Random Tech/Science Thought and Chatter - Tree of Souls

**Sight Unseen** · #1 12-20-2010, 03:52 PM

I thought this would be a good idea, because there's a lot of tech stuff to talk about that isn't a computer picture or deserving of it's own thread. Well, here goes:

Has anybody noticed that ammo cans make great HDD storage boxes? I got a 200 round 30cal box with 3TB of disks in it. If you line the inside with something non-conductive like shipping foam, it's also EMP-Proof, in addition to being waterproof, dustproof, and shockproof.

Human No More · #2 12-20-2010, 09:36 PM

One of my friends has a microATX PC built in one

**Sight Unseen** · #3 12-21-2010, 04:46 AM

I was thinking of doing that because I have an atom board laying around, but I'm out of ammo cans. Time for a trip to the surplus store.

tm20 · #4 12-26-2010, 05:24 AM

fail

Indian satellite rocket explodes after lift-off

**Sight Unseen** · #5 12-26-2010, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tm20

fail

Indian satellite rocket explodes after lift-off

Someone should call tech support. ;D

Also, got a Phenom II X6 1090T for Christmas.

It generates a lot of heat. The aftermarket cooler that kept my X2 at a chilly 40C load gets up to 65C on prime95 at 4GHz, 1.5V. I was thinking of getting a Hyper 212+ or a Corsair H50, anyone got any feedback on these heatsinks or reccommendation for something else <70 usd?

**Helicoradian** · #6 12-26-2010, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sight Unseen

Someone should call tech support. ;D

Also, got a Phenom II X6 1090T for Christmas.

It generates a lot of heat. The aftermarket cooler that kept my X2 at a chilly 40C load gets up to 65C on prime95 at 4GHz, 1.5V. I was thinking of getting a Hyper 212+ or a Corsair H50, anyone got any feedback on these heatsinks or reccommendation for something else <70 usd?

At one point I had a Hyper 212+, with a push/pull fan configuration it should do pretty good at keeping a x6 cool. It would keep a athlon II @ 3.6ghz 1.42v around 30C running prime95. I replaced it with a phenom II heatsink to free up some room in my case

I'd be concerned with the vrm's getting too hot since you overclocked it and raised the Vcore. I've read about people killing boards with the x6 cpu's because they pull a fair bit of power.

**Sight Unseen** · #7 12-26-2010, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Helicoradian

At one point I had a Hyper 212+, with a push/pull fan configuration it should do pretty good at keeping a x6 cool. It would keep a athlon II @ 3.6ghz 1.42v around 30C running prime95. I replaced it with a phenom II heatsink to free up some room in my case

I'd be concerned with the vrm's getting too hot since you overclocked it and raised the Vcore. I've read about people killing boards with the x6 cpu's because they pull a fair bit of power.

I don't think that I'll have to worry about killing the vrems on my motherboard. It has a quite large heatsink on top of the mosfets and the ferrites, and I scraped off the thermal pad and replaced it with as5.

I used to have a Athlon II X2 at 3.9GHz at 1.55V, it was around 30C normally as well. It seems my current heatsink is roughly equivalent to a hyper 212, and it can't keep up with the X6 at 1.5V. Also the corsair h50 has a lot of questionable reviews. Guess I gotta go hunt some more for something that works and won't cost me an arm and a leg.

Human No More · #8 12-27-2010, 04:42 AM

Ouch, that's a lot of heat. Corsair stuff is great, I'd recommend it, don't know exactly how good the H50 is but I've heard good things, while many premade watercooling kits can be fairly variable in quality.

**Sight Unseen** · #9 12-27-2010, 08:14 AM

I think I'm getting one of these and put a very high cfm fan on it. I would just go for watercooling, but I'm much too poor for that, and too lazy to change out coolant every few months, and it would be hard to carry a massive radiator in addition to a 50lb computer to a friends house or something.

And I stopped stress testing and benchmarking long enough to play some crysis and mass effect 2. When my parents were gone yesterday I hooked my PC up to the 1080P tv in the living room. Mass Effect 2 with forced 16xQ AA and 16X AF never dropped below VSync at 60FPS, even on the Presidium. Crysis with everything on very high (except motion blur, which is off because it's annoying) and 8xQ AA, 16x AF got ~25-70 fps with avg. fps of 37. And this is with a GTX275. I got at least a 5-10 fps gain in all games except very old ones like Halo PC, and a massive 70fps jump in WoW.

**Sight Unseen** · #10 12-29-2010, 11:11 PM

The weather outside right now:

Average power outages/hr for 6 hours: 1.2

**Helicoradian** · #11 12-30-2010, 09:12 AM

How about this? Newegg.com - CORSAIR CAFA70 120mm Dual-Fan CPU Cooler

I know someone with the a50 and it keeps a phenom II 955 at 46c full load. Or you could just go straight to ln2

**Sight Unseen** · #12 01-01-2011, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Helicoradian

How about this? Newegg.com - CORSAIR CAFA70 120mm Dual-Fan CPU Cooler

I know someone with the a50 and it keeps a phenom II 955 at 46c full load. Or you could just go straight to ln2

I did consider that cooler, until i read this:

Quote:

Cons: -For AMD users due to the mounting bracket you can only mount the heatsink North to South

and that simply won't work because my motherboard's DDR3 slots are closer to the socket than most, and my ram modules are very thick due to heat spreaders. Liquid nitrogen... Don't want to stop gaming every 5 minutes to top it off, and ln2 is 'spensive to obtain in quantity.

This thread is dying... someone needs to swoop in with something interesting to talk about.

Human No More · #13 01-02-2011, 06:07 AM

hrh, yeah, LN2 is great for setting records... but not really practical.
If you're limited for space around the CPU socket, water is probably the best way to go.

**Sight Unseen** · #14 01-02-2011, 10:05 AM

I'm not limited in space anywhere except the right side of the socket. Either the heatpipes have to be tall enough to clear the ram or not extend too far to the right. I would go for water, but it's either too 'spensive or a piece of junk. I would also like to spend less on cooling than I did on the CPU itself.

**Sight Unseen** · #15 02-11-2011, 03:45 AM

Trying to reignite thread.

I'm officially pissed. Every time all my stuff works, something breaks within a week. I finally got a CPU cooler for my PC and my server HDD comes back from seagate, and all is well. Until the brownout came yesterday and fried my Desktop's PSU and motherboard. ****.

I still can't believe a minor brownout killed my Corsair psu, I am dissapoint. Oh, and their tech support sucks hard. I applied for an rma, they still haven't called me or sent me an email. Not to mention I'm going to be out 40 bucks because of shipping.

And my room smelled like someone lit a stack of plastic bags on fire for a few hours. It was a pretty epic fail though. The computer randomly shut off and when I went to go turn it on again, I pressed the power button and a white flash was seen and smoke vented from the PSU's fan, followed by a few caps on the motherboard exploding like popcorn.

Technology.