CPU and the rear I/O panel. This means that all your PSU cable...

If you connect the Molex and rewire it for 5V or 7V, is it still OK to plug in the 3-pin connector for RPM monitoring? Or will the 12V coming from the motherboard header do bad things when it is mixed with the 5V/7V combination from the Molex?

I bought my drives Jan 17 2005. But I guess if the woman said they were out of stock, they were out of stock. Just ask when they expect a new shipment; they're always getting more. My point was to say that if you don't see any on the shelves, don't give up. I've never seen SP1614C drives on the shel...

Are you sure about that? From your location, I'm assuming you went to the Cambridge Microcenter. I got my SP1614C drives there. There were none on the shelves. I just asked a salesperson if any were in stock; he checked the computer, and said there were some in the back. I didn't ask for cherrypicki...

You won't be able to "move the drives up in the drive cage" without some modding. The front edges of the drive cage are bent inward 90 degrees to provide a bumper surface abutting the drives. You'll see what I'm talking about when you attempt to "move your drives forward" :(. Presumably this is to p...

Bah. I'm a cheap bahstahd. Where are the clones for $4-$8?

I have a Seasonic Super Silencer 400 connected via 24-to-20 adapter to a 20-pin Soltek SL-K8TPRO-939 motherboard and am having no problems over the past few weeks.

I received the following from Soltek tech support: 1. Does the W1.4 SmartDoc report a CPU thermistor or diode temperature? The W1.4 SmartDoc reports a CPU dioide temperature. 2. Does the IT8705F hardware monitor report a CPU thermistor or diode temperature? We are not sure, but we think it should re...

This expands on the tangent started here . With the BIOS W1.4 update, the BIOS temperature monitoring looks more sane (temperatures reported as 30C). However, the Linux lm-sensors still reports the same high temperatures from the hardware monitor (IT8705F). I don't have a Windows install available t...

I started out trying to get SMART information from my drives attached to the VIA 8237 SATA controller in this thread . So I tried moving both my hard drives to the Promise SATA ports instead, hoping they would provide SMART information. The BIOS recognizes the drives attached to the Promise controll...

SMART is not supported on 3rd party controllers, except in following cases: 1. SATA connectors in Intel ICH5 and up 2. SATA connectors in nForce3 and up (both these are native solutions = need no drivers to install Windows, e.g. SATA controller in VIA VT8237 needs drivers, thus no SMART info) Ah, t...

I've been reading a lot on that too. The consensus I inferred was that pretty much all pastes cool equally well (from toothpaste to AS5). The consistently-reported catch was that inferior materials (e.g., toothpaste) evaporate very quickly, leaving you with no thermal interface material at all. Havi...

I think I missed something. Is the consensus that if a fan has both its 3-pin MB and its 4-pin Molex connectors, it "knows" to only draw power through the Molex (even if I've rewired the Molex connector for 5V or 7V) while reporting RPM through the 3-pin connector? Or, on a fan with both 3- and 4-pi...

If i get a 939 socketed processor/mobo, will i be ENSURED that I will be getting a 90nm processor? No, you will not. Socket 939 refers to the interface between the CPU and the motherboard, and does not necessarily imply a fabrication process (although there is a high correlation). There *are* some ...