[Review] Noiseblocker TwinTec3 Comments By BoTcloseAuthor: BoTName: Edward Reese Email: bot@codisha.com Site:http://www.codisha.com About:See Authors Posts (14) on September 12, 2011
Introduction
Coming a long way to use, all the way from Germany, today we have the Noiseblocker TwinTec in the house. The TwinTec from Noiseblocker is Is one of the few ventures the company made into actual CPU cooling hardware. Noiseblocker has impressed so far with it’s products and it’s ability to live up to it’s promise, which is to deliver a silent product.
The NB TwinTec features some interesting design differences. First, instead of using the traditional 6 to 8 heatpipe...
[Review] Bitfenix Alchemy Cables4 Comments By The DukecloseAuthor: The DukeName: Drew Briggs Email: drew@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About: Just keeping it real for the average joe overclocker and computer user.See Authors Posts (168) on August 26, 2011
We all know by now that Bitfenix has been on the warpath ever since entering the chassis market with a bang, debuting with their Colossus. Since that time, they have added three more models and dived into other avenues of customization. Today, with computer customization exploding in popularity, we will be looking at one of the latest crazes to hit the average user. For the longest time, sleeving PSU cables was the sole province of the pro-modding community, but now with all the tools and choice...
[Blog] FFF&FM Rev2.0 – water cooling built for benching!10 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on May 28, 2011
The original recipe
A couple years ago, I put together a simple water cooling system that I dubbed FFF&FM.
Form
Follows
Function
and
Fully
Modular
And the name really tells you everything you need to know. It was not a pretty system, nor did it need to be….but it did work very well for cooling my HW while pretesting for more serious benching session with liquid nitrogen. Here is a link to the original forum post where I detailed the build.
FFF&FM Rev1.0 parts
The original syste...
[Blog/Preview] Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1200w Power Supply1 Comment By The DukecloseAuthor: The DukeName: Drew Briggs Email: drew@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About: Just keeping it real for the average joe overclocker and computer user.See Authors Posts (168) on May 9, 2011
Ranging from the ever-efficient 600W all the way up to the 1200W power supply, the Silent Pro Gold lineup will have something to satisfy the energy cravings of any system. With a power efficiency rating of 90%, the Silent Pro Gold line meets the 80Plus Gold Standard. To achieve this goal, Cooler Master incorporates three visionary patents into this innovative design.
The Hybrid Transformer incorporates the transformer with the heat sink, not only reducing the size by 25% over traditional trans...
iBuyPower @ CES: Custom Systems Galore!1 Comment By The DukecloseAuthor: The DukeName: Drew Briggs Email: drew@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About: Just keeping it real for the average joe overclocker and computer user.See Authors Posts (168) on January 10, 2011
Alex and myself hit up the iBuyPower suite in our long journey over the week at CES. They had setup a lot of custom systems that were available on their site. You may recognize the cases from other companies that we have talked about already. Plus, you will notice the NZXT Phantom in the gallery as well, which we had not mentioned before. Have fun looking at the gallery below and I will dive into a special case they had for us later on in the article.
#gallery-1 {
margin: auto;
}
...
[Review] Silverstone FP360 Comments By The DukecloseAuthor: The DukeName: Drew Briggs Email: drew@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About: Just keeping it real for the average joe overclocker and computer user.See Authors Posts (168) on December 26, 2010
Introduction
USB 2.0 is the most widely used port in modern computers, but with USB 3.0 emerging to provide up to ten times increase in speed, the move to upgrade to USB 3.0 becomes more important. The FP36 is SilverStone’s solution for users to quickly upgrade cases that lack front USB 3.0 ports. It is also a drive bay adapter that has mounting slots for two 2.5” hard drives. The FP36 has cables that connect directly to motherboard rear I/O panel’s USB 3.0 ports (for motherboards with bui...
[Blog] Corsair Graphite Series™ 600T – all internal dual loop9 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on November 28, 2010
One of my co-workers is a hardcore gamer and power user. Since we’ve met, he’s become more and more interested in the hardware aspect of computing, and recently asked me to help build him a new system.
He previously had a Phenom II X4 940 based system with 4GB of memory and dual GTX 260 graphics cards. Everything was run at stock speeds as he preferred to spend his time gaming as opposed to tweaking. Although his system was no slouch, as any hardcore gamer knows; “the fas...
[Review] Performance-PCs Lian Li PC-Q08B Extreme Watercooling Edition9 Comments By The DukecloseAuthor: The DukeName: Drew Briggs Email: drew@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About: Just keeping it real for the average joe overclocker and computer user.See Authors Posts (168) on October 3, 2010
The Lian Li PC-Q08 carries the standard of Lian Li’s quality, all the sharp edges have been removed to protect your hands. The chassis is made of 1.5mm aluminum alloy panel to ensure the product’s durability, and all external parts are hair-line brushed anodized aluminum in keeping with Lian Li’s classical style. The solid chassis has no vibration problems and the side panels are secured with screws, which also reduces the vibration, and lowers the noise level. The PC-Q08 is the perfect s...
[Review] Silverstone SF01 (Advanced Noise Absorption)0 Comments By The DukecloseAuthor: The DukeName: Drew Briggs Email: drew@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About: Just keeping it real for the average joe overclocker and computer user.See Authors Posts (168) on October 1, 2010
Tired of hearing noise coming from your computer? Trying to reduce the sound to make it as quiet as you possibly can? The Silverstone SF01 may be what you need to help with your noise troubles. We will be testing to see if this product can noticeably decrease noise levels coming from our computer. Continue reading and see if this noise absorption product is for you.
Packaging:
Specifications:
Installation:
Installation was very easy! All you need to do is measure how big of a piece you w...
Gaming in Tight Spaces v2.0 – MAX11L (featuring Corsair and Gigabyte)24 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on September 24, 2010
“Gaming in Tight Spaces” – Part Two
Last month I brought you part one in this series entitled “Gaming in Tight Spaces – mini-ITX (featuring Gigabyte, Silverstone, and Prolimatech)”. In that article, I talked a bit about the history of mini-ITX and my fascination with it. If you didn’t get a chance to look it over yet, feel free to check it out as I’ll be referencing it a lot in this article.
My goal with the original was to simply build a gaming PC in which I would be usi...
[Review] Lamptron Fan Controller -FC6-3 Comments By The DukecloseAuthor: The DukeName: Drew Briggs Email: drew@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About: Just keeping it real for the average joe overclocker and computer user.See Authors Posts (168) on July 14, 2010
Lamptron has been leading the way with great peripherals for awhile now. They always seem to bring top quality products to the marketplace and today we have Lamptron’s new fan controller, the -FC6- , up for review. If this is anything like our past experiences with Lamptron products, then we are in for a treat. Let’s see if the -FC6- lives up to our high expectations, shall we?
Packaging:
*We do need to point out that on the box it has “Power Output: Up to 10w per Channel....
Tenma 72-7712 dual channel temp probe, what happens with temperatures inside a PC.7 Comments By ArchercloseAuthor: ArcherName: Kevin Marlin Email: kevinsmarlin@embarqmail.com Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (18) on June 1, 2010
The 72-7712 Digital Thermometer from Tenma Test Equipment is a dual thermocouple meter with internal logging capability, USB output for saving logged data and software up-link. This unit can become an integral part of a PC testing arsenal by allowing for isolation of case hot spots, heat sink testing and LN2/Dry Ice work. The limitations start to change and the performance bar can be raised when you know where it is hot and where it is not.
Compatible with K-, J-, T- and E- thermocouples (oth...
[Review] Cooler Master 690 II “Plus”6 Comments By mav2000closeAuthor: mav2000Name: Ashish Mehta Email: ashish.dm@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (18) on April 14, 2010
Introduction
Cooler Master’s current best seller, the CM 690 was initially launched in 2007 and has been one of their mainstays ever since then. The popularity of this chassis was such that it spawned a number of variants, amongst them a windowed version and later the pure version with an all black interior. The chassis was very simple in design and construction and what made it such a great product was that it was designed keeping a lot of the market requirements in mind.
With chan...
Tech Station: A Story of A Wooden Beast5 Comments By The DukecloseAuthor: The DukeName: Drew Briggs Email: drew@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About: Just keeping it real for the average joe overclocker and computer user.See Authors Posts (168) on March 27, 2010
Awhile back, I was doing a review and I had to keep taking my main computer off my desk and setting up a make-shift tech station. Although this worked fine, and I had no problems with it, it was very annoying. After the review was done, I started coming up with ideas of a tech station wonderland. Something that would and could do anything and everything I wanted it to do. I wanted it to be able to handle anything I threw at it, water or air. With all that in mind, I thought about it for a few da...
[Blog] 230° Celsius for a 8800gtx1 Comment By carpo93closeAuthor: carpo93Name: Valerio Carpani Email: carpo93@libero.it Site: About:See Authors Posts (4) on March 14, 2010
Done by the user Liquid Cooling
LiquidCooling had a broken 8800 gtx that shows artifact and he read that if you bake an 8800 gtx, you can remove this problem.
So he tried:
Unfortunately the card did only one boot after the bake session and could pass a 3dmark 06 before dieing again.
Review: ‘Update: January 31st’ Lamptron -FC3- Limited Edition2 Comments By The DukecloseAuthor: The DukeName: Drew Briggs Email: drew@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About: Just keeping it real for the average joe overclocker and computer user.See Authors Posts (168) on January 31, 2010
Over the weekend we had Lamptron deliver their Limited Edition FC3 fan controller to us. The limited edition FC-3 designed by Ian Helmar, otherwise known as “SNiiPE_DoGG”, comes in two different versions. There is a Model A and a Model B, each with some distinct aesthetic differences. Today we are going to be reviewing the model A. Below are some shots of the two versions that we found on Lamptron’s website that should help illustrate the differences:
*These are not to be mist...
Review: Lamptron FC5 Fan Controller2 Comments By The DukecloseAuthor: The DukeName: Drew Briggs Email: drew@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About: Just keeping it real for the average joe overclocker and computer user.See Authors Posts (168) on January 12, 2010
Today we will be taking a look at the new Lamptron [FC5] Fan Controller.
Specifications:
Dimension: 148.5mm * 42.5mm * 77mm (5 1/4 Bay)
Power Output: Up to 30W per channel
DC Input: + 12V (standard 4 – Pin Connector)
DC Output: 0V – 12VDC
Control Channels: 4 pcs
Changeable Display Colors: Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Purple, White
Temperature Sensors x4
Fan Connectors: 4 (3 pin) connections
Manual x1
Power Connectiong (4pin) x1
Colors Available: Black Anodized / Silver (must ...
Apevia X-Qpack & Gigabyte P55M-UD4 uATX build0 Comments By BuckeyecloseAuthor: BuckeyeName: Bill Harmon Email: wharmon@comcast.net Site: About:See Authors Posts (10) on December 26, 2009
Allways in the upgrade cycle it seems.
A popular case that my friends like to use is the Apevia X-QPack uATX line and we have built many of these. So I will be working with this case and upgrading a prebuilt system that was completed months ago.
Apevia makes three lines of the uATX series, the X-Qpack, X-Qpack2 and X-Qboii which is a uATX tower.
You can see that they come in a wide range of colors too pick from.
www.apevia.com/Products_Level3.asp?CID=1&CID2=2&CID3=0
www.apevia.com/Produc...
ZombieTek – LCD Display3 Comments By BuckeyecloseAuthor: BuckeyeName: Bill Harmon Email: wharmon@comcast.net Site: About:See Authors Posts (10) on December 26, 2009
Last year I began working on a project with a couple of friends that was based on a 4” LCD Display powered by a SLCD6 controller.
After seeing these units at Reachtech.com who manufactures these units in all different sizes and specifications I thought to myself that one of these units would be a great MOD to show computer data on the front of my TJ07 that I had just built. With the help from my friend Jeff I managed to get a unit from Steve over at Reachtech, both of whom are great guys and f...
Introduction
Coming a long way to use, all the way from Germany, today we have the Noiseblocker TwinTec in the house. The TwinTec from Noiseblocker is Is one of the few ventures the company made into actual CPU cooling hardware. Noiseblocker has impressed so far with it’s products and it’s ability to live up to it’s promise, which is to deliver a silent product.
The NB TwinTec features some interesting design differences. First, instead of using the traditional 6 to 8 heatpipe... 
We all know by now that Bitfenix has been on the warpath ever since entering the chassis market with a bang, debuting with their Colossus. Since that time, they have added three more models and dived into other avenues of customization. Today, with computer customization exploding in popularity, we will be looking at one of the latest crazes to hit the average user. For the longest time, sleeving PSU cables was the sole province of the pro-modding community, but now with all the tools and choice... 
The original recipe
A couple years ago, I put together a simple water cooling system that I dubbed FFF&FM.
Form
Follows
Function
and
Fully
Modular
And the name really tells you everything you need to know. It was not a pretty system, nor did it need to be….but it did work very well for cooling my HW while pretesting for more serious benching session with liquid nitrogen. Here is a link to the original forum post where I detailed the build.
FFF&FM Rev1.0 parts
The original syste... 
Ranging from the ever-efficient 600W all the way up to the 1200W power supply, the Silent Pro Gold lineup will have something to satisfy the energy cravings of any system. With a power efficiency rating of 90%, the Silent Pro Gold line meets the 80Plus Gold Standard. To achieve this goal, Cooler Master incorporates three visionary patents into this innovative design.
The Hybrid Transformer incorporates the transformer with the heat sink, not only reducing the size by 25% over traditional trans... 
Introduction
USB 2.0 is the most widely used port in modern computers, but with USB 3.0 emerging to provide up to ten times increase in speed, the move to upgrade to USB 3.0 becomes more important. The FP36 is SilverStone’s solution for users to quickly upgrade cases that lack front USB 3.0 ports. It is also a drive bay adapter that has mounting slots for two 2.5” hard drives. The FP36 has cables that connect directly to motherboard rear I/O panel’s USB 3.0 ports (for motherboards with bui... 
One of my co-workers is a hardcore gamer and power user. Since we’ve met, he’s become more and more interested in the hardware aspect of computing, and recently asked me to help build him a new system.
He previously had a Phenom II X4 940 based system with 4GB of memory and dual GTX 260 graphics cards. Everything was run at stock speeds as he preferred to spend his time gaming as opposed to tweaking. Although his system was no slouch, as any hardcore gamer knows; “the fas... 
The Lian Li PC-Q08 carries the standard of Lian Li’s quality, all the sharp edges have been removed to protect your hands. The chassis is made of 1.5mm aluminum alloy panel to ensure the product’s durability, and all external parts are hair-line brushed anodized aluminum in keeping with Lian Li’s classical style. The solid chassis has no vibration problems and the side panels are secured with screws, which also reduces the vibration, and lowers the noise level. The PC-Q08 is the perfect s... 
Tired of hearing noise coming from your computer? Trying to reduce the sound to make it as quiet as you possibly can? The Silverstone SF01 may be what you need to help with your noise troubles. We will be testing to see if this product can noticeably decrease noise levels coming from our computer. Continue reading and see if this noise absorption product is for you.
Packaging:
Specifications:
Installation:
Installation was very easy! All you need to do is measure how big of a piece you w... 
“Gaming in Tight Spaces” – Part Two
Last month I brought you part one in this series entitled “Gaming in Tight Spaces – mini-ITX (featuring Gigabyte, Silverstone, and Prolimatech)”. In that article, I talked a bit about the history of mini-ITX and my fascination with it. If you didn’t get a chance to look it over yet, feel free to check it out as I’ll be referencing it a lot in this article.
My goal with the original was to simply build a gaming PC in which I would be usi... 
Lamptron has been leading the way with great peripherals for awhile now. They always seem to bring top quality products to the marketplace and today we have Lamptron’s new fan controller, the -FC6- , up for review. If this is anything like our past experiences with Lamptron products, then we are in for a treat. Let’s see if the -FC6- lives up to our high expectations, shall we?
Packaging:
*We do need to point out that on the box it has “Power Output: Up to 10w per Channel.... 
The 72-7712 Digital Thermometer from Tenma Test Equipment is a dual thermocouple meter with internal logging capability, USB output for saving logged data and software up-link. This unit can become an integral part of a PC testing arsenal by allowing for isolation of case hot spots, heat sink testing and LN2/Dry Ice work. The limitations start to change and the performance bar can be raised when you know where it is hot and where it is not.
Compatible with K-, J-, T- and E- thermocouples (oth... 
Introduction
Cooler Master’s current best seller, the CM 690 was initially launched in 2007 and has been one of their mainstays ever since then. The popularity of this chassis was such that it spawned a number of variants, amongst them a windowed version and later the pure version with an all black interior. The chassis was very simple in design and construction and what made it such a great product was that it was designed keeping a lot of the market requirements in mind.
With chan... 
Awhile back, I was doing a review and I had to keep taking my main computer off my desk and setting up a make-shift tech station. Although this worked fine, and I had no problems with it, it was very annoying. After the review was done, I started coming up with ideas of a tech station wonderland. Something that would and could do anything and everything I wanted it to do. I wanted it to be able to handle anything I threw at it, water or air. With all that in mind, I thought about it for a few da... 
Done by the user Liquid Cooling
LiquidCooling had a broken 8800 gtx that shows artifact and he read that if you bake an 8800 gtx, you can remove this problem.
So he tried:
Unfortunately the card did only one boot after the bake session and could pass a 3dmark 06 before dieing again.
Over the weekend we had Lamptron deliver their Limited Edition FC3 fan controller to us. The limited edition FC-3 designed by Ian Helmar, otherwise known as “SNiiPE_DoGG”, comes in two different versions. There is a Model A and a Model B, each with some distinct aesthetic differences. Today we are going to be reviewing the model A. Below are some shots of the two versions that we found on Lamptron’s website that should help illustrate the differences:
*These are not to be mist... 
Today we will be taking a look at the new Lamptron [FC5] Fan Controller.
Specifications:
Dimension: 148.5mm * 42.5mm * 77mm (5 1/4 Bay)
Power Output: Up to 30W per channel
DC Input: + 12V (standard 4 – Pin Connector)
DC Output: 0V – 12VDC
Control Channels: 4 pcs
Changeable Display Colors: Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Purple, White
Temperature Sensors x4
Fan Connectors: 4 (3 pin) connections
Manual x1
Power Connectiong (4pin) x1
Colors Available: Black Anodized / Silver (must ... 
Allways in the upgrade cycle it seems.
A popular case that my friends like to use is the Apevia X-QPack uATX line and we have built many of these. So I will be working with this case and upgrading a prebuilt system that was completed months ago.
Apevia makes three lines of the uATX series, the X-Qpack, X-Qpack2 and X-Qboii which is a uATX tower.
You can see that they come in a wide range of colors too pick from.
www.apevia.com/Products_Level3.asp?CID=1&CID2=2&CID3=0
www.apevia.com/Produc... 
Last year I began working on a project with a couple of friends that was based on a 4” LCD Display powered by a SLCD6 controller.
After seeing these units at Reachtech.com who manufactures these units in all different sizes and specifications I thought to myself that one of these units would be a great MOD to show computer data on the front of my TJ07 that I had just built. With the help from my friend Jeff I managed to get a unit from Steve over at Reachtech, both of whom are great guys and f... 
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