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.

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.

It's basically silent if you turn the exhaust fan right down. The
internal fan is temp-controlled. Who knows, maybe you can find an even
quieter PSU, but I doubt you'd do a lot better!

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.

Nope. Right now, after a lot of upgrading trauma and expense, I'm only
after stability. I need to let the new system bed down a bit before I
try anything like that. But anyway, if my (extremely low) CPU temps are
accurate, then there should be lots of overclocking potential in there.
The board has superb tweakability options.

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?

Blimey - well perhaps you need it with all those drives. But at that
level, I wonder if you're better off with a refridgerated case, or a
nice disk array that you can hive off to the next door room ;-)

--
Cheers
Alastair .-=-.
__________________________________,' `.
\ www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk
Alastair Stevens, Systems Management Team \ 01223 330383
MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge UK `=.......................

Hi again

One more point just occured to me! Don't bother with foam sound
dampening. I've tried it myself and it really achieves virtually
nothing. But what *does* make a difference is stopping your shiny metal
case from acting as a sounding board in the first place.

Some _silent_ (and they really, really mean it!) PCs we bought from a
local builder use "DynaMat" inside, which is professional, solid resin,
acoustic dampening material. This is really impressive. All they do is
glue / melt a smallish rectangle of that onto each of the metal panels
inside the case (including drive bays etc), and it kills any sort of
vibration, thus reducing noise by simply stopping it being created in
the first place, rather than trying to absorb it with foam.

The case makes a dull thud when you knock on it, and the DynaMat really
makes a difference. Dunno where you can get it, but Google is your
friend ;-)

--
Cheers
Alastair .-=-.
__________________________________,' `.
\ www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk
Alastair Stevens, Systems Management Team \ 01223 330383
MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge UK `=.......................

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 10:37:24 +0100, Alastair Stevens
wrote:

DynaMat it's expensive I have seen it or another product like it installed .Glued
to the side panels of the computer case . It seems to silence the machine OK.
I bought a can of spray adhesive and thick gasket material from an automotive store
.. With my wives scissors in hand I cut panels and applied them. I got the job done
for 11.00 dollars and have more gasket material left enough to do two more cases.
The gasket material is aprox 1/16 inch thick or .064 Yes it has an oder for a few
days but nothing I could not live with. Since hanging the large panel of gasket
material in open air all the smell is now gone . It smelled like a new automobile
tire. Not nearly as bad as the stink from one of those referbished motherboards !
?? Do you think they dip referbished motherboards into a vat of "new computer "
perfume to make us think they are better ??

On the Mboard front, the board of choice for overclocking reliability etc
seems to be the ABIT NF7s (Rev 2) however that comes with SATA rather than
RAID. As mentioned by some1 else previously, ABIT KD7 RAID is a good board
(got one myself actually, running a Barton 2500+ at 12x 180 (1.83 Ghz
stock - 2.16 Ghz) without changing my core voltage). Highly reccomend it,
also the highpoint raid is very reliable (much more so than a promise RAID
controller I've also got).

I've used an coolermaster Aero 7+ heatsink and fan, not as pretty as Zalman,
but better for overclocking. Other cooler reccomendation being the
Thermalright SLK800 with 80MM fan of your choice


The Box

Coolermaster ATC 710 Case (4 x 80 MM YS Tech silent fans)
Enermax 450 Watt speed control PSU (running around 2000RPM)
Barton 2500+ (1.83 Ghz normally 11x 166) running at 12 x 180 Mhz (2.16 ghz)
at stock voltage
Coolermaster Aero 7+ HSF (running around 2000RPM)
Abit KD7 RAID Mboard
512 Mb Twinmoss DDR 400 (Winbond)
Dual IBM 120 GXP HDs (striped RAID)
3 Optical drives etc etc etc.....


and the temps??

45 Degree on a uk summer day after 3 hours of prime 95 stress test, slighly
lower running seti.
33 Degree Idle as I write this.


Hope this helps...


Mike


"Bob Sligh" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 10:37:24 +0100, Alastair Stevens

wrote:

DynaMat it's expensive I have seen it or another product like it
installed .Glued
to the side panels of the computer case . It seems to silence the machine
OK.
I bought a can of spray adhesive and thick gasket material from an
automotive store
. With my wives scissors in hand I cut panels and applied them. I got the
job done
for 11.00 dollars and have more gasket material left enough to do two more
cases.
The gasket material is aprox 1/16 inch thick or .064 Yes it has an oder
for a few
days but nothing I could not live with. Since hanging the large panel of
gasket
material in open air all the smell is now gone . It smelled like a new
automobile
tire. Not nearly as bad as the stink from one of those referbished
motherboards !
?? Do you think they dip referbished motherboards into a vat of "new
computer "
perfume to make us think they are better ??

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 :-\