The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Your servers at work may be tweaked or they are an enterprise green drive there is a difference. But even a normal green drive I can adjust it to work with a server just fine, however why would I do that when I can get the same warranty and get a blue drive for about the same price but that performs a bit better. I'm sorry but it just doesn't add up to me.

The bottom line is your happy with your green drives and that is fine I just think it is better at pretty much no lose to buy a normal drive especially since green drives aren't really green they are a gimmick and Green is in these days.

 

Does WD even make a Blue 2Tb drive :S

 

Ooh it's more than 1.5W, it's about 4W on both occasions and no there aren't blue 2TB drives, that I know of.
I don't use green drives for power savings. I use them because they're half the price, and less than half the noise!

 

Kind of my point It's either black(expensive), or green.

 

That's cool Creaky I'm not trying to start something and unfortunately I think you're OK too. LOL

Seagate makes the Green AV drives and they are made to perform well on a 24/7 bases like and enterprise drives so I'm looking at that for my media server. Just don't tell anyone I bought a Green drive... LOL

 

No you can look up the specs the mfg's post I just did!

 

No you can look up the specs the mfg's post I just did!

 

Indeed sam. The green drives are considerably quieter than the black drives

 

my grean drive is fine aswell. Got a 2TB for TV/movie ,edia. Works fine.

 

Mr-Movies wrote:

"This couldn't be more correct and although Russ's pressurized case is the best way to run and keep temps down it is way too noisy. I've pressurized old amplifiers in the old days to keep them from clipping under intense load and it works very well, but I don't want my PC screaming at me under these same conditions."

Steve,

All the fans in my case are quiet. I have 3 120mm intake fans. A Scythe Kama-Bay 700 RPM 30 CFM, Scythe SY1225SL 12L 800 RPM 40 CFM, and a Silverstone FN121 1200 RPM 53 CFM. For the Radiator I have the Stock fan that came with the Came with the Coolit R-120, at 1800 RPM 63 CFM, and a Scythe SY1225SL 12M at 1200 RPM 68CFM, again all are 120mm fans. All test lower than 24 dBA in the Anechoic Chamber at work. At Spec values, the Silverstone is supposed to be the loudest at 26 dBA, but in reality the FN-121 is the second quietest fan in my computer, with the Kama-Bay fan being the quietest. I also have a 70mm 3200 RPM Ball bearing fan mounted to the pump bracket to cool the Northbridge. This is a fan from a new AMD stock aluminum block cooler I had left over from a customer build, and out of the cooling block it's virtually inaudible. In the cooler months I let the motherboard control the CPU fan, but in the summer it get's very hot where I live, often as high as 110F or higher, and I have to switch to straight 12v for the radiator fans. SW exposure doesn't help either! I've personally seen 118F here! The biggest noise is not the fans themselves, but the turbulence the Radiator fins creates with the very high airflow going through it. I just have to put up with the extra noise, or allow higher temps. It's not really that bad and will get much quieter when I get rid of that Noisy MSI video card! I have a 9600BTU AC unit in my room, and it struggles to maintain 85F in the summertime, as there is no insulation in the exterior walls, at all! It's an old Post WW2 house, built with the materials available at the time, built Cheap and fast! LOL!!

My MSI 9500GT has by far the loudest fan of anything in my case. I'm going to rectify that problem by switching the Video Card to the XFX HD4670/1GB DDR3 that I originally bought for my computer, That's in Oxi right now because it was not compatible with my Sceptre X20 Naga III monitor. It won't do the 1680x1050 resolution of the Sceptre. With the new Asus ML 228H, there's no more compatibility issue.

In case you are wondering what Oxi is, it's short for Oxi-Moron! It's an eMachine (made for WalMart) on steroids! All the low quality junk that came with it has been removed, and today it has a Gigabyte MA785GM-US2H motherboard with an AMD 630 Propus 2.8GHz Quad Core, 4GB 800MHz Cas 5 Ram, Freezer 64 Pro, and a Thermaltake TR2 500w PSU. The only thing left of the original is the Seagate 160GB HDD, which is an excellent drive. That's why we call it Oxi-Moron because it's a contradiction in terms! LOL!! Outside there is nothing to hint at all the goodies inside, but it Rocks! The case itself is outstanding for cooling with just a single Silverstone FM83 80mm (92mm blade) fan, adjusted to 1500 RPM, putting out about 35 CFM. For a Mini Tower, it has amazing cooling.

I didn't get to install my new PSU last night as it got 'Hijacked"! I have 5 Doctor friends that bought a House, just for their Gaming rigs and overclocking experiments, and one of them stopped by last night to check out my new monitor because his Wife wants one. One of them has a Core i7 that draws over 500w at full load, and he "borrowed" the new PSU to run some tests on it. He's already promised me a brand mew Enermax Revolution85+ 850w, if they blow the OCZ up. At 86-92% efficient, I'll take it! LOL!! I've tried to get them to Join AD, but they would much rather spend their idle time doing, not discussing computers. I would love to have in dollars the parts they have destroyed experimenting! ROFL!! Better yet, I would rather have all the high tech goodies kicking around that house!

Bummer! I just got a phone call, and the OCZ survived. Damn, I was sort of looking forward to that Enermax! LOL!! 178w Idle and 509.8 peak watts at full load. I'm impressed, although I did see a review and test from the UK that had similar results! He says that it was a real good buy for $44.67 delivered!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Yeah, I don't believe for a minute that the 1800rpm 120mm fan in the coolIT is quiet. Maybe compared to some noisier PCs it is, but no 1800rpm 120mm fan is quiet, if you use the proper meaning of the word.

 

WOW, 24db is nothing very quiet good job on your fan structuring, actually excellent job!

I thought you lived in the UK not Death Valley? LOL

You need laminate air flow through your radiators. A good jet engine test cell has vanes that straighten out the air so that there are no eddies or turbulence at the air intake of the Turbofan jet engine. You might want to model your case radiator intake to that of a jet test cell. LOL

Yah I’ve rebuilt several eMachines too, Oxi funny… Nice job on the Oxi though, way to go!

Too bad about the Enermax maybe next time.

Stevo

 

Sam,

It surprised the crap out of me, but it was 23.7dBA in the Anechoic Chamber on a Saturday morning, freshly calibrated. They calibrate the Chamber every Saturday morning because there is no traffic, so noise and vibration are at a minimum. It was even mounted in a light steel frame, sort of like a 3 sided box that's open on two sides and the bottom, and the fan blows up toward the top of the chamber. I tried to get CoolIt to tell me who makes it, but they aren't talking, and there's only the CoolIt label on it. It's got a tag on it saying "Made In China"! It says 1800 RPM + - 200 RPM in the specs, but it seems to be 1700 RPM. Mine runs right around 1735 when I don't use the motherboard control. I attribute the extra 35 RPMs to the 5 CFM higher pull of the Scythe, because it runs almost exactly 1700 RPM in the Anechoic Chamber! Scythe used to have one that was 1800 RPM 58.7 CFM 26.3 dBA, but it has been discontinued for more than a year now. I actually stood mine on edge on the desktop, and it was amazingly quiet and vibration free, so the blade balance must be very good as there is no vibration at all. All I know is I would like a dozen of them, please! LOL!! I've never seen another 7 bladed fan with such an aggressive blade, like it!

Russ

 

Steve,

I'm only about 85 miles from Death Valley, right on the edge of the High Desert. I can see Big Bear Mountain from my kitchen window! We are completely surrounded by mountains on 3 sides. The only time we usually see rain is if a storm comes in from LA, up Interstate 10. During the summer months the humidity usually stays under 20%, which affects cooling as well because there is almost no moisture in the air to give any evaporative cooling.

Case cooling has long been my thing. It started from having an Intel Pentium D940, overclocked to 3.83GHz, in a case that only had 80mm fans. I wound up using Silverstone FM-83s adjusted to run at 1200 to 1400 RPM. These are a 92mm blade on an 80mm frame. It was the only 80mm fan at the time that had enough airflow to do the job, and the Pentium D was a 130w heater! When I bought the Cooler master RC534+, I stepped up to 120mm fans, and gradually replace the C/M fans with Scythe Slipstreams or Silverstone FN121s. With my current 1090T x6 CPU, overclocked to 4.018GHz they do an excellent job of keeping things cool, and should improve a little bit after I install the new modular PSU as I'll have 3 less cables getting in the way of the airflow, and things will be a lot less crowded around the HDD cage. I may also flip the drives over so the PCB is on the up side, and see what that does as far as lowering the HDD temps.

Oxi has been fun. It's been a work in progress. I originally left the Foxconn motherboard that came with the emachine in it, but in spite of what Foxconn says, the 630 Quad was a little too much for it, and finally popped some Caps. I originally bought another Foxconn nVidia chipped motherboard, but lucked out a few months later when I got the MA785GN-US2H for $59.

The eMachine case, despite being a Mini, has two ODD Bays and two HDD bays, and a reasonable amount of room in it. It looks like Swiss cheese inside with all the ventilation holes in it, so it cools very well with just a single case fan. Whoever designed it knew what the hell he was doing, because it was a much better case than any of the older HP & Compaq designs that looked similar on the outside, but were a nightmare to work with on the inside. I don't have to take half the computer apart just to change memory or install a second HDD or an ODD. All are 5 minute jobs at the most, and all you need is a Philips head screwdriver!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Russ,

The cases I dislike most from a prefab system are some of the Dell's and I do agree with you on the HP/Compaq's. They have a scissor style case that is a nightmare for cabling, need to get at the mainboard you’re screwed, but the drives are relatively easy to access, like they were tough in a normal case. Plus they are tanks when it comes to weight, very poorly designed.

I’ve had good luck too with eMachine cases, some of them are a little flimsy but they are typically laid out well.

Many years ago I lived in China Lake, Mojave Desert, not quite as warm as where you are but I sure loved the desert and mountain range, foot hills. I also spent a couple of years in Ogden and went all over Utah fishing and running around even spent some time in Bendover, Nevada.

Stevo

 

Steve,

This is the exact case I'm talking about.



Mine just has a black panel with the Headphone, mike plugs and 2 USB ports. Hopefully some day I'll find a factory Black Card reader for it! This one is not flimsy at all! It's what I call Elegantly Simple. Press 3 tabs and the front swings off, 2 screws and the Burner comes right out, and a single screw removes the HDD bays. An amazingly simple design that looks good. My single biggest complaint is no hard Drive light! I love the drive bay doors, but it does limit what you can put in them. You can't install a 5.25" Card reader and make it look nice! The biggest plus is it's a Mini Tower case with two ODD bays and two HDD bays, yet it's not crowded at all! Even the much larger GigaByte MA785GN-US2H motherboard, which was much larger than the Foxconn that was in it, fit with about 1/4" to spare all around.

Best regards,
Russ

 

Russ,

That is really nice actually and what I do in your case, no pun intended, is paint that card reader bezel black. It is not tough to pull the bezel off and I use paint specifically for plastic which works fantastic and dries fast.

Like you I like simple beauty as well, again very nice!

Stevo

 

Steve,

LOL!! I meant that I don't have a card reader at all! I want one! ROFLMSOAO!!

BTW, I use Dupli-Color Import auto Spray. Both the Arctic Silver and the blacks are the exact match for silver cases, Flat Black, Semi Gloss and Glossy, and it works real well with plastics! For my silver C/M Cavalier case, I even painted the Floppy drive silver. Major PITA taking the front apart! LOL!!

Russ