The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Everybody who's tried has had quite good results with lapping their Ultra-120-Extremes. However, I only have the basic Ultra-120 (not the extreme), and haven't lapped it, yet my temps are exemplary by normal cooler standards (a couple of degrees lower than a Freezer 7 at its full 2700rpm speed, using only a silent 600rpm fan)

I can support Russ' point on the small fan. The 4000rpm fan on my X1600 Pro makes a noticeable noise, but nothing horrendous. Drop it by half and it's inaudible, even at a comparatively high 2000rpm speed - tiny fans don't make much noise unless they're really flying!

I ran an FM121 on a molex extension cable - three of them actually totalling around 6 feet, and it worked for a while. However, since I was using the fan with a fan controller, the electronics eventually burned out in it, and I do mean that literally, smoke and a horrendous smell. DO NOT use any controller for the fans other than the one they come with, THAT INCLUDES PWM controllers like on motherboards - the frequency at which the pulses are modulated are not the same and will destroy the fan.

For reference, the bearing hiss of the silverstones is a higher frequency than the Noctuas, a white noise between around 2KHz and 10KHz, but the volume is around 19dB, versus the 23-24 of the whine the Noctuas produce (a shame really, as a fan that otherwise only produces 20dB of noise suddenly increases 3dB due to a bearing defect).

 

Well, I plan on using the FM121 controller with the FM121.

All I wanted to know was where I could fit it in the BACK of my case, near the openings for the PCI slots.

No matter, I will figure it out.

 

You can. Russ sent me a device to do just that. What it requires is to extract the potentiometer from the controller (leaving the metal bracket behind) and use a drilled PCI backplate, and screw it in there, to make your own version of this:
http://www.bbpix.com/ufiles/1/newstuff_jan08/newstuff_january 081.jpg

 

sammorris,

The Antec at 2200 rpm and 6.5 cfm is the slowest turning of all the 40mm fans listed on newegg. All the rest run from 3500 rpm to the whopping 15,000 rpm of the 24 cfm Sunon, which is advertised as 55.5dBA! Can you say Ouch! The Silenx claim of only 14dBA for all their fans, is just an outrageous lie! The 40mm Silenx I had before buying the Antec was clearly audible over everything else in the case and it didn't last but 3 months! Piece of junk! The Antec I use now is the best fan for a chipset I've ever seen and can't be heard, even with the cover off the computer!

Antec 40mm fan
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835129036
Highly recommended!

Russ

 

Alright, I'll try to do it and post pics.

 

24CFM hehe, that's as much as my 120mm Nexus fans make undervolted at only 18dB!
SilenX really are a joke company. Antec fans are generally pretty high quality even if they're not the quietest of the bunch, and in this case it looks like they are.

 

that antec 40cm fan appears to be a good fan but they really screwed up by not putting a 3 pin connector on it imo. I for one do not want to run a 4 pin molex conector from my psu across my mobo just to plug in a little NB fan, especially when most mobo's have a 3 pin fan header very close to the NB hs. what were they thinking?

sure you can get an adaptor (more clutter) or mod it yourself but you shouldn't have to.

 

That is a good point. The nexus fans I use come with both a 3-pin and passthrough double molex, so there's always a connector lying around that you don't use. Worth putting up with though as they're superbly quiet, and now nice and cheap as well. Scythes do it better, but they can be a pain to pull out of adapters - for some reason the connectors on them fit very snugly.

 

Talking about neatness, this is my first attempt to having tidy cables. I didn't do any modifications to the case and I used a total of three cable ties. Sorry about the crappy pics but my camera isn't working and I had to use my RAZR.

 

Wow, the HD4850 really does look tiny..
Looking good so far.

 

Yeah it is.

I will clean it up some more and post pics with a REAL camera lol.

 

abuzar: wow that is neat.... I can't seem to figure out how to do that on my lexa blackline (having the cables tied to the back of the mobo plate)...

 

There's no through routing on the blackline as far as I'm aware, so it's of no use for cables you actually use, only tucking away ones that you don't. (excess power cables)

 

Mort81,

I run a chain of molex plugs. You usually need a couple for fans not connected to the MB anyway so I keep the fans all on one PSU molex and plug them in down the line. I run the rear fan molex under the MB and make it last on the string. Then I slip all the connectors and the PSU molex and excess cable under the MB and it looks very neat!

Russ

 

Which fan?

I didn't mean it literally either in this statement. If you read it you'll read a hypothetical situation.

Yes it does look neat. Now add another hard drive, 2 DVDRWs and one Blu-Ray drive,and two PCI devices(audio card and TV tuner). Then check it out for neatness. LOL

 

lol

I have no need for such frivolous things! lol

Only thing I would like to get is another HDD for Raid0.

 

You Whaa? RAID 0?

Oh, one thing people should be aware of I only found out today:

Gigabyte boards do not support Standby when overclocked. If you standby your system it will fail to POST unless it is reset at the wall, removing your session data.
This goes for at least the P35-DS3R and X38-DS4, and likely the X38-DQ6, X48-DS4, X48-DQ6 and P35-DS3L as well.

 

Yeah, RAID0 would be nice.

 

Why not! It's needed for some purpose such as large file transfers, audio or video recording and encoding, or as an Internet server, and I suppose he would need them for one of those?

 

Internet servers require redundancy, RAID0 is the last thing I'd use.