What Have You Done Today - (Computer Version)

  • Thread starter tlowr4
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bergauk
I've seen HDD's fail randomly before..

Had one that was working fine when I left work on friday, came in on Tuesday and apparently the drive had died.
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nick09
I have not seen that happen honestly. Though that can be a billion in one chance really.
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That one is a prime example. It passed Seatools/SMART checks and still failed the next week.
 
A hard drive motor can fail yet it may still pass S.M.A.R.T.

But I do still back my most important things.

I have 4TB of data in total, I can't back all of it.
 
I've seen a Maxtor's motor fail after 11 years through. If it was that I would understand the fact that SMART does not tell you anything. Though the amazing thing is that I've seen a 13 year old 3GB Maxtor HDD from an Intel 486 system work perfectly fine and the SMART data checked out on last Sunday.
 
My Z68 Gen 3 mobo/i7 2600K combo has been running well and has proven to be stable, so I've gotten curious to see what it can do.

I bought a Xigmatek Gaia cooler because it's cheap, decent, and just clears the head spreaders of my RAM. It was also available immediately and locally. A couple of days ago a pair of these arrived:

Cougar Vortex PWM

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I'm not a fan of the color, and if I was one of those window-on-my-side-panel types I'd hate the way they clash, but they're great fans. The integrated rubber shock mounts are a nice touch, and the cables are even sleeved. Right now they're mounted push-pull on my Gaia, and with PWM enabled they move air more effectively than the stock cooler fan, at lower RPM, and more quietly to boot. I'll have to see if I can get away with one Cougar PWM fan to lower noise even more. They move so much air that the front panel on my Lian-Li PC-A05N is a major exhaust choke point (keep in mind this case's airflow is back to front). My CPU temps lower another 5-6C with the panel removed. It will have to be modified at some point. I removed the empty 5.25" bezel and that helps a few degrees too. At the very least I'll get the ventilated 5.25" bezel.

My case seems to do well with a top mounted blow hole too, and with the fan design on my overclocked GTX 560ti it doesn't exhaust fan efficiently out the back. Most of the hot air spills into the rest of the top of the case. It's running within temperature specs at 950MHz with 1.0v, but I'd like a bit more breathing room.

I have a 140mm Cougar Vortex HDB ready to go when I'm ready to modify the top panel.

Anyway, even as things stand now, I've got my CPU happy and stable at 4.5GHz and 1.350v. I know that's far from bleeding edge, but I'm happy with the performance and heat. I'm not interested in exploring the outer limits. I'm pleased that the power consumption between idle and max CPU/GPU load is right in my power supply's efficiency sweet spot. My next goal is to see how much I can knock the voltage back down while maintaining stability in a battery of tests.
 
Looked at that fan before but it would just ruin the black and white look my case has. Cougar needs more colors. If they had the fan frame black and the fins white I'd grab two fans up for my Antec h20 620 rad instantly. Been looking into fans recently since the 120mm fan that comes with my fractal case buzzes at max speed(and the 140mm does this too but not as high pitched). I plan on moving the 120mm fan that came with my case to front and hooking it to the fan controller that came with my case just to control that fan and have it go 85% to keep it from buzzing. I don't really want to take apart a fan and mod a fan so it can be the white color.
 
I finally upgraded my Mac mini to Lion. VMware Fusion was also updated to version 4.1, which allowed me to install Snow Leopard in a virtual machine. I still have access to Rosetta for a couple of programs.
 
Replaced stock Intel HSF with a Cooler Master Hyper 212+, an immediate drop of 10-15C in idle temps. Idle with stock cooler - 40-45C, idle with the 212 and fresh (ie un-cured) Arctic Silver 5 - 30C.

Maybe now my computer will act less like a space heater :lol:
 
I just took out that metal flexing pin that is the cause for the "click" in your mouse's scroll wheel... Though it doesn't spin freely, I can scroll more freely now..not only that, it's also QUIET NOW! :D
 
Sharky.
Replaced stock Intel HSF with a Cooler Master Hyper 212+, an immediate drop of 10-15C in idle temps. Idle with stock cooler - 40-45C, idle with the 212 and fresh (ie un-cured) Arctic Silver 5 - 30C.

Maybe now my computer will act less like a space heater :lol:
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Before I made the switch to a water cooled CPU unit, my PC was a good heater in winter.
 
AOS-
I just took out that metal flexing pin that is the cause for the "click" in your mouse's scroll wheel... Though it doesn't spin freely, I can scroll more freely now..not only that, it's also QUIET NOW! :D
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I've got a few Microsoft mice laying around that are free spinning with no click. I actually prefer it.
 
Casio
I've got a few Microsoft mice laying around that are free spinning with no click. I actually prefer it.
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My logitech mouse has a free spin button, press it and it releases the wheel from the pin that usually makes it click, you can spin it superfast. Now I don't like using other mice...as I find myself always wanting to switch between.
 
Jay
My logitech mouse has a free spin button, press it and it releases the wheel from the pin that usually makes it click, you can spin it superfast. Now I don't like using other mice...as I find myself always wanting to switch between.
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The Logitech MX Revolution.

I dislike the free spinning option, as a gamer I use the mouse wheel to change weapon and I like that click part so I can change to the weapon I want quickly.
 
Grayfox
The Logitech MX Revolution.

I dislike the free spinning option, as a gamer I use the mouse wheel to change weapon and I like that click part so I can change to the weapon I want quickly.
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And keep it on that weapon. I like my mouse because it doesn't have any sort of noise to it when you use the wheel.
 
Done quite a bit to my PC recently. Changed my mobo mainly because it could only handle 2gigs of ram, added 8 gigs and a amd 6870.
Today just added a Artec freezer 7 cooler, added a ssd from my ps3 and done some cable management.
 
Those mice with the free-spinning wheels are incredilby fun to play with. I like how they're slightly heavier than standard wheels because then it'll hold momentum fora longer time.

My cousin showed me one, the one with the option to switch between the two (most likely the mentioned logitech), it was super fun, only gripe I have with it is that it's cordless.

I'm going to see if I can do that with the Orochi when I get it.
 
My Mac is a portable heater. Idle temps = around 50˚C, under 100% load 80˚C - 105˚C.

All I need to do is run Minecraft in the background, and I've got a heater on my lap. I don't like pushing it past 80˚C, so when I'm running a program and it's Summer, hot, etc etc I userally have a case fan connected to an external PSU that I have blowing air from the air-conditioner across the room, straight onto the top part near the built in mic where the CPU sits, to cool it directly :D
 
AOS-
Those mice with the free-spinning wheels are incredilby fun to play with. I like how they're slightly heavier than standard wheels because then it'll hold momentum fora longer time.
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I like that feature. Allows me to quickly browse a page and just spin it for fun listening to the sounds it makes!
 
tlowr4
My Mac is a portable heater. Idle temps = around 50˚C, under 100% load 80˚C - 105˚C.

All I need to do is run Minecraft in the background, and I've got a heater on my lap. I don't like pushing it past 80˚C, so when I'm running a program and it's Summer, hot, etc etc I userally have a case fan connected to an external PSU that I have blowing air from the air-conditioner across the room, straight onto the top part near the built in mic where the CPU sits, to cool it directly :D
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Invest in a laptop cooler.. Seriously.
 
I just clean up some old files which has never been touched since late 2009!

Also I updated my Nokia Suite and now using it to update my Nokia Maps...
 
Today I ordered a USB extension cable, a Yate Loon 140mm case fan and a pair of 140mm filters; one for the new fan and the other to replace a blanking plate on my case until I can get more 140mm fans (if they're better than the Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm fans I have... The 140mm being £10 less than the 120mm leads me to be skeptical, but we'll see.

Right now my temps are 25-50 on the CPU and 30-70 on the GPU, I'm hoping to drop them both by about 5 degrees so I can stop buying fans...
 
Overclocked my laptop's GPU.

Also, I found a remarkably comfortable place aboard my ship where I manage to get a 3G signal with my Clear device. :D
 
Installed Windows XP Home Edition in the old family computer. Also changed the heatsink in the old family computer to the stock heatsink from my computer to help fix the overheating issues with the AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU(TJMax was 70C and it was getting dangerously close to that with a temperature of 57C while playing a old game). I told my friend how to set the CPU fan speed in SpeedFan and I let him take it home for his father's Birthday/Christmas gift(He has old games he wants to play that worked for Windows XP). With the faster fan speeds set it held the CPU temps at 41C or below. It's good that the 7 year old PC will have use again.

So it was a pretty good day.
 
FINALLY finished my new server build, did a build for a friend, and finished my Pentium build to sell in the Handy Trader for $250 (cost me just over $100 to make it). Right...now time to clean up the crapload of messes...
 
Took apart my PS3 for a clean, turns out I have a weird model with a black PSU and heatsink clamped to the bottom. So if you want to clean it you have to separate CPU and heatsink and re apply the thermal paste.

Seems ok so far, hopefully it will run a bit quieter now. The thermal paste has diamonds in so it has to be good.
 

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