The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Nah, while I haven't had any trouble with OCZ yet, I prefer go with an intel next time. Unless something better catches my eye first

 

The M500s are well priced for their considerable size and performance. Time will tell on longevity, but they're not OCZ, so you may well be fine

 

Yup I agree, like Kevin I prefer Intel SSD's and think they are much better quality then the rest of the market, you shouldn't have issues with them! But the deals on the M500's and their predecessor the M4 having a fantastic history makes me believe they would be a good gamble.

Also I'm building a new PC for my sister and tried a new case for her which is pretty and very functional without the extra girth that you seem to have with the 300's case that is so popular or the recent case I got. It has some negatives of course but overall it is a very nice case and it has a top tray that receives SATA drives, pretty cool!

 

I do believe my HAF 932 needs a blow out, eh? :S I tried taking an 800X shot, but my microscope is very finicky at that level. The cobweb like dust, was fascinating at that level. I don't believe it's a true 800X. More like 200X. I've looked at my Red blood cells, and you can barely see them at maximum. 800X, you should be able to see them quite well!

The Ribs, make it quite difficult to use maximum mag in that area.


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That's funny but what is a coincidence is I just high pressure blew out my Fractal case with the H2O cooling and mega fans. Mine wasn't as bad looking when I blew it out but man did I have a lot of dust to blow. It took several minutes and the garage was filled so bad with dust I almost couldn't breathe, I had to blow the dust away from me in the garage so that I wouldn't choke on the dust it was soooo bad.

That is the problem with serious air flow, it doesn't take long for dust build up to choke your cooling system.

I love this new In-Will GT1 case I got for my sisters new build. Not only does it look very nice but it has a notch out bay in the top of the case that receives SATA drives. I've set the UD3 motherboard up to Hot Swap the top bay and I can plugin/remove drives with only a small threat of problem, the only issue I could see would be if you have something open on the drive when you pull the drive but that may not even be an issue depending.

Another plus for her new case is that you don't have the huge girth that you have with the Fractal/HAF/300 cases but still have good cable management. I truly hate the huge cases and really don't need the hidden cable routing if it means a huge case, which is why my sisters new case is intriguing.

The one down side is it only holds 7 3.5" HDD's, without using the front accessible bays or the 8th internal bay that isn't really setup to use but could be.

 

DDP, This microscope. For the price, I won't complain. I've gotten interesting closeups of Bugs, dust, Coins, wire, etc. Rather fascinating.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005AF0BZO/ref=cfb_at_prodpg

If you don't like the software it comes with, VLC media player has the capability of using it Which comes in handy for the laptop.

 

Plug and play DDP. Windows 7 sees it as a webcam. "Vimicro USB2.0 UVC PC Camera".

 

Mmmm, I haven't used it for soldering, or anything like that just yet. But know that magnifying at a distance, 60 - 80mm, has to be at the minimum setting. ~20x. Unless I'm doing something wrong. But I can't see how. It has one knob. Period LOL!

 

Damn! you dirt balls you lol, I just blew mine out over the weekend, I had bought a pancake compressor just for that several months ago, I use to clean mine with an Oreck mini PC vacuum set, worked good but took so long, it finally took a dump so I opted for the compressor, after seeing my computer repair shop buddy use his for years I said the hell with it just gonna get one, he said don't be afraid of all the negative reports and claims that it can destroy your PC, he said just make sure you use a pencil to make sure your fans don't break or crack the power of that air can do that, after using it for the first time I was amazed, what normally took me about 20 minutes took less than 2 minutes, will never look back at mini kits or worse those crappy spray cans.

 

I use an air compressor outside. Still haven't gotten to it. Be sure the compressor doesn't spray moisture on your pc

I still use air cans though. Only for my optical media though. Insures a good burn. I frequently see tiny particles, either from the factory, or stuff that settles on the media when removed from the cake package.

 

What I have learned thru the years if you will use a compressor for PC's make sure you leave the valve under any compressor open after each use, that way 99% of the moisture can be eliminated, I always give it a quick test on my palm anyway, keep your nozzle at a safe distance away from your parts and your good to go.

 

We do a lot of painting so our air compressor has an in-line pressure regulator and moisture collector. No worries here. Squeaky clean PCs

By far the quickest and most effective method I've found to clean. Movies, you are too right about fans though. I always use something to stop my fans before blowing them out. Usually a dental pick or a pencil. Taking a 1000RPM bearing to 5000-10000RPMs is not good, haha. Only the ball bearing fans seem immune to over-spinning, and even those I'll block up first.

 

You'll get way more moisture out of compressed air cans then a 60gal dialed up to 150 psi. Like Fred mentioned you only have to be careful around the fans. I feather spray them with pulses of air so that I don't spin them to fast but hit them with hard enough pulses of air as to get the embedded dirt build up off them. A shop vac can work well in chorus with the compressor which I do some times.

Good to here from you Fred! I still think about Russ, sure miss him!! Hope all is well for you and your family...

Stevo

 

We have a 60 gallon at 120 psi. Never had an issue as far as air pressure damaging components.

 

You wouldn't see the damage right away on fans as the bearings tend to go bad slowly but you can still damage them, without direct notice, over spinning them for any length of time. So the fan may not break when your done but that doesn't mean you didn't damage it.

 

I mentioned earlier that I block fans; have overspun a few and learned my lesson, lol. Killed a 600W StealthXStream that way I believe. Long ago when I was much less experienced than I am now

 

Yeah, I probably screwed up one of mine. But, it seems to be ok at the moment (touch wood) My rear exhaust fan hit warp 10 the time before last. I hit it just right! Made a rather curious sound. But perhaps the speed it hit, it traveled back in time, causing it to grow younger, and fitter? LOL!