The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Sam,
Again, I'm sorry to disagree, but that has not been my findings. Perhaps with filters like you use, it may be better. It also may be a local thing given the levels of dust around here, which is more like silt than dust. As far as noise, the fan is much louder than the 120mm fan in my CM! As you know I work on Medical equipment, and they discovered years ago that sucking air over the components is a much dirtier process than blowing air directly on the components. The force of the air blowing directly on the components leaves less dirt and dust on them, so they run cooler. You do not get the same force sucking air over them. Most configurations use both an intake and exhaust fans, mainly to cut down on build-up closer to the air outlet vents where the airflow is weakest. With computers if you smoke, it makes the situation even worse.

Russ

 

Haha guilty here. I'm a smoker and I have a constant battle with dust. Dust filters in front of all 3 cases help but they still need to get blasted out with the air compressor every few months. Not to mention cleaning the filters about once a week. My PCs stay pretty clean usually.

 

I think perhaps with regard to dust you should be a little more leniant Russ. Too many products get slammed for underperforming in your dusty climate when even though quite large quantities of dust build up here, it does not have any real negative impact on PC components.

 

Estuansis,
Generally Video cards suffer the most from smoking because of the higher temps video cards put out. I had to completely remove the heatsink from my 7600GT and soak it in warm soapy dishwater. Removing the fan was the difficult part. You still have to scrape some of the goo out of the heatsink, and soak it some more. I'm sure you could use some kind of solvent, but a little patience, a toothbrush and it's not that difficult. Cards with curved air passages, while offering more surface area will completely clog up and cut the airflow quite a bit. It gets like tar! LOL!!

Russ

 

There is somewhat lower tolerance for graphics cards as while there is even more of a temperature gap between normal operating temperature and maximum for a graphics card (most cards run at 70-85ºC and will not become unstable until around 110ºC) percentage wise it's little different from a CPU, and there are finer tolerances in cooling capacity before thermal runaway occurs. I have never had to clean a GPU cooler.

 

Sam,
The thing with the dust, is it's almost always very dry here so the dust just blows around, and from contact with things it just gets finer and finer. It actually makes the particles so tiny they get into everything. That's why I say it's like silt, it's just so fine. The only time we get relief from it is the rare times we get a good rain. I am surrounded on 3 sides by mountains, so it's like living in a dust bowl. If you go about 10 miles from here, it sometimes feels like you are out in the Serengeti! Some days it's hard to see very far. It drives people who wear contacts totally crazy. When it's windy, it's not a gentle breeze, but rather 50-60 mph and higher winds. We just had a bunch of major wildfires in the area recently, which really whips up the winds. When the Santa Ana winds come every year, that's what happens. Last year we were minutes from evacuating before the winds shifted and the firefighters finally got it under control. The flames got to within about 150 yards of the house. Even the freeway caught fire as the fire raced down the divider. You can well imagine the dust and soot combining, and the mess it all makes.

You are right, I should be a little more lenient but some products do work better than others in these conditions! I wouldn't go so far as to say that I slam anything, but if I have problems, I report them. If i find something that works for me, I report that too! The first thing I do every day is dust off the keyboard. If you don't, you will wear the letters right off of the keys! By the end of the day it has a fine layer of dust on it again. When Russell first moved in here, the house had been empty for about 6 months and there was about 6 inches of dust everywhere. He had to force the front door open. I'm happy to say that the way I have my case airflow set up, I only have to clean the computer inside every 6 months, and there's not a lot to clean. It's not uncommon to find an inch of dust in the bottom of some of the computers I work on. It's just a very tough environment here. It's been that way for hundreds of years, and not likely to change anytime soon. I imagine Oman7 has somewhat the same conditions where he lives too!

Russ

 

Thermal runaway is awesome... Or not, depending on which way you look at it Reminds me of that physics experiment where you demonstrate its effects on a pencil

 

LOL! It does get pretty dusty here. Semi-arid terrain. Very similar to Desert conditions. INCREDIBLY dusty unfortunately for computers LOL! As well as my car ROFL! My dash is pretty bad for instance. If I don't blow off my cases, they'll accumulate a 1/16" of dust in what seems like no time. I looked at my CM HAF932 about a month after having it and my jaw dropped. It looked like a dirt gray color in half of its vented areas! I feel pretty bad for it. Im rather depressed about its living conditions LOL! It'll get the royal treatment once I get into a new place

 

Visible dust builds up on my system in only a couple days, and speaking of dust my case is long overdue for cleaning....

 

Ok Sam My bad..I thought you was saying it could'en reach the point in wattages capacity every psu has a limit and safty features the confusions is mine but...I still Rank Cooler Master 1 of Best with the new models coming out you can'y knock this unit for what it's worth...

Russ I see what you mean in the picture there but sense they
came out with the new units it does'nt state that on the side
of mine(unit shall not exceed)like the pic you have there or am..I looking at it wrong? LOL

 

Will,
I have no idea. When I got my RC-534 Centurian case, I bought it with the 460w PSU. I was expecting the older design with an 80mm rear fan, but was surprised when I actually got the newer type with the 120mm fan. I sold it and bought the 500w version to replace it, and it's written on the label. I've never really looked or paid any attention to the label since! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

The HAF isn't terrible for filtration as the mesh on the side panel is reasonable, and the front is filtered, though there are far better cases for dust. The main area where dust settles is on top of the PSU as there is little airflow down there (the PSU fan is facing downwards). Everywhere else is kept free from dust by brute force airflow.
Will: As far as I can see it Coolermaster represent a 'midrange' sort of company. Those who want absolute guaranteed performance, reliability, silence etc. go for the top brands like Corsair, Seasonic and Zalman. However, Coolermaster's newer units (the one you and Russ discussing is not in this list) are very good units by comparison. There are units from companies like Enermax, Tagan, PCP&C and Antec with much higher price tags that are no better in the slightest. Coolermaster units really rely on people buying overstated PSUs for the task - fine since the majority of users do this - Almost all the people in this thread have PCs that use less than 200W of power at full load and most of them have 450W+ PSUs fitted.
An perfect example of what separates a solid PSU from a budget one is the stickers you've snapshot. With the "500W" unit, the 12V rail forms only 72% of the maximum output, and the total power rating is not as high as what the PSU is rated for.
With the 700W unit, the 12V rail takes up a more reasonable 85%, and the sum of the rails is over the maximum output by more than 10% (though only just). 90% is a common figure for the 12V rail of any PSU that even Corsair's cheapest units take up, since Corsair's cheap units still come under the 'solid' rating. With multi-rail PSUs it's not uncommon to find the sum of the 12V rails alone is over the maximum rated output.

 

I'm pleasantly surprised by Ubuntu. EVERYTHING WORKS
Although I've just locked myself onto the live CD for the next 1:10 by moving 277GB slightly to the left with GParted.
I've never really tried Ubuntu before I've tried other linuxses and been impressed but given up when basic things have failed me/broken themselves. But Ubuntu at least seems to be doing everything right. It managed to sort out my cheap ass Bluetooth and Wi-fi right out of the box, It's smooth (even live) and even comes packaged with the single best game EVER! Multi-player Snake FTW!

Edit: Scare over 7 told me it was broken and to reboot and pop the disc in. I did and it told me it had fixed itself without actually appearing to do anything =\

 

Well I may be very happy soon. Apparently Epson finally got on the Windows 7 bandwagon. They released windows 7 twain drivers for both of my printers

Such a shame they didn't consolidate all software components into one large extractor. Much like the Epson software cd that comes with the printer...

 

Actually all of my video cards run comparatively cool vs a stock configuration. AS Ceramique on everything and I do pull the cards out and blast them good with the air compressor. I hold the fans still though because I don't want to ruin the bearings I keep my stuff pretty meticulously clean. I use disinfectant wipes to clean my mice and keyboards and I have a special cloth and anti static solution for my monitors. All this maybe every other week or so. I do eat at my computer too

 

I thought it was bad to use an air compressor on electronic equipment due to CO2...

 

I keep my pc's pretty clean also, I remember back when those canisters I use to buy were pretty damn expensive and only last like a minute or two, I always read how bad it can be to use compressors, after one canister I bought lasted like one minute I said screw this, I'm gonna give my compressor a shot, I keep the nossle like two feet away, cleans way better than any canister I ever used, never had a problem, maybe I've been lucky who know's.

That was four years ago and never looked back.

 

Whats a good cheap compressor cost?

 

Now you try playing any other game on it!