dnar
27th November 2002, 10:09
Ok, I have today complete my workstation upgrade, having just received the final component, an Antec TruePower 380W supply.
My system now has new mobo, CPU, ram & hard drive (thanks to recent failures of both IBM and Maxtor drives). Actually, the darn CD-ROM died too, and that's why the old AOPen 300W PSU was just dropped in the bin.... Loosing just about all your drives in one month just aint normal, and even if it's wasnt the old AOpen's fault, it's about time it was replaced anyway, as 18 months of 24x7 is hard yakka. I never realised just how noisy that old supply was until I changed it, it had a high frequency switching noise that was kinda painfull.
Anyway, nuff talk, here are the pic's for the optically stimulated over clockers. :)
Spanking new Antec TruePower 380W supply. 80mm external exhaust fan, 92mm internal fan, both variable speed based on load and temp, gold plated connectors, and to top it off a real mains switch.
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/antec380w.jpg
More than enough drive connectors, nice and long too. The mobo cable includes a nice sheath. The variable speed fan drive is also provided on a dedicated cable, for a max of 2 fans. Watch this, I connected my 2 x front fans and CPU cooler to this, and it's only 5V when it first starts... Lucky I did a test power-on with the case open, or I would have cooked my CPU before the OS completed booting... Oh, you also get a fan speed cable, for connection to a mobo fan speed header... There is also the additional mobo connector for P4 systems.
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/antec380w_cables.jpg
The supply is finally in it's home, the extra long mobo cable is tucked under my CD writer, this cable is like 2 feet long, and it only need be 6 inches in my case, an AOpen HX08.
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/psu_and_drives.jpg
A view from the under-belly, you can see the 92mm fan is well placed, and a real asset in these AOpen full towers, that have no provision for a rear exaust fan close to the CPU... The 80mm fan sitated at the very top/rear of the case now see's less hot CPU air as a result, and thats good news for my hard drive(s).
You can also see clearly the new Gigabyte GA-7VAXP mobo, Matrox G450 dual-head video and SoundBlaster crud-myster-audio.
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/ga7vaxp_1.jpg
This time we can see my severely hacked and slayed front panel work. I have removed the lower hard drive bays, and fitted 2 x 92mm PAPST fans. Those baby's are nice. :) You can also see the Gigabyte expansion headers, providing 4 x USB ports and 3 x Firewire ports. There are also 2 x USB ports on the mobo, right near the usual mouse/keyboard ports. Checkout the northbridge HSF, not bad!
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/inside_front_fans.jpg
This is the "gun shot" front panel. I have drilled several hundred holes in the front panel and the blank drive bays, to allow the 2 x 92mm PAPST fans to breathe... Air in and out of this case moves very quickly. :)
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/front.jpg
The rear end of the tower, the top right fan (black) has been cut out by me, you can see by the perforations on the left of it, that AOpen dont really have a clue about airflow.... (they know a lot about whistles apparently). The top exhaust fan is a PAPST 80mm. The mobo is mounted to a removable chassis on these cases, and that chassis is sturdy, not like some other cases where they loose all strength when removed from the case.
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/rear_1.jpg
A close-up of the I/O ports, this mobo is the "burger with the lot"!!! Top to bottom we have:- Kbd/Mouse, 2 x USB 2.0, 10/100 LAN, 2 xSerial, Parrallel, Game, 5.1 Audio (Optical Fibre, Digital RCA and Sub/Surround panel not fitted), 2xVGA, SoundBlaster, 10/100 card, 4 x USB 2.0, 3 x Firewire.
I dont use the onboard LAN or sound...
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/rear_2.jpg
Tonight I managed to get the GA-7VAXP and Corsair XMS3500C2 to run 9.5x200! W00t! This rig performs quite nicely, compared to the old Tbid 1000@1450 and SDRAM that lived here before, benchmarks now show an improvement of 36% CPU and 300% memory bandwidth. Responsive is the word. :)
My system now has new mobo, CPU, ram & hard drive (thanks to recent failures of both IBM and Maxtor drives). Actually, the darn CD-ROM died too, and that's why the old AOPen 300W PSU was just dropped in the bin.... Loosing just about all your drives in one month just aint normal, and even if it's wasnt the old AOpen's fault, it's about time it was replaced anyway, as 18 months of 24x7 is hard yakka. I never realised just how noisy that old supply was until I changed it, it had a high frequency switching noise that was kinda painfull.
Anyway, nuff talk, here are the pic's for the optically stimulated over clockers. :)
Spanking new Antec TruePower 380W supply. 80mm external exhaust fan, 92mm internal fan, both variable speed based on load and temp, gold plated connectors, and to top it off a real mains switch.
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/antec380w.jpg
More than enough drive connectors, nice and long too. The mobo cable includes a nice sheath. The variable speed fan drive is also provided on a dedicated cable, for a max of 2 fans. Watch this, I connected my 2 x front fans and CPU cooler to this, and it's only 5V when it first starts... Lucky I did a test power-on with the case open, or I would have cooked my CPU before the OS completed booting... Oh, you also get a fan speed cable, for connection to a mobo fan speed header... There is also the additional mobo connector for P4 systems.
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/antec380w_cables.jpg
The supply is finally in it's home, the extra long mobo cable is tucked under my CD writer, this cable is like 2 feet long, and it only need be 6 inches in my case, an AOpen HX08.
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/psu_and_drives.jpg
A view from the under-belly, you can see the 92mm fan is well placed, and a real asset in these AOpen full towers, that have no provision for a rear exaust fan close to the CPU... The 80mm fan sitated at the very top/rear of the case now see's less hot CPU air as a result, and thats good news for my hard drive(s).
You can also see clearly the new Gigabyte GA-7VAXP mobo, Matrox G450 dual-head video and SoundBlaster crud-myster-audio.
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/ga7vaxp_1.jpg
This time we can see my severely hacked and slayed front panel work. I have removed the lower hard drive bays, and fitted 2 x 92mm PAPST fans. Those baby's are nice. :) You can also see the Gigabyte expansion headers, providing 4 x USB ports and 3 x Firewire ports. There are also 2 x USB ports on the mobo, right near the usual mouse/keyboard ports. Checkout the northbridge HSF, not bad!
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/inside_front_fans.jpg
This is the "gun shot" front panel. I have drilled several hundred holes in the front panel and the blank drive bays, to allow the 2 x 92mm PAPST fans to breathe... Air in and out of this case moves very quickly. :)
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/front.jpg
The rear end of the tower, the top right fan (black) has been cut out by me, you can see by the perforations on the left of it, that AOpen dont really have a clue about airflow.... (they know a lot about whistles apparently). The top exhaust fan is a PAPST 80mm. The mobo is mounted to a removable chassis on these cases, and that chassis is sturdy, not like some other cases where they loose all strength when removed from the case.
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/rear_1.jpg
A close-up of the I/O ports, this mobo is the "burger with the lot"!!! Top to bottom we have:- Kbd/Mouse, 2 x USB 2.0, 10/100 LAN, 2 xSerial, Parrallel, Game, 5.1 Audio (Optical Fibre, Digital RCA and Sub/Surround panel not fitted), 2xVGA, SoundBlaster, 10/100 card, 4 x USB 2.0, 3 x Firewire.
I dont use the onboard LAN or sound...
http://dnaresearch.com.au/images/home/office/criten/rear_2.jpg
Tonight I managed to get the GA-7VAXP and Corsair XMS3500C2 to run 9.5x200! W00t! This rig performs quite nicely, compared to the old Tbid 1000@1450 and SDRAM that lived here before, benchmarks now show an improvement of 36% CPU and 300% memory bandwidth. Responsive is the word. :)