Advice wanted for a new build please!

Alastair Stevens wrote:
Simon Finnigan wrote:
I`ve decided that I want to build a new machine around a AMD 2500+
Barton chip. Now all I need to do is to decide on a motherboard,
heatsink/fan, memory and maybe new case/PSU.

OK, I think I might be able to help. I've just rebuilt my system with
exactly that chip. It's fast, cool and almost completely silent.
Here's how I did it:

* Chieftec blue case (many colours, available from overclock.co.uk)
* Abit KD7-RAID motherboard (excellent quality, excellent price ~£60)
* Dane-Elec 512MB DDR memory (10 year warranty, £68)
* Enermax 365 PSU (nominal 350W, you might want the 420W version)

Those are the basics. The Enermax is a quality PSU which is solidly
built, has *loads* of connectors and is very quiet due to one manual
and one temp-controlled fan. Sensibly priced too.

How quiet is quiet? My PC has it`s rear to a wall that likes to reflect
sound. The main noise from my machine right now is from the rear of the
PSU.

I want the system to be quiet, so a nice quiet heatsink/fan
combination would be nice. Silent is necessary, but quiet is good.
I`d prefer lots of fan holes so I can use slower, quieter fans but
more of them to get
the same air flow.

OK, one word here - ZALMAN! I am using the Zalman flower cooler,
which
is a superb performer, silent, vibration-free, and looks ubercool to
boot. I'm also using all the other Zalman stuff: the VGA heatpipe
cooler and the northbridge heatsink. Again, good stuff and scarcely
more expensive than standard bits, gives you great reliability due to
eliminating another 2 moving parts from the machine. Get some Arctic
Silver III and the Zalman on your 2500+ CPU and it will run very cool
in blissful peace.

Are you overclocking your CPU, and if so to what kind of speeds? I`m not
planning on doing it right away, but I would prefer to have the ability to
do it in the future easily, rather than have to replace any parts.

And here's another point: I don't use *any* case fans. I just don't
need them. You may do, if you have all these extra drives and other
bits, but for a simple system like mine, it runs cool without
anything more than
the PSU fans. The Chieftec case includes one 80mm(?) built-in, and
space for plenty more. But as always, the trick with fans is *large*
and *slow* RPMs, then you get silence!

I`ve got 2 80mm fans in my case now, one in the front and one out the back,
and a PSU with two fans in it. My case temp right now is 35C, but that is
with 4 big fast hard-drives running. I know I need some fairly serious case
cooling, and like using almost silent fans (I say almost because when I put
my ear by them I can just about hear them :-) ). I`d ideally like to have
the ability to have 4 x 120mm fans in the case at once, but I doubt this is
something easily available, is it?

--
Mandrake 9 - £3.00 including first class delivery (3 CD`s)
Debian 3.0R1 - £7.00 including first class delivery (7 CD`s)
Please email me for other distributions and pricing for large orders.

Alastair Stevens wrote:
And here's another point: I don't use *any* case fans. I just don't need
them. You may do, if you have all these extra drives and other bits, but
for a simple system like mine, it runs cool without anything more than
the PSU fans. The Chieftec case includes one 80mm(?) built-in, and space
for plenty more. But as always, the trick with fans is *large* and
*slow* RPMs, then you get silence!


With no case fans, how hot is your HD running? I figure it's probably
a 7200 RPM IDE model. There's some slick software to check the temps at:
http://private.peterlink.ru/tochinov/
(DTemp)


-WD

Simon Finnigan wrote:
Alastair Stevens wrote:

Simon Finnigan wrote:

I`ve decided that I want to build a new machine around a AMD 2500+
Barton chip. Now all I need to do is to decide on a motherboard,
heatsink/fan, memory and maybe new case/PSU.

OK, I think I might be able to help. I've just rebuilt my system with
exactly that chip. It's fast, cool and almost completely silent.
Here's how I did it:

* Chieftec blue case (many colours, available from overclock.co.uk)
* Abit KD7-RAID motherboard (excellent quality, excellent price ~£60)
* Dane-Elec 512MB DDR memory (10 year warranty, £68)
* Enermax 365 PSU (nominal 350W, you might want the 420W version)

Those are the basics. The Enermax is a quality PSU which is solidly
built, has *loads* of connectors and is very quiet due to one manual
and one temp-controlled fan. Sensibly priced too.


How quiet is quiet? My PC has it`s rear to a wall that likes to reflect
sound. The main noise from my machine right now is from the rear of the
PSU.


I want the system to be quiet, so a nice quiet heatsink/fan
combination would be nice. Silent is necessary, but quiet is good.
I`d prefer lots of fan holes so I can use slower, quieter fans but
more of them to get

the same air flow.

OK, one word here - ZALMAN! I am using the Zalman flower cooler,
which
is a superb performer, silent, vibration-free, and looks ubercool to
boot. I'm also using all the other Zalman stuff: the VGA heatpipe
cooler and the northbridge heatsink. Again, good stuff and scarcely
more expensive than standard bits, gives you great reliability due to
eliminating another 2 moving parts from the machine. Get some Arctic
Silver III and the Zalman on your 2500+ CPU and it will run very cool
in blissful peace.


Are you overclocking your CPU, and if so to what kind of speeds? I`m not
planning on doing it right away, but I would prefer to have the ability to
do it in the future easily, rather than have to replace any parts.


And here's another point: I don't use *any* case fans. I just don't
need them. You may do, if you have all these extra drives and other
bits, but for a simple system like mine, it runs cool without
anything more than
the PSU fans. The Chieftec case includes one 80mm(?) built-in, and
space for plenty more. But as always, the trick with fans is *large*
and *slow* RPMs, then you get silence!


I`ve got 2 80mm fans in my case now, one in the front and one out the back,
and a PSU with two fans in it. My case temp right now is 35C, but that is
with 4 big fast hard-drives running. I know I need some fairly serious case
cooling, and like using almost silent fans (I say almost because when I put
my ear by them I can just about hear them :-) ). I`d ideally like to have
the ability to have 4 x 120mm fans in the case at once, but I doubt this is
something easily available, is it?

--
Mandrake 9 - £3.00 including first class delivery (3 CD`s)
Debian 3.0R1 - £7.00 including first class delivery (7 CD`s)
Please email me for other distributions and pricing for large orders.


I run 4 80mm fans in my Cheiftec case 2 in front 2 in back and a Zalman
cpu cooler. it's fairly quite as try are low noise fans. Note:you get
what you pay for. You can buy a case fan for $2.00 (sounds like a jet
engine) or spend $4.00 on a quite fan. I bought my fans here.
http://www.directron.com/silence.html They have good prices.

Rob Morley wrote:
Not really an appropriate recommendation for a UK group though, is it?

Hi,

U.K group? hows that?. I am also from the U.K but I belive this newsgroup
is global,

Wayne ][

In article ,
says...
Rob Morley wrote:
Not really an appropriate recommendation for a UK group though, is it?

Hi,

U.K group? hows that?. I am also from the U.K but I belive this newsgroup
is global,

Didn't notice the crosspost :-(

In article ,
says...
Rob Morley wrote:
Not really an appropriate recommendation for a UK group though, is it?

This thread is also crossposted to 3 newsgroups in the alt hierachy
which are not UK specific.

So I notice, now that you've pointed it out :-\