PC Tech Thread

A tricked out version of this, sans video card: https://www.quietpc.com/sys-a490s

Very nice.

It is.

But fret not, my fine furry friend, your old machine is still running as my Computrainer computer in my bedroom :)

If Senor Bear hadn't got there first that would so be the next LFGSS skinsuit.

Love those cases... keep getting tempted to build the mother of all Mackintoshes in one of them. Then I remember I don't need one. At all. Again.

Did you get dayz running on it?

I'm interested as have just killed my M17x again- think the HDD is fuxxored.

edit- just seen @Velocio and @Murphys_Law interest. Can I jump on the end of the dibs queue?

gaming rig is virtually silent

Your room's noise floor is too high to hear it. I blame Boris.

I've run it on worse, and that was before the new renderer... DO IT.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how it runs with the new renderer- just need a pc that is not 10+ years old.

It's a Clevo P150em from memory. As I said, it's grubby, fans need a good cleaning, missing various rubber bumpers, it's a bit beaten about so might not be for you if you're looking for something subject to aesthetics (I personally think it was the best looking laptop of its type of its era but MSI and Razor etc have come out with some beauties since). But then again, £100. I had an offer last year for £800 from the guys at PWN PCs that sold it to me but thought it'd be useful as a back up. Instead it's sat in a cupboard gathering dust so I figure it's got to go.

Pics*:

*cushion not included.

Nice, but not aesthetic enough for my desk :)

Price is awesome, but one of the other dibs should grab.

As I said, I'm interested if it's in working order.

Cheers, I'm not looking for silent. Just quiet enough to leave on in the spare room.

Specs are:
Intel Core i5 3570K 3.4GHz Socket 1155 6MB (not overclocked)
1 SSD and 1HDD. The HDD is mounted on rubber grommets to isolate from the case
CPU fan - Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1155, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H Socket 1155 VGA DVI HDMI 8 Channel Audio mATX Motherboard
Case - Antec NSK3480 MATX Micro Tower
PSU - CIT 600W Power supply GOLD 12cm Fan 2x SATA (this was cheap, I expect to replace it)
GPU - EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 Superclocked with ACX 2.0 Cooling 4GB Graphics Card (this is meant to stop blowing when it's not being taxed but I'm not 100% sure it is, need to check it with the case off)

Very interested mate. PM'd.

(Not sure of dibs'd yet or whats going on?)

According to this: http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator you're looking at about 400W total, most of which would be 12V, so a good 600W supply should be happy. Over half of this is the GTX970, so if you can make do with the Intel HD4000 graphics your i5 already has, noise reduction will be easier.

This guide's pretty good: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Case_Basics_and_Recommendations

Your case
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Antec_NSK-3480 (reviewed October 2007)
which is an evolution of the NSK3300 http://www.silentpcreview.com/article641-page1.html

Their test system maxed at 216W and the NSK-3480 kept the temperature within limits with 26dBA@1m. They note the stock TriCool 120mm fan is the main source of turbulent noise. Tricool fans measured here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article695-page3.html

Of the cases I've used, my favourite was the Fractal Define R2. They're up to R5 now.
Here's a 290W gaming rig at 17dBA: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1422-page4.html

If you're open to changing the case, I'd suggest an Antec P18x (not the mini). You can get these for under £30 on eBay and they've been pretty hard to beat despite their age. That and some Scythe Slipstream fans are probably as quiet as you'll get without changing the CPU and mobo.

Note dB is a logarithmic scale, so 26dB vs 17dB is a far bigger difference than the numbers suggest.

I run a Fractal case at home. Water cooled cpu. The only time I hear the thing is when I'm playing video games as my EVGA 970 is heavily overclocked so it's fan goes mental. Rest of the time the fans are actually stopped as the passive cooling on the card is great!

Cheers. This is also used for gaming so graphics card has to stay. I don't mind how much noise it makes when I'm playing games though.

Changing case is possible if it's worth it in terms of noise. I'm struggling to find the Antec P18x anywhere though.

Looks like first steps could be new PSU, new case fan, compressed air to clean up and check the power settings on the GPU.

I'm struggling to find the Antec P18x anywhere though.

@Emyr probably meant get either the Antec P180/P182/P183
They're all great cases. Think I have the P182

Looking to upgrade my tower pc.

Current Specs:

CPU Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor
Motherboard MSI H81M-E33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory Crucial 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Memory Crucial 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card MSI Radeon R7 250X 1GB Video Card
Case Cooler Master K350 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply

Planning on getting one of the new cheapy ati cards.

Had some problems however as i installed a 212 hyper evo and the case won't close properly now as it's too big for case. Also the motherboard doesn't have a usb3 header so can't use the front panel usb ports.

Really looking for recommendations of cheapish case and a better motherboard. Not sure if I need a new processor as well?

It's been running overwatch just about but want to make sure it's running smooth and for future games.

Cheers guys :)

Intel Pentium G3258

Are you overclocking this? Looks like you could get a big performance gain if the mb/cooling allows. Otherwise I'd say get a better 1150 socket chip.

Not overclocking it at the moment. Bit worried with the cooling of it as the problem with the case being open. It's very warm when running games as it is so haven't looked into overclocking.

Any recommendations for a better chip? Cheers @Dramatic_Hammer

Anything Haswell i3 and up should be an improvement if you're running it stock (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/pentium-g3258-overclocking-performance,review-32974-14.html). I think if you start getting into changing the mb, you might as well move to the latest generation Skylake stuff.

I have a barely used i3 4330 or something. Decent wee chip. I had it paired with a £40 motherboard and it ran everything like a champ.