The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Weird. It does now, I wonder why not before... Meh, blame the "gaming" keyboard. Seriously, this £50 Razer Tarantula is the best gaming keyboard I've had so far, and it still can't hold a candle to a £5 labtec.

 

LOL I was going to get one of those but now I'm having second thoughts.

 

Well, I got so damn mad that Lite-On won't sell me a belt for my lightScribe drive, that I changed out the mechanism from a belt driven to a gear driven Tray! I had to remove the belt driven motor from the front PC board because the motor on the sony is mounted to the plastic frame, and then solder the two leads for the gear driven one straight to the PC board. The only problem I ran into was the red wire on the motor was the - and the black was the +. Records and plays fine! The drive I used was a Sony, but it was made by Lite-On, and I only had to cut a plastic pin off because there was no matching hole in the front PC board! I just transfered everything, including the table that holds the motor, servo motor and the Laser, because it was originally a CD Burner. I can't use the original face and tray because the gearing is different and has smaller teeth on the tray!

Take that, Lite-On!

Russ

 

Yeah the older Sonys were all Lite-ons, which is why I never used to recommend buying them. The NEC merger brough about improvement, but nonetheless i'm a little sad to see NEC disappear as an ODD company.

 

Sam,
I know what you mean! I was just scrounging for a belt, and happened to notice that the plastic chassis looked pretty much the same. Lite-On has the belts for mine but they only use them for repairs, under warranty. It just ticked me off enough, to give it a go and see what I could make out of it! I doubt that it has very much wear on it as the computer it came out of was used to run a cash register. The only thing I can't test is the LightScribe because I don't have any LightScribe DVDs. It burns and plays fine though. I just wanted a burner for my backup machine! I had a DVD Rom in it, but it was out of an old eMachine, one of the ones with the curved front. Looked pretty ugly as you can't get it in the case far enough unless you do some serious grinding, and drill a few holes.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I'm not sure on the reliability of the two methods, but I notice that belt-driven drives tend to be a lot quieter (ejects) than geared ones. My old Toshiba SD-M1212 (a 32x6 ROM!) got noisier and noisier at loading through its life. To its credit, when it was retired after 5 years of use along with the rest of the P3 450 PC it was part of, it was still in working order. Both the Acer/Benq 40x20x10 CDRW drives I bought to supplement it failed in six weeks, hence my prejudice of Acer/Benq stuff (not the only evidence I have before anyone pipes up). The NEC drive I had was great before it got Starforced, all 3 of the LGs so far so good. The Matshita drive I had, though slow as hell, was at least reliable. The Artec 48x16 I used for a bit also still works, but had a habit from new of wrecking discs, so it got less use!

 

Sam,
A lot of the gear driven Sonys didn't have the motor gear pressed far enough on the motor shaft, which caused early wear on the gear it drives. That why so many got noisy quick. I centered this one up before I put it back together. It's reasonably quiet, although a little bit noisier than a belt drive. But it opens and closes without any issues, just the usual Lite-On rattle as the tray opens and closes! LOL!! Thankfully, Since I replaced the Data cable on one of my Sata ODDs, I've had no problems with them at all. I'm probably the only one at AD crazy enough to even try something like that!

BTW! I see what you mean about the difference between 720p and 1080p. It's not worth downloading an 8GB file to get the 1080p. My guess is that it would take a very large monitor to see any real difference between them, like you said. Thanks for letting me know that. I'll never have a big HD TV anyway, so it saves me a lot of time downloading.

Russ

 

Depends on the viewing distance, but unless you have at least 1920x1080 resolution and a viewing distance of quite close depending on the size, you won't notice the difference. On a large 42" TV however there's a considerable difference.

 

Look what the UPS man bought me today from the egg rated to 840w max output my new power plant for the rebuild of the I45 back together...










and Cables


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171037

http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=2874

 

Good luck that seems to be a good unit. I've never trusted Cooler Master's PSUs but some of the newer ones seem quite decent. Hope all goes well with your rebuild

 

Well...if the UPS man BOUGHT you the PSU, then you got a super deal in deed LOL!

 

Estuansis,
You can laugh if you want, but for $39 ($29 with $10 MIR), this Cooler Master 500w is one of the most solid PSUs I've ever seen. I have one in mine, and I've sold over a dozen since I started using them for replacements and customer builds. It runs cool and quiet, and the Voltages are extremely stable. I know my motherboard has superb Power Phase regulation, but you have to have solid voltages to begin with.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171031

Here are the voltages with no load.



Here they are running Orthos.



Please note the the 2.14v at the +2.5v position is the memory voltage, and the motherboard and CPU temps are reversed. Some day Everest might actually get around to making their program work properly with AMD motherboards! While I realize that I wouldn't use one if I was building a gaming computer, it's perfect for my customer builds and to replace Bestecs and other crap they use in cheap computers. For $29, it's very hard to beat and is way better than anything else I've found at this price! It's not going to burn your house down either! I've been using mine for about 8 months now, and it's just as cool and quiet as the day I installed it!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Haha I've seen Bestecs in everything from a Socket 1 AMD (K5 I think???can't remember that far back) machine to late model Pentium 4s. I think more of those fail every year world wide than there are are actual PCs XD

I do agree that Cooler Master is infinitely better than any generic brand PSU and I would trust a newer one in a gaming machine. But only certain ones will I recommend due to their poor track record. Most of the older models are crap, but almost all of the new ones, budget models included, are quite decent if not actually good. I entirely believe that your CM 500W is a good unit.

 

Unlike the low-end units like the Extreme Power, the SilentPro units are about the first units from CM that can routinely produce the wattage on the label and will actually run reasonably quiet (up to a low wattage) However, they will not produce 840W on a regular basis (not that it matters, using 840W of power is incredibly difficult).

 

Quote, sammy, Weird. It does now, I wonder why not before... about the Ctrl+Shift+Esc, same thing happen to me, works at times and other times not.

 

Sam,
I hate to disagree, but I have an Extreme Power in my AMD! I've taken it apart and looked over the components, the construction and the quality of it and come to this conclusion. While it's a no frills 70% efficient unit, it's design is well thought out. It's well made, with quality components, runs cool, and is extremely quiet. Voltage stability is not an issue, even on far less expensive motherboards than mine.

As I said, it's not for gaming machines, or extreme overclocking but it is still a very good PSU. For $39, it's an outstanding buy! My personal experience with them has so far been very good. No defects or failures, and my customers like them because they are quiet, and run very cool. I have no fears installing an Athlon II 630 in mine and overclocking it. It's the same wattage as the CPU I have now, and the 630 overclocks, using far less voltage. I doubt very much that power will be an issue!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Thanks...I liked what i saw in the quality and reviews done on this unit it seems that Cooler Master is getting better with there products sorry you never had much luck in yours maybe cause it was later model bein rear fan model instead of a bottom fan one like Old Antec's

you see sam you opened you mouth to soon

Well the Label saids (Max.Output Capacity 840w) so your calling
Cooler Master a (Liar)

yours saying that because your
using dual video cards in your system high end gamer and this Cooler Master would'en be enough for you .But you contradict your self deny the the truth without testing it yourself and posting the results...if the reviews
are higher than 1 mans quote and the label prints the facts your saying that Cooler Master did'nt test there Product b4 releasing it to the public and the sales market and there not telling the
truth on the specifications so how ic it Cooler Master out ways your ending quote also along with the many Good Reviews it got it's just some power supply you perfer (not) to use that's all you had to say.I like it and. I perfer to use there products remember ( Each his Own) on what he likes...that why..I hate sometimes posting items in here...decided to buy cause of the negative comments if it works for me and...I like it, That's all that matters

 

Russ: You're not actually disagreeing with me. I never said it was bad, I just said the basic units will not 24/7 do the wattage they claim, certainly not that well. Keep them to a low wattage though and they are perfectly solid - they're not cheap because they're poorly made, they're just cheap because they're lower-end units sold with a sticker too big.

Will: I'm not calling CM a liar, but the context of your statement is wrong. Max output capacity is 840W. Draw that for an instance and you'll probably get away with it. Any more than that and it's an overload and the PSU will shut down, same goes for any unit, including the best brands.
CM has done nothing wrong here, you just think I mean that because you misinterpreted their specifications. It's for reasons like this I don't take an 'innocent until proven otherwise' attitude with PC hardware, because it leads to confusions like this.

 

Sam,
I understand what you are saying and I agree. I will give Cooler Master points for putting the maximum combined power on the label of the unit, which is a lot more than some of the sleazier companies do. Although they call it a 500w unit, they clearly note on the label that combined power shall not exceed 431.5 watts.



I know that the Antec Earthwatts 380w may seem like a better PSU, and from a technical viewpoint they are, but the fact is that it's an antiquated design, that really suffers in the cooling and noise departments, thanks to it's poor quality 80mm rear mounted fan, It's also a huge dust magnet. The internal design is good, but they need to rethink the airflow and cooling, Even though it's an 80% Plus unit, I've replaced a number of them because they overheated and cooked from being all choked up with dust! I've seen it time and time again. Decent units with a 120 or 140mm fans on the bottom, stay cleaner, run cooler and are generally quieter. The direct airflow over the components tends to keep the components cleaner, and consequently they run cooler.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

The EarthWatts 380W units aren't just better from a technical standpoint, they are from all standpoints. The rear fan is hardly poor quality, it's an Adda ball bearing fan of the same design as the 120mm versions that go in Corsair PSUs. Unlike many ball bearing fans I have owned, after well over a year of use, mostly 24 hour continuous, it is in perfect working order, something I'm not sure I've had from any ball bearing fan. My August Antec Tricools are already starting to get a bit dodgy.
The front vent, rear 80mm fan design is no more vulnerable to dust than any PSU design really, it all depends on how vulnerable the case itself is to dust. Since my Lexa Blackline is filtered, it's almost immaculate in the case, let alone the PSU. 120mm fan units are still preferable, but the 80mm Earthwatts is hands down the best 80mm fan PSU I know of, and due to this, bests most of the cheap 120mm fan PSUs.