Zxian

Have you ever removed the heatsinks on the CPUs you have and re-applied thermal paste to them? It's a bit tricky with Slot1 cards, but it's doable, and might help reduce temps a bit.

Did you ever try to mount the fans on the side of the slots instead of on top? You might end up with better airflow. As for a case - the Centurion 534 is an excellent case for your situation. It's relatively cheap and provides good cooling.

Burninating the desktop...

My only question... is it quiet?

So... this past week was Engineering week at my university (UBC), and one of the events that we had to participate in is called FilmfEUSt (the EUS stands for Engineering Undergraduate Society). My department (Engineering Physics = Fizz) made the winning video, and I've gotta say - it's simply wicked. Geer Eye for the Arts Guy - FilmfEUST 2007 For any scientists/engineers out there, this is for you.

@Lazy8 - Wow... I love the second joke. Simply brilliant...

...you're me - who has just spent the past week trying to get my department to win Engineering Week at UBC... I'm freakin tired!!! No but seriously... here's another one. A man is in a hot air balloon, and he realizes that he's got himself a little lost. He sees a man on the ground and calls out: "Hello there! Can you tell me where I am?" The man on the ground looks around a bit and replies: "You're in a hot air balloon, about 50ft in the air, and about 200ft northwest of my position." The man in the balloon says: "You must be an engineer." "Why yes I am. How did you know?" replies the engineer. The man in the balloon answers: "Everything you've told me is technically correct, but it doesn't help me at all." "You must be in management." says the engineer. "How did you know?" says the manager. "You came to me with a problem, and I gave you an answer, but now it's my fault!"

Umm... animated maximization/minimization led to DRM? I turn this off. When I click the button, I want the window gone. Simple - done.

I'm about the same as Iceman. 4-5 hours for the most part, and as low as 2 when I'm gaming on batteries... 6:40 is the longest that I've timed while using my laptop. I was doing just basic writing with that though. Wireless off, screen brightness down.

I like Claude's.

You might not care about tossing out an old CPU after 5 years, but considering that the only computer less than a year old that I have is a laptop, it's saying something about my computing habits. Two out of the four that I own were built in 2000, and one has been upgraded along the way, starting out in 2001. As long as they run, why should I toss them out? They're good for something - maybe not gaming, but for other purposes definitely. My parents as well - they just bought a new computer, since their old one was from 1999. My mother's computer is from 2001 - see the pattern here? They don't game. For surfing the web and writing letters/office documents, a PIII will suit most just fine. I've never actually come across a system where the non-overclocked CPU just up and died. mmX.Memnoch linked to articles describing how finicky Northwood P4s are, but thats still regarding overclocking. Usually the non-OC CPU dying is the fault of the motherboard supplying uneven voltage, but not of the CPU simply kicking the bucket. Semiconductors don't wear the same way a hard drive does.

As long as temperatures stay within limits, increasing frequencies can't hurt your system. "to get the processors full potential" - by this you mean the absolute maximum where you're stressing the device beyond it's designed limits. Good luck getting a useful lifetime out of that piece of hardware. I know corporations that still run their businesses on dual PIII systems, just because they've lasted and they don't need to upgrade. If they had reached the processors' "full potential" they would have needed to replace the components before long. Processors can easily go bad at high voltages without temperatures being too high. Why do you think that those who use phase change still end up breaking CPUs? In other words, for each of the three, can increasing just the one affect the lifetime of the device? Temperature: Yes Voltage: Yes Frequency: No

So far, I've been using AveDesk and TrueLaunchBar (there are things that the Samurize Task bar configs just can't do as easily). I've been playing with Samurize, but to recreate my AveDesk layout (or something as functional) is taking a while... :S Why can't they just let a picture be a link?! Gotta make an image and then a blank linked text area on top of the picture...

Just a reminder to all - please do not post full sized screenshots of your desktops. It slows down the site load, and breaks the style of the page. A thumbnail and a link will do just as well to get people to see your desktops.

Man... really bugs me with all this Vista-bashing. Microsoft takes a long time to release a new OS, and people complain. Microsoft releases something that's significantly different (but in many ways an improvement) than XP, and people complain. Did anyone really complain that much when Apple released OSX? That was even more of a jump than XP to Vista. Oh - and as for spotlight, Microsoft was the first one to present the idea of an integrated instant search in their Longhorn previews. Apple was just the first to get it to market. And for those people who are comparing the performance of XP to Vista side by side - do the same thing with 2000 and XP. No version of Windows has been faster than it's predecessor on the same hardware. Stability is a totally different concern though. Sorry for killing the joke, but people who post those kinds of videos need to get real. GAH!!! *rips out hair*

The video output during POSTing is usually a fixed value set by the video card BIOS (IIRC). There isn't really any way of easily changing that. If you want to change settings in BIOS, you'll need to find yourself another monitor to set the settings, and then just leave them be.

Sure, the thermal paste is the middle man, but the thermal resistance of that paste does play a role in how the heat transfer occurs, and how the temperatures end up. A lower thermal resistance means more heat transfer which means lower temperatures. Arctic Silver 5 is among the best thermal pastes out there, but the fact that it's metalic based raises some eyebrows. I've never had any troubles with it personally, but I've heard of others who have run into problems with it's capacitive properties.

I wouldn't go with Ubuntu per se, but just a basic network-install of Debian. It's more bare-bones, and you can install only what you need via apt.

NO!!!!!! Of the WRT54 models, the G and GS are bad. The GL is the only one that you want to get.

Like cluberti mentioned... it's the indexing working on that first build of the data. Give it a little time and your computer will settle down. Then you'll be able to find everything in a jiffy!

And this encryption software is...? Have you looked into using something like TrueCrypt? There's another alternative to it, but TC does its job very well, and AFAIK can handle compressed files without troubles.

Please don't open another thread when your first has been closed. The first thread was closed for a reason. Apparently you didn't read through the link that gamehead200 provided, so I'll give it to you again. Read it this time. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=79739 [ Closed ]

I'd also vote for the WRT54GL if you want to stick with 802.11b, but I prefer Thibor over DD-WRT. My first impression of DD-WRT was not very good... it went half-dead on me in the space of 15 mins. After being off for another 6 hours, it booted enough for me to reflash thibor...

Nope, put the cream in now. Reason - the cream will cool the coffee now, so the difference in temperature will be less. That means that the total heat lost over the period of time will be less. If you want a better reasoning - look up Newton's Law of Cooling.

@nmX.Memnoch - I'd rather just do it with a computer. It's a temporary situation, so the investment isn't necessary. Thanks for the info though. @fizban - Maybe I'm asking the wrong kind of question here then... I'd like to use my server at home as a "remote router" if you will. Something that I can log into from the web, and all my traffic is tunneled through it. A kind of encrypted proxy if you will.