The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

how do they link together then...there's no wires like you would normally see.

i guess i would have to hook it up and see. by my setup right now is clean and i don't feel like making clutter only to be disappointed.

 

Through the PCI-Express bus I would think.

 

In a rather good mood today. Just replaced the teflon feet on my MS Habu

Using a plastic mat seems to eat down the teflon feet on Razers. Cloth is probably the superior option then. My Krait just got a new set of feet a few months ago and the Habu today. The Logitech MX518, on the other hand, seems to have held up a bit better. But nothing glides like teflon

Been using the Habu as my main mouse lately. The MX518 was awesome and I like the form fitting design. The Habu feels a bit more universal though, and has an easier fit to my palm. Having large hands makes it hard to find a good mouse... The Krait was a bit of an experiment as its shape basically forces you to use the claw grip. It works great for LANs and places with an uneven mousing surface, but I enjoy the more relaxed palm grip of the other two. Currently have the MX518 on my storage box and the Habu on my main rig. KVM switch for my second monitor as well so I can use both PCs or both monitors with one. KVM isn't surround friendly though so the storage rig gets either stereo on my 5.1 or headphones. Don't use it much but it would be nice...

I am considering retiring my blue Eclipse I and MX518 in favor of having keyboard and mouse on the KVM switch but I have so many good peripherals sitting around it's hard to choose...

 

Can't say I've ever worn the teflon feet out on my 4 year old diamondback, but I've only used a fabric mat, not a plastic one. That said, for most of its life the mouse has been used on a wooden desk!

 

For some reason the plastic for mouse pads is extremely abrasive on teflon mouse feet. They don't wear down but the surface gets scuffed up, causing them to lose their glide and pick up grime from your hand. Not terrible but I do have to wipe the feet with my shirt or something every couple days to keep them smooth. They are supposed to wear to a degree but not on a hard surface. The soft cloth on a cloth pad polishes them and keeps them nice. On wood I can't say. I would think after 4 years the feet would be getting pretty rough, no matter the use or surface. Give some teflon cover pads a try. They're cheap and they work really well but they only last a few months.

 

Thanks, Jeff, I finally ordered one - $30 including shipping. Yep, it works great!

Well, I picked up the kaze - and it isn't noisy. I took a 40mm .25amp off the p4, because it was the loudest fan I had on it, and now the p4 is not that loud. I am using that 40mm with another one, in a two-stack array at the back of the case where there is venting down below near the graphics card. I put the kaze in the kama bay in front - I put all three fans on the same fan controller - a total of one amp - and the controller is siliconed to the side of the case - the non-removal side. I'll post pictures maybe tomorrow.

But as I said, the kaze is not really loud even at full speed - sure you can hear it, but the 40 at about 4000 rpm, maybe 4500 rpm, is more irritating. The kaze is so mild, I ordered another one - I'll explain why in a later post, lol.

Ok, look guys, let's do a little thought experiment like Albert Einstein, lol. Let's say, Jeff, that you take your case with negative pressure. Okay, all the hot air is being sucked out of the case. You love it, it's great, and for me that would absolutely suck because my antec has big vent holes in the bottom front which in that case would be pulling in dust.

But anyway, let's continue with the thought experiment. Now add a huge intake fan to that case we just talked about. Blow so much air that you shift the partial vacuum in the case from negative pressure to positive pressure. What is the result? Less air being blown out of the case? Or more?

Obviously, more air is being blown out of the case than before. Think about it. All I did is add a giant intake fan, putting out so much pressure that it overcame the pull of the other fans, and actually created positive internal case pressure. Now are you going to tell me that going from A, to B, that now hot air is going to sit around inside the positive pressure case. No way. If it wasn't sitting around before, it even more will not be sitting around now, and even more air is being blown out of the case than before I added the giant intake fan.

Does that make sense to anybody? Fans are like repeaters. They simply continue to push the air along, grabbing the air from the fan before them. If there were no friction, I could add one giant intake, and I would not need any exhaust fans. But the air gets slowed down as it collides with wires and metal and the affect of friction, so adding exhaust fans continues to repeat the push - the fans are simply repeaters, just like in an electric circuit - in fact the math is very similar.

Instead of air, you can imagine water. Let's say you have a lot of water in a very large tank, and you have big exhaust turbines pulling water out of the tank. You are pulling so much water, that you create a somewhat negative pressure inside the tank. The negative pressure pulls sea water into the tank not only from the front openings that exist, but also from small cracks in various places around the tank.

A heat source inside the tank is cooled by the passage of the water. Then you decide to up the ante, and you add a giant turbine in front, blowing outside sea water into the tank, and assisting the rear exhaust turbines. No question you are going to get more flow - for the same reason that some guys like to cool their HSFs with two fans in push/pull - it works better than just one fan. The second fan in pull, acts as a repeater.

Back to the water tank analogy, the benefit of adding that giant turbine in front, is not only do I get more water flow over the heat source, cooling it better than before, but I creat positive pressure inside the water tank, and the water that now blows out through the many little cracks in the water tank, keep out the random shrimp and other little sea creatures that used to be sucked inside, and used to create barnacles everywhere and mess up the cooling inside the tank.

For me, I'm talking about dust particles.

I hope the thought experiment worked. I rest my case. LOL

 

Nah, is not how it works.
Your thought experiment assumes all fans are on a single linear strip, not crossing paths as in a PC case.
The problem is that with more air going in, air is forced OUT all the random vent holes rather than coming IN through them, thus it's the hot air that reaches all the components, not the cool intake air like it should be.

Oh and if you think a 3000rpm ultra kaze isn't loud you should probably have your hearing checked!

 

i find the best cooling cases are ones that have poitive pressure over negative. Check out for instance the chart when bittech tests cases. It shows that the best cooling cases are those that have a more intake over more exhaust fans. The FT02 is top of their tests currently, and that has 3 intake to one exhaust. Most all silverstobe cases work with positive pressure. They have nice videos of it on youtube aswell.

 

Rich, I believe your first quote on optical drives was from Omega ;P

 

Relatively coincidental, as the case has to be designed to make use of positive pressure (vent holes in the right places) for that to be beneficial.

 

This is true. Something like the HAF really has an open air design so there's a lot of passive exhaust happening besides just the fans. This is why on certain parts, the HAF is a dust magnet.

My Tuniq Towers especially catch dust, but only on the front face of the heat sink, so 90% of it is instantly removed by "rolling" it off with my fingertips. I accept dust as a part of computers. Just clean it out periodically and any cooling setup will work more or less the same.

 

Indeed it was Glad it works for you Rich.

Guess what! I finally dumped my Transmission fluid again, and replaced my filter again. So far, the car seems to be behaving normally again. Sorta like mixing mud and water. Eventually, the mud is barely noticeable Thankfully, it only took 2 drain-ings of the system to clean it up. Each time though, there was roughly a quart of transmission fluid unaccounted for(1.4qts). Which is only ~19% of the entire contents. I can live with that. Certainly since its behaving normally. But I'll still be looking toward a new vehicle. And hopefully, by the time I'm ready, my current car will still be running and can sell it. The engine is wonderful. Not much to look at, but its a great A to B car

Ideally, I would have liked to have a machine pump the muck out of the system. But the damn shops in town don't like doing it to old cars. I told them the current fluid was causing the speed sensor to fowl up. They said if the machine screwed up my transmission, they'd have to replace it. And they couldn't risk that. Hence why I did the job myself...

I'm hell bent on my next car being an S.U.V. I like big vehicles. I like big things period. Which is one reason why I bought the HAF932

 

buy a Humvee..or H1 before 1995. or if that's no good a ford bronco with some nice Accessories is just as good.

Edit* and if you don't have a dash hulagirl buy one dammit.

 

I've had a Bronco II. Or at least my step dad did. The damn thing got stuck in 2nd gear and blew its seals. It was certainly a spunky little $h!t before it got toasted though...

LOL! My dad has a hulla girl in his 55 chevy pickup. Has since my childhood

 

the first Bronco's were a lot better, i used to have one had to sell it to pay off a student loan.

 

Is that why those fire engine sirens always seem to catch me napping? Hahahaha!

I thought I qualified my statement - my 80mm 4500-5000 rpm little buggar at .25 amps, is just as loud, but more irritating (higher pitch I think.) Anyway, the kaze is rated 45db from what I have read, and 134 cfm, but maybe all those are inaccurate. Also I have a second one coming, so I'll see if it is equally as "mild." hahaha.

Thanks for the differing viewpoint, Shaff, which happens to agree with mine, lol. And do you have a link to that article? I may not ultimately use my spedo case.

From the basic idea of keeping dust out of the case - positive pressure, I feel, is the only possible approach. Here is one more attempt at a thought experiment, and then I will drop my futile attempt at pursuasion:

I still maintain that if I had one hypothetical input fan, at 10,000 rpm, 400 cfm, 85db, there would be no need for any exhaust fans at all, and air, including any hot air, would vent out of that case like nobody's business, more air flow out of the case than any balanced case multiple fan model you could find. Of course the 85 db would be an issue, but we're not talking about that.

However, back to reality, I found out something very very interesting - nothing can compare to a fan blowing directly on the graphics card, which is probably part of the reason the side intake fans are so effective.

It appears that the same thing can be accomplished, in my case, since I can't add side fans, by placing a fan on the floor of the case directed at the graphics card. I have the proof! (Pictures and temp charts to follow sometime in the next few days.)

Thanks, Jeff, yeah you're right:

Yeah, that was the quote - thanks Kevin. I even found out that you can use a usb keyboard, and enable support in the bios. But as I mentioned, I picked up the optical usb drive DVD ROM for $30 bucks including shipping, from ebay, and it seems to work fine. When you eject, the tray does not slide smoothly out with a motor, it pops out like a cheap laptop drive, lol. But that's fine - I just want to start my games, and still have room for the kama bay and the silent kaze.

Hmmm - Sam are you commenting on shaff's post? Well, maybe that's the heart of the matter - picking up a case designed for positive pressure. I'm willing to concede, that may indeed be a factor.

In any case, Shaff, I still want that link if you have it handy. I'd love to see that article, and especially any conclusions that supported the finding that positive pressure cases cool better than negative pressure cases. LOL

OH NO! Not acceptable!!! Dust buildup on the hsf! Ghastly idea!! Add a few more intake fans, and you'll end that sorry business!

So Kevin, you had one more go at fixing the metal fragments in the transmission problem! Good for you! When you say the car seems to be working normally again, I take that to mean, YOU FIXED IT! Right? Good show old boy!

Big vehicles? Well, that's all well and good if you don't drive far. I think those SUVs are kind of fun, myself. But since you're out in the rural parts of Oregon, as I recall, won't the poor fuel mileage be a problem if you decide to drive into Portland for a bit of diversion?

You know, DXR, you're letting those quiet Delta fans get to you. Not only have you suffered severe hearing loss, as Sam suggests has also happened to me but you have come to like placing wiggly things on your dashboard.

By the way, if I spend much more time trying to make this case work for me, with an overclocked Q9450, and one or two 5850s, or 5870s, then I might have to seriously think of replacing the weak antec 2000 rpm exhaust, with a 3000 rpm kaze, and throwing a 4000 rpm Delta in the kama bay intake - maybe on the order of 175 cfm. If I threw a kaze on the back, I would need something stronger than that in the front.

Kevin, did your dad ever spend any time with Delta fans?

Rich

 

Depending on the vehicle I get, I may hold on to my current 1994 Grand Prix. It gets 22-24Mpg on the highways. Which is better than most SUV's. I do go to portland fairly regularly. Family resides there. Since it survived my B.S., it shows that it has potential to survive my shenanigans. I kind of beat on the vehicle. Can't help it. The engine is pretty spunky. If you had a corvette, wouldn't you play?

Delta Fans? Not that I know of. The only fans I know he is familiar with would be wood burning stoves. He used to be in the business of manufacturing Wood stoves. "Earth Stove". Those use some rather special fans as I'm sure you'd gather

 

A corvette! Wow!

Good for you!

You're right! If I had one, I would play too! (Jeff might even trade in his AK with 100 round barrel magazine!)

Yeah I would kinda guess your vette engine is spunky - what do you have under that hood, about 375 horse?


- - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Hey, I'll post pictures later, but Sam, back on this subject of case venting, what would you guess would suck more air out of a vent that is about 60 mm wide, and maybe 7 inches tall. I can mount dual 80mm fans, or I could mount dual 60mm fans. The 80s will be partially blocked, but of course the fan blades are wider, and for the same amount of noise the 60s will make, I can run the 80s pretty fast. Would you guess that two partially blocked 80s would suck more air, or two not-blocked-at-all 60s?

Edit - I found some TMD 70mm case fans - available on ebay. The magnetic core is mounted in four spots around the outside of the fan, enabling them to get by with a smaller blocked area in the middle holding the bearing and fan support - but no magnets. They claim more airflow that way. Maybe a couple of those will work better than two partially blocked 80s - even though they still will be partially blocked, lol. They draw .32 amps each on full power, 5800 rpm, and I can put them on the same controller as the two 80s with the front kaze, running about 1 amp total, this would increase it to 1.2 amps - I think the controller can take it.

By the way, the reason I think that the kaze is so quiet in my system, is that it is behind the perforated metal plate of the kama bay, and furthermore is behind a custom snap-on front filter assembly that I modded to the kama bay. That blocks a lot of noise.

Rich

 

LOL! you misunderstood. Corvette was an example. I simply meant if you had a spunky vehicle wouldn't you play? My 94 grand prix is no corvette LOL! But its the spunkiest car I've had yet. It only has like 180Hp. But it does get up and go. Although if you count the 55chevy that I'll probably inherit, oh baby! It has a 69 Chevelle 350 block in it. VERY powerful truck. It sounds like a racing engine. The power it has can scare people

 

Yeah, I guess out on those rural roads you can push the pedal to the metal and not attract too much police attention (sometimes.)

So in that case, let me ask you. When you get the urge, what kind of "flying" do you like to do? In the 80s, or do you push it even higher than that? Those roads aren't freeways I know - you probably go past farm houses, etc. So you can't really race like crazy I would guess.

Or are you talking about major highways? Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket? LOL

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I've been researching case fans all night. Everything is bringing me back to Delta - both for 80mm fans (partially blocked on a vent that is only 60mm wide) and to replace the kaze in the kama bay. I may throw two delta 80s in the back, total of 1 amp, or maybe 1.8 amps, to replace the two (total 0.4 amps) that are there now, replace the antec 2000 with the kaze 3000, and throw a minimum 190 cfm 59db delta in the front, if not the 220 cfm at 65db. Running furmark tonight - it's a hot evening on a very hot weekend - I was hitting 99-100 on the 8800 GTX temp - with all fans cranked. The lower 80mm at the bottom rear of the case, was putting out some very hot temp airflow - but the much weaker 80 above it (pictures in next post) was not putting out much of anything. The vent that those two fans are on, is in the gpu area, and while the gpu turbine vents out the back, I am not impressed with the weak airflow coming out from that turbine.

Of course what I really need is an after-market gpu cooler, but I'm not gonna do that on the 8800 GTX, and it's a loaner. If I slip a 5850 or 5870 in there, maybe I'll add a better-than-stock cooler.