BadGoldEagle

Hi Have you ever seen an internal PSU fan with more than three pins? Most PSUs only have 2 pin fans but I'm wondering if it may be possible to encounter one with a 4 pin connector (ie with separate PWM signal). Thanks for your input! Here's what I'm doing if someone's interested... I'm modding an ATX PSU and I'll be adding a second fan controller on top of the original one (I need to increase the minimum speed). Two or three pin fans are controlled using either linear voltage regulation (typically between 6-12V) or with 12V normalized PWM. 4 pin fans also have a dedicated PWM pin but it's not +12V, so you can't plug a 2 pin/3pin fan into a 4 pin header and expect to get the same behavior as with a 4 pin fan. If 4 pin PSU fans do exist, it'll be a real pain to modify my controller to take them into account. The goal here is for that second controller to be compatible will all ATX PSUs, not just one.

My hard drive is a full height 1.5GB Maxtor P1-17S that can apparently consume up to 26W when seeking. No idea what the repartition between the 12V and 5V rails actually is. I do have an HD SD 'emulator' that is bus powered (i.e. motherboard powered) that consumes less but how much exactly I wouldn't know. The VX550 is old and expensive but its 5V is still way overkill for what the actual power consumption apparently is. I'd feel much more confident in case there's something we've overlooked. Why would the original PSU (bespoke for this machine btw) have that much power if it wasn't used?

Here they are (Yes, I know, it's old. Try taking a guess what this machine is...): 40MHz OC 68040 CPU (give or take 10W TDP, or 2A) 66MHz 486DX2 card (same I would say) 4x Molex (I don't quite understand how much these can carry, I've read reports that it can do more than 100W which seems ludicrous!) 1x Display card, not exactly a GPU as there is no acceleration. (max. 5V@2A, 12V@0.2A, -12V@0.2A) 4x Free slots (same specs as above), that may be filled later, so I need to provision for these. Total would be 14W for the 5V rail (the most critical one), but that doesn't account for all the on board stuff or the molex powered devices... That is about half what the VX550 can do, so I think this one would make a good and most importantly safe candidate, would'a think? Plus, I can get one under 50 bucks NIB.

Hi all, I'm currently building an ATX adapter for an old PC of mine. The original PSU could do 5V @33A and I'd like to match that as much as I can. New PCs don't rely on 5V as much as they did back in the day, so the rail tends to be quite weak nowadays. The old Corsair VX550 could do 28A. If I can't find one with a stronger output, I'll go with this one. Anybody here know of a good PSU that could do better than 28A? Oh and my budget is limited, so even though the 1600i can do 30A, it is out. Thanks!

Quick follow up: I got myself a 4TB Barracuda, and I cannot hear it spinning from where I'm sitting. If I put my head against the case I can hear the drive seek but it's really quiet. Thanks for your recommendation @Electronics Wizardy. It's exactly what I wanted. @SSD Sean I collect old computers, so I know how it feels to have a massive 5 ¼ inch stepper motor monster on my bench. I'm glad HDs have evolved since the 80s.

Okay. The one I just mentioned is a 5400rpm drive. Is this okay or should I go with a 7200rpm one? That'll probably introduce even more noise, right?

Thanks for your reply. I have seen some reports of ST4000DM000 failing with a 2% rate. But to be honest, I've seen WD drives go bad for no reason. So should I go with one of those Barracudas? I can have an ST4000DMZ04/DM004 for 100 euros (110 bucks) shipped. And last question, are they really quiet? I know there is no such thing as a completely silent hard drive, but I sit a meter away from the box and I don't want to hear it purring all day. The fans are pretty silent on this machine.

Hi all, My computer used to be a server, it has 2 Xeons running at 3,33GHz that are still more than capable for games, but it has a Sata II interface. I currently have a 1TB 860 Pro SSD (works great!) and I've ran out of storage. I don't have the kind of money to invest in a 4TB 860 plus I want to use this drive for a bit of everything, games but also to backup my video library. I already have a backup (external) but I'd like to use this new HD to create a second backup. So it needs to be fast enough to playback 1080p video and it also needs to be reliable (no seagates then?). I also want to install Forza Motorsport 7 on it. Last but not least, because this is probably the most important factor, I don't want a noisy hard drive, otherwise I would have gotten a WD black and that would have been the end of it. If I had to list what's the most important it would be like this: 1/ Noise 2/ Speed 3/Reliability I also understand that the perfect hard drive doesn't exist, so I am ready to make sacrifices. It has to be a 4TB drive. I am currently hesitating between a TOSHIBA X300, the WD Blue, the WD Black (if that's indeed the best and if it isn't as noisy as it used to be...), or the Barracuda (if they are more reliable than they used to be...). What would you guys recommend? Thanks for your help. Cheers, BGE

Hi all First and foremost, I need to apologise. I'm a Mac person (I know, I know, wrong forum...) BUT that doesn't stop me from being a PC guy (PC as in Personal Computer). I have a Mac Pro 5,1 (2x x5680, 1080ti blower, Windows 10) that I use for games and CAD and I'm into computers in general. I've been a LTT subscriber since the Whole room water-cooling project so please don't hate me. With that said, let's move on. Apple were one of the first manufacturers to introduce liquid cooled systems. In 2003, they started using the PowerPC G5 chip. Those processors were known for running QUITE hot (80°C under light load is normal). They never introduced any G5 laptops for this reason. Towards the end of the era, air cooling wasn't enough to cool those beasts. So Apple asked GM to design a LCS for their top of the range Powermacs. I have one of those machines, it's got two dual core G5 970MP processors. TL;DR The thing is, Apple being Apple, they never had servicing in mind when they introduced those Macs and now the LCS needs servicing. As a consequence there are no service ports. I have already replaced the hoses and the liquid but there are just too many air bubbles. Here are a couple of pictures of how an OG unit looks like: Courtesy SuperKerem @Mac Rumors Forums and The Bookyard NB: There is a cover which hides away the LCS so space is rather limited... So, my questions are: 1/ Would it be possible to add a T fitting after the pump's inlet or outlet port to make refilling easier? (preferably output given the hose length) 2/ I know a reservoir technically has two ports but would it be possible to create a one port tank to make bleeding easier? Something like this (pardon the crappy drawing) 3/ Any suggestions to future-proof the system? As you can tell I have zero water cooling experience... Thanks for taking the time to read all of this. Bonus points if you are a PC MR guy or gal.