Zxian

Wow... everything is coming out these days. You also forgot IE7 and WMP11, which went final a little while back, but still in the same timeframe. All that's left now is Orcas final.

As long as you don't have too much current being fed back into the 5V line! Usually you don't have to worry about this, but it's definately something you don't want to do... *poof*

I would go with Thibor 15c for the router. I tried DD-WRT v23 SP2 and after about 15 minutes, everything slowed down to a crawl. I rebooted the router, and I couldn't even access the web GUI. After a night of being off, I was finally able to access the web GUI and reflash it with Thibor. It's been running ever since without a hitch.

That guy's done the suspension all wrong. The whole point of suspending the drives is that the elastic material you use absorbs the vibrations from the drives. A solid wire that's wound tight will just transmit the vibrations to the case. Maybe it's not as bad as screws are, but it's still not as good.

VGA connectors are still VGA connectors. Just like a printer that uses parallel ports today will use the same communications protocols as printers made years ago.

Watch the talk on piracy here... there's a fine line as to what's acceptable and what's not. Just because a Ferrari is expensive doesn't mean that you have to crack the security system so that you can steal it. A cheaper Honda Civic will do you just fine. Or even maybe a bike! They might not have all the bells and whistles of the Ferrari, but they work. If you don't want to complain about prices, then use Linux. For many people, it's a viable alternative.

@Mercury_22 - If you had looked down the forums a bit, you'd already find this topic. Please make sure that your posts haven't already been covered. No need to have several of them open. Topic Closed

If anyone's wondering about suspended hard drives, this is what I'm talking about. It's the ultimate in silence, aside from a silencing enclosure.

Actually... you'd be surprised how much noise a hard drive makes when bolted to your computer case. Unless the case has special damping in it (and no - those rubber pads don't count), then you'll get a lot of loud vibrations through the case. Suspending your hard drives is the only way to go!

Just a word of warning (although I'm sure you've already checked this). Not all fans will start reliably at 5V. This is more of a problem for larger, slower fans, since they've got more inertia than smaller fans. Fun fun stuff. Quiet computing has been a hobby of mine for a while, and it's now one of my jobs!

Is the RAM on that DDR SODIMM? I'm also gonna see if I can get SPCR to do a review for it. I might be able to keep the thing after I review it...

Thin - yes. Silent? With that heatsink and fan, I don't think the system is very silent. The case may help to keep things quiet, but truly silent would require a larger heatsink and a slower fan. Very cool project though. I've been looking at building a simple, small HTPC box that would be used solely for streaming shows off the network to my TV. Definately looks slick - that's for sure.

Like jcarle said - this is not offtopic. You should look at getting yourself a Kill-a-Watt meter. It plugs into the wall socket and lets you plug your devices into it. It'll show you voltage levels, current, power draw, apparent power draw, and total energy used. It's very well worth the $40.

I've actually used lighting as a test for my house's power stability. Measure the luminance level of a piece of paper in the middle of the room with all the lights on, but no appliances (I had access to a luminance meter - they're pretty pricey). Then start: Fridge, stereo, TV, computers (2 of them), laptop, and anything else that I can think of. Re-measure the luminance. If the luminance measurement dropped by more than 5% (a noticable amount "by eye"), then you should get things checked. Even at my girlfriends' place, which has wiring from the 1950's doesn't have this problem when we turn on the 1100W space heater. If your 250W or 450W PSU is doing this for the average computer, then you've got issues. The problem could lie either with the wiring in your house, or the wiring going to your house. Basically, whatever is supplying the power can't stand up to the sudden change in load. Another 4A of current (~500W) should cause absolutely no change in the voltage levels of your house. If they drop by more than 5%, you actually run the risk of damaging other electronic equipment you own! P.S. - Dangit jcarle! I'm not an electical engineer... It's Engineering Physics!

It was a bit of a joke. DirectX is designed to be as efficient as possible. Another thing - it's a library install. Games load DirectX libraries when they're run. It's not like DX is running in the background all the time.

I'd check the wiring standards in your house. If a power supply is causing that much of a drop in the voltage of the rest of the house, then you've got bigger problems. You're actually running the risk of fires, since the voltage in the walls is lower. Lower voltage means higher current - higher current means more heat - more heat means possible fires.

VMware Workstation is what I use primarily. I've been wanting to play with VMware server though. I can think of lots of applications where I'd like to have multiple OSes on the server at once...

DirectX is bloated and hard on resources...? That's why all game manufacturers rely on it for their performance requirements, right?

Check the PSU in another computer. If it works there, then chances are your motherboard is fried.

That thing will run Windows just fine anyday... 800MHz will do just about anything you want. The only thing that it might not be able to handle is decoding H.264. I remember a review of a similar setup a while back that they wanted to make into a tiny HTPC, and the only thing it couldn't do was that. *me wants*

Tell me what parts of your system are "obsolete"? How do you define obsolete? Your system is still considered a very high performance computer, even by today's standards. Tell me a computing task that it can't do.

Nope - not the case at all. When you start looking at well made power supply reviews, you'll start to understand the problems of underloading your power supply. For example - I was testing a particlar power supply (rated at ~500W) this past Wednesday, and when I had applied 90W of load, there was the distinct sound of coil whine. This might not be a performance issue, but it'll drive you mad really fast! I took the measurements as quickly as possible to make that bloody ringing go away. Secondly - efficiency curves tend to max out in the middle of the loading range of the PSU. For example, if your system requires 150W, and you've got a 500W PSU, chances are you're not going to have as high of an efficiency as a PSU that is rated for 300W or 350W. I'll tell you right off the bat - CoolMax is not a good name brand when it comes to PSUs.

Even with overclocking, the power draws on a high end gaming system will rarely go over 450W. Usually, the only systems that require more are dual CPU systems (i.e. a server).

a Pre-configured the OS is a problem? Then reformat and set up Windows to your liking. I got my Dell Inspiron 6000 back in February, and it's worked well for me so far. For laptops, I would recommend Dell or Lenovo. When it comes to a desktop PC, building your own is the only way to go - honestly. It doesn't matter how old you are - it matters how careful you can be when dealing with your components. If you want a how-to, I'm sure that there are people here who would be more than happy to walk you through it. I would. If you want help in speccing out a computer, just ask. Here's another topic where a member wanted help with building his own system. In my opinion, for $650, he's got himself a pretty killer system. Putting together a system takes a little bit of time - yes. But the biggest time spend is actually finding the parts and waiting for the order to arrive. Finding the parts - we can help with that. Once you've got them, I'd say that it'll take you about 3-4 hours to put it all together if you've never done it before. You'll want to be careful of course. Another BIG advantage to buying parts and assembling them yourself - warranty. Almost all components come with a 3 year warranty (at least). When you buy a pre-configured system, you'll get 1 year, and then you have to pay more for extra.

Regarding the power supply - I'd go with a better name than CoolMax. Antec or SeaSonic make excellent quality power supplies. I tested a SeaSonic PSU yesterday, and voltages and ripple were nothing but excellent. Voltages were less than 1% off nominal values, even at 500W load! Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP400 SeaSonic S12-380 The SeaSonic is a little more pricey, but it's also more efficient, meaning that you might get the money back in power savings. And yes, 380W will be plenty for your system. People who say you'd need more should take a power meter and plug it into their system.