Gimme some input on my computer choice

[DeeBye]

Great! First off, congrats on your new rig. I'm sorry if I sounded insulting or anything before. I just hate to see people make decisions uninformed, and then regret it. Computers can be VERY daunting, especially when you're doing more than picking one off a shelf, so I try to help out whenever I can.[right][snapback]106880[/snapback][/right]

I wasn't insulted in the slightest. I know you and how passionate you get about these sorts of things. I was expecting and hoping for a reply like that.

Secondly, congrats on a quieter rig! That is, IMHO, one of the biggest prizes of all. If you can build a fast rig that's quiet too, you are in heaven. I don't care how fast my rig is; if the noise drowns out everything else, I'm likely to not even use it. :P[right][snapback]106880[/snapback][/right]

I really like this Antec case. There is a nice big 120mm fan in the back that runs at a fairly slow speed. It moves a lot of air and is almost silent. One of the really nice things it features is a side-mounted exhaust, with a shroud that goes directly to the CPU fan. I haven't checked it under load, but right now my CPU is idling at 30C. The only thing that really makes noise is the optical drive when it spins up, but that's par for the course.

When I got home, I of course opened it up and had a peek at all of the components. I was really impressed at how this thing was put together. All of the cables were neatly zip-tied together and tucked away. Where possible, the cables run along the edges of the case. Almost nothing runs anywhere near the fans, shroud, or motherboard (except where they had no choice). Whoever assembled it certainly knew what they were doing.

As a side note, my 3 year old son is growing up to be a geek. When he saw my new computer, the first thing he said was "Can I see inside it? I want to check it out" :blush:

I do have a couple of minor gripes though. The case is kind of a pain to open up. You have to slide the top off before you can pull the side panel off. It does have just two thumbscrews, but it would be much easier if you could just pull the side panel off without having to fart around with the top panel. This makes closing it back up a tricky procedure, because you have to line up both the top and side panel before you can reinsert the thumbscrews. Or maybe I'm just not coordinated enough to pull this off. I sometimes have trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time.

My main gripe is one I've been trying to solve for the past hour or so. My motherboard supports the hot-swapping of SATA drives. This causes Windows to give me an ever-present "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the taskbar, nevermind that the hardware that is safe to remove is my one and only harddrive which contains Windows itself. I might just follow up on Windows' suggestion and yank the drive while powered up just to see what happens. Or maybe not. I know that I can hide this icon, but I'd much rather find a way to truly fix the problem. I haven't found any workarounds that really appeal to me. That icon is ugly.

My final gripe is the Logitech optical mouse included with my purchase. It's just a vanilla optical mouse. It works well enough I guess, but it really sucks compared to my old MX510. It has to go. Out with the new and in with the old. The Logitech keyboard is nice, though it lacks the satisfying "clackity-clack" feedback of my 6-year old Compaq beast. It's really comfortable to use though, so I'll stick with it.

And finally, here is the payoff picture. I took this with my cellphone, so it's a bit fuzzy. And yes, the first game I installed on this machine was Diablo 2 :)



Check out the creepy Logitech centre channel perched atop my monitor. It feels like Johnny Five is watching every move I make :wacko: