L.D.: Regarding any issues about cooling and noise for later (or even early model "SurvPC") PC's go over to http://www.silentpcreview.com/index.php
Also tell your resident boy/man techno geek to fire up his mechanical engineering thinking cap and take a look at their homebrewed solutions http://www.silentpcreview.com/article103-page1.html . With a hand saw + pile of wood and a pair of tin snips along with a trip or three to your local 2nd hand electronics hardware depot you all can solve most of the heat and noise issues for just a few bucks. High quality large diameter RELIABLE fans (vs Fry's Electronics or similar retail locations el junkos) are in the less than $15 range - some of the smaller diameter ones are in the $9 range. I have built case filters using the "gray" foam plastic packaging materials - then wash it out every month or so. Keeps mucho cat hair off the little things on the mobo. Cat hair being an excellent heat conductor which causes excellent grounding too. However, fine the cat hair results are they are not quite as permanent an el destructo solution as a large volume of male cat spray when your running the box without covers and forget to shut your SOHO door - I have TWO (2) mobo on the shelf which prove El Gato is much craftier than John's remembering system's lack of functionality A.K.A. oldsheimer dis-e-ase. I have also built wooden enclosures which held four tower units and had HEPA filters from Grangers and MULTIPLE low speed 110V fans for in & out and internal air circulation - remember I helped at local AM/FM radio stations which are notorious for Rube Goldberg el cehapo solutions ... Your okay on the memory stick choice. No personal experience with aftermarket heatspreaders? However they should be 85% to 99% as good as when the higher speed DDR RAM memory stick comes with them installed. With only 64MB of video RAM I doubt you all need anything like a video card fan. Again check out my favorite web site about heat & noise. Look at comments on choice of CPU as a room heating system at http://www.silentpcreview.com/article31-page1.html Your Intel P4 Willamette core (1.3-2.0 GHz) is rated as "Early P4s with typical power from 49W to 75W, these hot processors are difficult to cool quietly, despite the large HS form factor. Serious undervolting and underclocking may work. Thermal protection throttles speed under high loads so maximum power (100W for 2GHz) may never be reached. Thus, these (and all P4s) very tolerant of thermal abuse. 20/7/02" Next see what the homebrewed gurus thought up at http://www.silentpcreview.com/article103-page1.html This should make ALL of us rethink what background noise and heat we have in our "SOHO" offices, even with a P-I class 166MHz or a P-II class 233MHz. My old faithful AMD K-6 233MHz decided after seven years to act up. I quickly added an off-the-shelf small cheapy 110V fan and slid open the case by an inch {our male el gato is no longer living, another story for someday about loosing my 18 year office buddy). I didn't pay much attention to the increased noise. Then I read this web site and bought a quality $10 ball bearing low-speed 12V fan = my ears were wondered why my brain was so slow to catch onto background noises. Without the expensive test gear for noise and heat you are at the mercy of the gurus who chase this stuff around their web sites. However, if you read a bit and then ask yourself the question "can we do this for less than a weeks worth of groceries" and the answer is yes - start figuring out a way to send out boy/man techno geek to collect stuff. If your getting used stuff, make 'em let ya spin up the fan. If the dang thing sounds like a Huey Cobra on steroids, just pass even if it is free. next up? John Oram L.D. Best wrote: > On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 00:00:00 -0400, Automatic digest processor wrote: > >>Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 07:54:35 -0700 >>From: John Oram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Subject: Re: Surfin' survpc's > > >>Geez what has this list come yo with DDRRAM heatspreaders. I can hear >>them 386 4MB folks falling off their three legged stools <BG> > > > Actually, the DDRAM heat spreaders are on the kid's XP "killer system" > ... but they also fit DIMM SDRAM sticks. > > >>First off which brand & what speed of 1GB 184 pin DDRRAM did you >>purchase? Was it ECC Registered or probably not? Heatspreaders are >>factory installed and some are a real pain to re-install if you pull >>them off to look at the 184-pin DIMM - learned the hard way on this >>one. I would leave it alone if it were mine. > > > The kid's DDRAM chips came 'fully dressed' but DIMMs are naked. I > was looking into the possibiity since the cooling on the system is a bit > less than "MEGA!" The real room heater is (once again) the kid's system > ... it has four intake fans with a large exhaust fan on the top ... plus > a cooling fan built into the video card for that processor! It has a > 'see through' side and pretty blue lights, too. > > Do y'all realize that the computers kids (well, young adults) > have these days wouldn't be acceptable 'science fiction' 30 years > ago?? > > Back to the stick ... > Micron 'Critical' 168pin SDRAM DIMM 1GB 8x64 ECC Registered > (I may shop eBay for price, but I do try to do things half-way right... > am I correct in thinking this is decent RAM? Did I get a good price > with it -- total including S&H -- for $161.50?? Dalco wants $115+tax for > a 512MB SDRAM DIMM.) > > >>Simplest way to take care of extra heat in your case as a rule of >>thumb to get airflow from low at the front of the case towards the >>power supply as the outlet fan. The science of heat flow paid my >>retired buddy at Intel-Folsom over three million bucks in stock >>options = so best to find a site where the folks know what they are >>doing a read for awhile. > > > Right now I don't have a cpu cooler on *this* system (it was 'optional' > for slow old PII 233MHz processors) because the replacement I bought was > the wrong footprint ... but in the meantime we did find a way to install > an intake fan (60mm?) that blows over the cpu heatsink (we pulled the > non-operative fan to increase airflow access) constantly, while the > power supply fan works as exhaust. On the "new" system I have to put > the Artic Silver on the cpu still ... figure I'll do that when I crack > the case to put in new memory stick. The cpu sits near an intake vent > in the case, and that power supply fan is also the 'exhaust fan.' I > don't remember if the video card cpu has its own fan ... NVidia GForce > with 64MB ... but I don't think so. The system can always be tweaked > later, and should handle fans that are temp/velocity controlled, since > the 'setup' screens do show processor temp etc. > > >>The simplest way to save money and time is use one of the ole 486 heat >>sink fans and blow air across the memory and at the CPU. Should be >>able to plug into one of the extra power locations for fan on your mobo. > > > I was thinking about doing just that ... since I'm doing something similar > with the cpu on this system. > > >>What brand of Mobo do you have? Does your mobo Northbridge have a fan >>or heat sink? > > > I have an MSI mobo in the newest system, and in this one AAMOF. (The > kid, of course, has a Megabyte or somesuch name ...). Chipset is Intel > and I haven't gone to the MSI website yet to see if there are any BIOS > upgrades I need to apply. When the system wasn't in use for so long, I > didn't bother with firmware etc. > > >>What size is your power supply? Does it have one or two fans? > > > Not sure of size ... 1 fan, single speed AFAIK > > Reason I asked in the first place is that I don't have a very large > income, and regardless of how good a price I got on the memory stick it is > still the equivalent of two weeks worth of groceries ... and I can't > afford to have it burn out on me. Despite rumors to the contrary being > spread by my youngest child, I did *not* get a 1GB DIMM just so I had more > memory than he does ... <G> He has 512MB of the DDRAM, so it's an > equivalent to mine -- according to him. <BBG> > > FWIW, I had to 'upscale' if I'm going to have a computer and this > wonderful 10Mb down / 3.5Mb up cable modem system on a hybrid fiber optic > WAN owned by the city and sold as just another utility on the electric > bill... That means I have to make the computer make money, and that is why > I own a couple of new domains that could make it possible. I really don't > want to sell all the family heirlooms just so I can afford to insure > everything else. <g> But I do need to get a couple of items up on eBay > pretty darn soon ... my electric bill ate a week's worth of groceries each > of the last two billing cycles, and I don't like a purely vegan diet. > > Every time I think of the fact that a computer was the size of a football > field when I was born, and now watches and cell phones have more powerful > easily programmed CPUs, I wonder just how far technology is going to take > us. Ten years ago everyone agreed that to break the GigaHertz barrier > would absolutely require a refridgeration unit similar to Cray ... and now > 1.2GHz is the size of a 50cent piece (What ever happened to them??) and > cooled by a small heatsink and fan. Right now, in this household, we have > more operational computer 'strength' than Mission Control Houston and Cape > Canaveral had *combined* for the Apollo missions... and we don't have ALL > the systems up and on the network (they will be truly SURVPC, running > Linux once I learn how to manage it ... one will take up the chores of > being a server, while another will be strictly for shared data. What's so > damn scary to me is that we take it all for granted!! > > 100 years ago man finally learned how to fly. Today I can turn on a > computer and link to animated films taken by a robot exploring Mars. > > Sorry ... guess I went 'a little long' ... we now pause for a word from > our sponsors. > > l.d. > > -- Arachne V1.71;UE01, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/ > >
