HELP! A XP2100+ - default temp 62-69°C!

hdmk, that heatsink is EXCELLENT. That coupled with Arctic Silver should be excellently excellent. That with some airflow in your case, and your temps will probably be halved. At least a 20C drop. If you can afford it though, because that HSF will be very loud with a 60mm fan moving at almost 7000 RPM, I would reccomend getting a cooler with dimensions of 70x70 or even 80x80.

Round IDE cables are really erroneous, except for people like me who have an incredible amount of airflow in their case, especially between the hard drives, where a flat IDE cable would really get in the way. If you want, though, knock yourself out...

And that case should be great as well. A good buy, IMHO, especially with all those fans.

"Round IDE cables are really erroneous, except for people like me who have an incredible amount of airflow in their case, especially between the hard drives, where a flat IDE cable would really get in the way. If you want, though, knock yourself out... "

fess up Veh you got round cables cause you think they look cool

Negative. It's too dark in my case to see them anyway especially since they're black...

Now if I had UV sensitive round cables, like I saw at Xoxide or somewhere, and a blacklight in my case, yeah I'd say they would look cool.

Then you shuld get purdy silver ones like I got

I use vantec rounded cables on my hard drive and floppy. I wanted shorter cables and the shortest ones I could find were the 10" rounded ones.

Ok, so go with the Coolermaster HSC-V62 Copper Socket A/P3/FCPGA Cooler Upto AMD 2600.

Would this: Coolermaster HAC-V81 Extreme Heat Sink Fan Delta with PCI Fan Control 2800+ be better though? (as in bigger fan - quieter - what would the difference in cooling be?

As for the case, does anyone know of any cheaper ATX cases - available online in the UK - with no psu and good (but obvioulsy not as good cooling) for less money?

I'm happy to stick with the case I've already shown - although I would like it slightly cheaper (and quieter )

I think I've found a selection of nice cases at fashionpcs.com )the euro branch of colorcases.com)

e.g. "Moonlight ":



It looks like good cooling (except no roof fan - but still good. Are the prices in Euros (?) - so this case costs £40 (inc VAT - converted at XE.com) What do you think?

anyone ?

don't leave me to think for myself!

other than looking like it was designed by some sci fi weenie it appears to be functional. I would ditch the generic power supply though.

I won't buy one with a PSU ... I've already got one. The trouble buying cases is that they all come with PSU's already.

It looks ok to me...but I may still go with the original - I know that's quality. Does anyone know of any quality (but cheap) cases - no psu, decent airflow?

Otherwise its a toss-up between the above 2 (maybe a different style from fashionpcs).

HDMK, that 2nd HSF you posted would do you alot better. Since it's designed for the XP's all the way up to the 2800+, having it for the 2100+ is overkill - which is great!

As for cases, it really is your aesthetic pick. Either of those two should be fine...really.

Ah and don't get a case with 60mm case fans - it really is a lesson in futility. Minimum of 4 80mm fans I'd say.

And remember that if you buy Moonlight, you're going to have to also buy 3 case fans for it. It doesn't include them. And that's going to cost you another £15-20. Just keep that in mind.

4 case fans is a lot if you ask me. Not everyone needs such drastic cooling. 1 or 2 fans will lower the temps quite a lot allready & not increase the noise level too much.

Eh well that's my opinion. They're not loud if you get quiet fans, like the 5 2050RPM ones I have.

Airflow through the case is more important than having a bunch of fans. Having only an intake and exhaust would be better than if you had 10 fans in there that were working against eachother.

The number of them isn't as important as being able to get cool air in and cold air out while directing that air toward the hotspots. All the while keeping a good even flow of air through the case.

Check out pics of the case (proposed - from fashionpcs.com): here

The front two fans will suck in, the other too will be drawing air out- if I can figure out how you attatch a fan to that back vent.... :rolleyes:

I'm planning to attatch 4: YS-TECH FD8125 80mm Fan - 3 Pin
» Speed - 3000RPM
» Output - 45.2CFM
» Decibels - 34.2dBA
» Dimensions - 80x80x25

I could get the quieter ones, - they are half as loud, but half the airflow, so I'll probably stick with these.

BTW - how do I connect these to the mobo? I have connected 1 case fan already, but how do I connect 4 on one slot?

Case fans come with a 3-pin to 4-pin ( such as those used on IDE devices ) converter so you can connect the fan directly to the PSU.

I'm confused....


I have a connector like that brown one on my current fan, and I assume I'll have that on my new fans - how does that plug in?
this is just an example fan, not the one I'll be getting

At the moment I have one fan, with the brown connector plugged into my motherboard. There are no more connectors for fans - so how do I connect them to the PSU?

Should I buy fans with a 4 pin connector instead?

ok, I think I get it now.

I want the fans with a 4 pin connector - which will connect to the cables coming out of the PSU. If I want to measure the speeds of one of these fans, I want the 3 pin version - but I can only attatch one of those, to the motherboard.

So, I buy one fan with a 3 pin connector, and three with a 4 pin connector. Right?

You can get adapters to go from that 3 pin connector to MOLEX connector. Or you can change them yourself. The MOLEX connectors will only be using two of the pins, one for red and one for black. The third wire will be "taped" off(meaning it is not used) The only use for the third wire is monitoring, if you connect it to the mobo(and is supported) or if you use a baybus or other means of control/monitoring then the tach wire will be used. In the case of connecting to the PSU, you can either just buy those fans with the MOLEX connector, or you can adapt them yourself if they aren't available that way.

MOLEX connector - as in the 4 pin one?

EDIT: ok, the 4 pin one is the MOLEX: