Just switched to SLK3700BQE

vhx1 · Post by **vhx1** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 9:37 am

After a few years of having an old Antec SX830 holding my rig together, I can say that i'm finally happy to change it out. After a week of readin stuff on this forum, i decided to go with the 3700BQE. At first glance, the case looked really nice. Its a very well designed case. Here's whut i got in it so far

Asus p4b533-e
Pentium 4 2.22 ghz
256 pc2100 ddr ram
geforce2 gts 32 mb
m-audio audiophile 24/96
Soundblaster Live Value
WD 80 gig 7200 rpm
WD 30 gig
Plextor PX-712a
Pioneer 16c DVD-Rom

Installation wasn't so much a breeze cuz i also picked up the Zalman HPC80 to replace the loud HSF on my Geforce 2. To people that own this, is the pack heatsink suppposed to come into contact with the back because mine does not. Disregarding the tedious installation, the Zalman HPC-80 works pretty well.

I also got the 7000-AlCu at the same time. It was a bit painfull to install with the mobo still mounted to the case but its very stable and keeps my CPU at around 30 Celcius at about 1450 rpm. Only quibble about this thing was that shit easily got stuck in the huge fan.

I only have a few issues with this case. First i couldn't find a way to control the PSU fan speed and it seems to sit at around 800 rpm. this seems REALLY low but there don't seem to be any problems. Also the sideways mounted drive bay really pissed me off. I couldn't find a rounded IDE cable long enough to connect from each harddrive to a CDROM. I want it cabled like this so performance doesn't suffer when i direct-copy CD's. Does anyone have a solution for this?

All in all, i have to say i really like this forum and site for all the information it provides!! I am also really impressed with this case as it seems like a whisper compared to my old antec. I think the loudest thing in my comp right now are my hdd drives.

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 11:33 am

What is this you speak of, performance hit when direct copying on your optical drives? I have the BQE, and have the HDDs on the primary IDE channel, and my optical drives on the 2nd. I have seen some super long rounded IDE cables at Fry's, but like I said, I'm not sure what possible performance hit is it that you speak of...?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 12:10 pm

vhx1 wrote:Also the sideways mounted drive bay really pissed me off. I couldn't find a rounded IDE cable long enough to connect from each harddrive to a CDROM. I want it cabled like this so performance doesn't suffer when i direct-copy CD's. Does anyone have a solution for this?

1) Mount the drive so the end with the connectors is facing away from the open door of the case.

2) Be careful about just buying longer rounded cables. Round cables are out of spec by definition and IDE cables are specced to a maximum length of 18". Using 24" or longer rounded cables is looking for trouble.

<Que the "rounded cables are 'da bomb and Ralf's nothing but a paranoid old lady" replies>

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 12:12 pm

Rounded cables are 'da bomb and Ralf's nothing but a paranoid old lady!!!!!

lol.... I probably should return to "my roots" and get some IDE ribbon cables ~.~... *hides his rounded IDE cables in embarrassment. Oooo I can practice cablegami too when i get the ribbons

vhx1 · Post by **vhx1** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 5:27 pm

If I were to copy a cd from my dvd rom directly onto another blank disc on my burner, wouldn't having both optical drives on the same IDE channel make its performance suffer? I was under the impression that this is the case.

Whats wrong with rounded IDE Cables?

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 5:32 pm

Well think about it this way - if you were to do a DIRECT cd-copy, to my understanding, having them on the same channel is faster, because if they are on different channels, you have to go through the other devices in the way, i.e., hard drives. By being on teh same channel, you dont have to go through that bottleneck. But then again, I might be wrong.

Rounded IDE cables are nice, but with ribbons they can use even less space and increase airflow even MORE if you practice cablegami.

Mankey · Post by **Mankey** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 5:40 pm

actually having them on different channels is much faster. each channel can only read or write at the same time, reading from one channel and writing to the other is possible though, and happens much much faster.

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 5:47 pm

Hrm I see. So if i Have 2 HDDs and 1 optical, it probably is bes tto keep the HDDs on seperate channels and teh optical on the 2nd channel ?

hyperslug · Post by **hyperslug** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:01 pm

Perhaps the best thing about SATA is that it will end this round vs flat nonsense.

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:07 pm

No because paranoid ppl will get on the case about the 4 pin molex adapters needing to be sleeved and all, LOL.

Mankey · Post by **Mankey** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 9:10 pm

acaurora wrote:Hrm I see. So if i Have 2 HDDs and 1 optical, it probably is bes tto keep the HDDs on seperate channels and teh optical on the 2nd channel ?

exactly, and furthermore, keep the optical on the channel that you do NOT read from when you write.

vhx1 · Post by **vhx1** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 9:18 pm

ye this is exactly why i have drives cabled a specific way.
Primary HD and DVD rom on one channel
Secondary HD and CDRW on the other channel

I think my CDRW manual said something about this too

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Sun Aug 15, 2004 11:14 pm

vhx1, that's probably some CDRW drives like to be the master not the slave.

While it's true that having the source and destination on different channels is faster, I doubt you could measure the difference even with a superaccurate stopwatch. I mean, the CDRW isn't the most accurate technology out there, your recording speed goes up/down more depending on the media quality.

I think there's no need to fuss about which is connected to where. Your worries are based on times when PC hardware had trouble keeping up with supplying the CDRWs with uninterrupted data flow due to channel bottlenecks (times of ATA33 and PIO modes), CPU usage etc. Right now 90% PCs have enough juice to handle writing CDRW while doing a ton of everything else.

vhx1 · Post by **vhx1** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 1:01 am

Alrite i'll take your word for it and give it a try

AntecRep · Post by **AntecRep** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:58 pm

I haven't noticed any problems with my 36" rounded IDE cables. But then I haven't burned any CD's in awhile, so maybe I need to do that again and see.

I know that Nero typically likes the CD drives on separate channels. The few times I tried on the same channel I ended up with coasters.

sigh I still need to replace my vid card fan.

AntecRep

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 2:04 pm

36" ? And how do you have the cables going? With the IDE connector facing away from you? in what slot? and with the IDE optical drive in which 5.25" bay? I can understand perhaps in the lowest bay of the 5.25s, and in teh highest for the HDD cage, but to provide effective cooling for some HDDs it cannot be done in that arrangement.

and holy cow i didn't know we had an antec rep - WHERE'S MY COBRA UV FLOPPY CABLE?!!! It said "free for a limited time" on the website, and I never got it, nor was there any instructions for getting it in the box when i got my BQE. Bleh it's been about a year since i got my BQE case, i doubt i can get it - i dont even have the reciept anymore, rofl.

NARC · Post by **NARC** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 9:18 am

burcakb wrote:I think there's no need to fuss about which is connected to where. Your worries are based on times when PC hardware had trouble keeping up with supplying the CDRWs with uninterrupted data flow due to channel bottlenecks (times of ATA33 and PIO modes), CPU usage etc. Right now 90% PCs have enough juice to handle writing CDRW while doing a ton of everything else.

That's not neccessarily true. If you have an older CD-ROM drive, it's possible that the max rate for it is ATA/66. ATA forces all units on the same channel to run at the same speed. So if your slowest unit is ATA/66, then your fastest will still run at that speed. So it's not dependant on the CPU, but on your devices.

Regardless, you are right any CD-R drive bought in the last 2 years will not be running into this issue and ultimately it's unlikely that any way you set it up will have a problem. But if you do, set each of them on their own channel if you can.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 11:00 am

NARC wrote:
burcakb wrote:I think there's no need to fuss about which is connected to where. Your worries are based on times when PC hardware had trouble keeping up with supplying the CDRWs with uninterrupted data flow due to channel bottlenecks (times of ATA33 and PIO modes), CPU usage etc. Right now 90% PCs have enough juice to handle writing CDRW while doing a ton of everything else.
That's not neccessarily true. If you have an older CD-ROM drive, it's possible that the max rate for it is ATA/66. ATA forces all units on the same channel to run at the same speed. So if your slowest unit is ATA/66, then your fastest will still run at that speed. So it's not dependant on the CPU, but on your devices.

I'm pretty sure that hasn't been the case for a few years now. Newer IDE controllers no longer have that limitation. A little research should turn up more info on this.

AntecRep · Post by **AntecRep** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 11:38 am

HD connectors are facing in. I'm using the 36" because I needed to add my old HD in to transfer some files to my new HD (SATA). Now I'm just being lazy about removing it.

I typically dont' worry about HD temperatures. My critical files I have multiple copies of on various sources (actually I need to update the CD's I made too).

I'm at work, so I can't check what I have where. I should actually open it up and put in the NeoPower that I got, but I'm lazy.

I've been here over a year now. Drop me an e-mail and I can see about the F16UV.

AntecRep

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 1:36 pm

You can easily identify naughty cdrws. most of the problematic ones have the safety bump (the small rise thingy that lets you plug the IDE connector only one way) have it the wrong way around so you either HAVE to install on different channels or horribly twist your IDE cable.

Please note the qualifiers like : most, usually, 90% etc.

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Fri Aug 20, 2004 7:24 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:
NARC wrote:
burcakb wrote:I think there's no need to fuss about which is connected to where. Your worries are based on times when PC hardware had trouble keeping up with supplying the CDRWs with uninterrupted data flow due to channel bottlenecks (times of ATA33 and PIO modes), CPU usage etc. Right now 90% PCs have enough juice to handle writing CDRW while doing a ton of everything else.
That's not neccessarily true. If you have an older CD-ROM drive, it's possible that the max rate for it is ATA/66. ATA forces all units on the same channel to run at the same speed. So if your slowest unit is ATA/66, then your fastest will still run at that speed. So it's not dependant on the CPU, but on your devices.
I'm pretty sure that hasn't been the case for a few years now. Newer IDE controllers no longer have that limitation. A little research should turn up more info on this.

The entire channel degrades only when there are non-UltraDMA devices attached (=devices which support only PIO or MW-DMA modes). It's good to remember to check the BIOS' and Windows' settings for the ATA channels - sometimes they are set to PIO only. Setting Fail-Safe settings in BIOS could set the channels to PIO only (=disable UDMA modes), and sometimes Windows falsely identifies the ATA controller on the board, especially if one uses a non-Intel chipset and does not install the chipset drivers.

This is true with "new" controllers - say, with ATA100 support. Which means pretty much all chipsets made after 2001.

Cheers,

Jan

Just switched to SLK3700BQE

Just switched to SLK3700BQE

Re: Just switched to SLK3700BQE