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It never really hit me how "noisy" my PC equipment was until an errant, horny squirrel knocked-out our building's transformer. Even with the background ringing in my ears from my tinitus, it was shocking. That, added to the buzz of the fluorescents' and the hum of the halogen task-lighting power supplies added-up to a LOT of ambient white-noise in the background.

I'm holding-off upgrading to DC-12 until I can afford a new tower-unit and bigger flat screen. I suspect that my elderly 256Mb, 600-Mhz Athlon cpu and 32Mb video-card just aren't up to wrestling with DC-12. Hopefully there will be a few good sales on for the Holidays.

Greetings,

I've found some really quiet fans: the 9-blade Scythe "Slip Stream" fans are now available on NewEgg. Here's the 500RPM model:



And here's the 800RPM model:



They are also available from JabTech:


These are amazingly quiet, and they still blow plenty of air. Here's a .

Greetings,

NewEgg is selling the Antec Solo for a mere $26 shipped (after $50 MIR):



This case is just about the best there is. Solid with dampened side panels, excellent air flow, unique hard drive suspension, great cable management, good looks (save the glossy black showing finger prints). If you plan on building a machine in the future (or even if you just want the case), this is the best price you'll find.

Hello Joe,

I can add a few details, to update things: the current best CPU's are the Intel E8400 (3.0gHz dual core 6MB L2 cache) and the Q9450 (2.66gHz quad core 12MB L2 cache). These are both the new 0.45u process, so they are very efficient and they run pretty cool, especially in relation to how well they work.

Also, there are hard drives with 320GB on a single platter from Western Digital (and Samsung?) that are very quiet, cool running, and don't draw much power. They are quite fast as well:


Lastly, I'll mention a new heatsink that has excellent performance, but is less expensive, and lighter weight than the competition. The Xigmatek version is reviewed here:


You can by this heatsink for $44 shipped:


And you can buy the same heatsink from KingWin for $38 shipped (but they are out of stock now):

Yawl,

I'm trying to revive a daughter's old PC & have purchased a wireless router. The wireless - G pci adapter would not work in that box because of the minimum requirements (500 MHz processor).

I plan to reuse the monitor (& video card if necessary), mouse, keyboard cd rom drive, floppy drive, HDD, & possibly the SDRAM.

I've wasted a lot of time on NewEgg trying to match up the following combination:

motherboard
AMD processor
heat sink w/ fan
512 MB RAM (or I can reuse a 32 & 128 MB SDRAM = 128 MB)
cheap case: ATX mid tower

I'm trying to this this as reasonbly economical as possible.

I found this processor:

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Venice 2.4 GHz socket 939 89w single core $ 29.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103571

combo w/ XIGMATEK HDT S963 92mm rifle CPU Cooler $ 44.98

Trying to match up ASUS notherboards, it looked like that socket type was only for servers. I got frustrated.

I think I can figure out the rest (case, fans, ram) if I can get the most economical cpu / motherboard combination.

Hi,

A couple of updates on the hardware front:

Nexus has a top notch power supply, call the the Value 430. It is exceptionally quiet and it should be fine in virtually any system.



The best value heatsinks right now are the Xigmatek HDT-S1283:


I would definitely get their back plate mount:


Another excellent heatsink is the Scythe Mugen 2:

It comes with a both-through mount, costs less, and the fan is quieter -- guess which one I'd get?

The newest Intel CPU's are lower power use and more efficient -- and faster performance than ever. Dual core is plenty for most of us, and unless you do a LOT of rendering or image processing, and then there is the ne "true" quad core called the Core i7.

Stay away from Vista. Get at least 2GB of RAM. If you are thinking of keeping the machine for a long time, then I'd get 4GB and upgrade to Win7 64bit when it is tested and proven.

Hi,

Amending my recommendations on heatsinks -- the Scythe Mugen 2 seems to be the one to get, with it's low price which includes a very good bolt-through mounting bracket, and it's excellent performance.