WARNING! NEWBIE in the house!

[DanFraser]

Im looking for some new things, and I thought this would be the place to come! First of all I'll tell you what I have got, then tell you what I want...

1.4GHz AMD Athlon Processor 266MHz Bus
512MB DDR2100 Ram
GeForce4 ti 4600 VIVO DVI TwinView (Havent got it yet, but might as well put that in the list)
FIC AD11 Motherboard - AMD 761 Northbridge, VIA 686B Southbridge
Creative SoundBlaster PCI 128
12.5GB HDD
300W PSU
50x CD Drive
8x/4x/32x CDRW

Now, what I am after, and why I have come here is -

A nice tower case, and a new PSU...

The case, I want tall enough to get the damn PSU out of the way of the Processor HSF, and look cool, and be easily moddable, and offer plenty of cooling options...

And the PSU, to supply enough power for the whole system... and be quiet!

I came here, coz obviously you guys like cases that are good for cooling, and sometimes moddable, and a decent case, and also a good recommendable PSU, that will not falter on the voltage output (I have heard of PSUs that drop to 4.5v, seriously degrading performance etc...)

I am also after a quiet HSF for my CPU, AS IT IS VERY NOISY! I Hope you can help me out on this, and I hope the reputation that precedes this site and boards continues! Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Oh, and could somebody help with drivers for the MOBO? Cos I have heard rumours that the VIA 4in1 Drivers dont work that well with the motherboard I have got, and XP... I have the 4in1 ver. 4.37 installed, but are they ok?

 

[William]

Look for quality brands in cases. Decide on the size you want. Antec makes superb cases with their PSUs in them and they are of excellent quality and are quiet. For a heatsink, the Alpha Pal 8045 or a millenium Glaciator II is a good bet.

www.newegg.com is a great supplier of cases(they have Antecs and some other good stuff as well). I think they carry the PAL 8045 as well. www.coolinggears.com carries the Glac. II

Do some reading around the cases and cooling forum and get an idea of what people like here, should give you a good place to jump out from. the overclockers.com front page also has tons of heatsink reviews and a fair amount of case reviews.

Welcome to the Forums!

 

[DanFraser]

Thanks! Any other suggestions? for like if I go to a computer fair, that has reputable dealers there, what should I look for in a case? what should I look for in a PSU etc...

 

[SkyHook]

PSUs

IMHO, Enermax PSUs are hard to find fault with. And if I'm not mistaken they have one now at around 600W. I have a couple of their 451s and they have been flawless.

Hope it helps

 

[Hotsauce]

Whatever you do don't get cheap with the psu. This is an area where the old addage "You get what you pay for" is critical. Just because it is expensive dosen't mean it's a quality product either.

I wish like HE** I would have joined this forum before making my last psu purchase. You can read about it here

I paid a little under what the price of an enermax will cost you for this psu. Buy a name brand, and check the volts with a meter if at all possible before installing it into your machine.

If you want to go all out on the psu look here

Good luck.

 

[Lou Natic]

I second William's suggestion, Antec makes great cases for a good price. Although the Cheiftech variants (pretty much the exact same case) are alittle more flexible with the fan arrangement, like already having 80mm intakes in the door. That's always nice if you don't want to do it yourself.

Or you could get alittle crazy and get some Lian-li, Enermax or Cooler Master case. They cost a bit more, but they look nice.

 

[Leeua]

if you are using windows xp, they already natively support via. I tried once to install the via 4- in 1's and right after i rebooted, i have an error message pop up, "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME". I suspect that was the new drivers fault. But, here is the downside, with the microsoft version of that driver, your agp bus is limited to 2x. No problem!! You can install the driver and set compatitblity to windows 2000, this should set your agp back to 4x.

For a newbie, i suggest Tweak Xp. They have lots of tweaks for XP, and since your posting on the oveclocker boards, i guess you up for a little bit of TWEAKING!! hehe...hope this helps

 

[Bruin]

As for the HSF -

I have both the millenium glaciator I & II, I like them both very much. But, although most people here would view them as quiet, I do not. My computer is in my bedroom, and I leave it on all night. Even if I didn't my gf goes to sleep well before i do, and that's my prime computer playing time, so I have very strict noise requirements.

What I did was the mod the HSF with a variable resistor (forgot the actual name right now), of which I got the idea from this site. Basically, I snipped the red wire off my HSF, and put a 25 ohm 3 watt variable resistor. This allows me to turn the resistor knob to increase/decrease resistance thereby reducing/increasing fan speed. I keep it on it's lowest setting, which drops fan rpm from 5700 to 4100. From tests I have done, the rpm drop only results in a 1c increase in temps. I wouldn't recommend doing it manually like i did, just cause I did a shoddy job of it. You can actually buy some premade resistors from some websites. Good luck and i don't think anybody welcomed you to the forums so , WELCOME!

 

[DanFraser]

Thanks people! I now have an enermax PSU on the way... and a load of fans, plus some of that padding thing... cant remember the name, but I am going for silence as well...!