HOW I´VE BUILT MY NEW PC FOR XXHIGHEND AND WHY I´VE CHOSEN THE COMPONENTS

[boleary]

Thanks Nick, you confirmed what I understood from your description of your build but I wanted to be certain. Am waiting to here how Mani's two Seasonic PS's work out. Don't know how I could accomplish that with a standard case but it would be nice to have the dvd drive and additional HD's plugged in.

Am sure more questions will follow. Can't say how much I appreciate your, and everyone elses, contribution to this forum!

Brian

[Nick]

Mani, all,

If you come up with any particular tweaks for the mobo let me know.

I have been spending some time messing about with device driver loads using MS Autoruns. Windows 7 loads every driver it can think of when installing on this Asus P9X79 WS mother board and when it has done this it adds LOADS more for devices that i don't think are even part of the motherboard !

I am about 2/3 the way thought the driver thinning out process and there is a subtle but significant change to sound quality. Dynamics and attack apear to drop a little but there is a nice change in tone accuracy and differentiation. Harmonics and delicacy of decay are much improved, like the a slightly faulty sustain peddle on a piano has been fixed. Digital hardness has reduced and analogue type smoothness hasimproved (again  ).

I don't intend playing with all the driver load permutations and combinations (they are endless). I may set up some restore points to track blocks of Autoruns changes to make sure that things are moving in the right direction.

It's an old tweak this but it's really working on the Asus motherboard.

I will post when I have something worth trying, discounting the slight change to dynamics (still making my minde up on this) I would say this is a very worthwhile change, similar in scale of change that the use of USB 3 brings.

Back soon with some Autoruns lists to try out.

Best Nick.
Edits to grammar 

[PeterSt]

It's an old tweak this but it's really working on the Asus motherboard.

I have another tweak : Don't install the Asus "sh*t" in the first place !
I never do that ... (are you crazy ?!)

And so the question : will all still work a little (OK) without this loaded for your mb ?
For almost sure you will need to install the USB3 drivers from Asus, which btw is the only thing I did for my mb (which is not an X79 of course).

Peter

[Nick]

I have another tweak : Don't install the Asus "sh*t" in the first place !
I never do that ... (are you crazy ?!)

Haha 

Me neither generally but only the stuff to tweak the clock speed. Funny thing is that Minimised OS stops it loading very nicely (you must hate that stuff Peter  )

The drivers I have been stripping are Windows 7 installed.

Nick.

Edit
Ps the Asus USB driver is gone  just the NEC PCIe USB 3 driver left.

[PeterSt]

Hehe Nick ... now the other way around ... when you want to prevent it from being stopped, just exclude it in the list for it (I guess you will know).

Regards,
Peter

[boleary]

Hope this question isn't too elementary: Using a midtower, desktop case without case fans, but with a side vent, is it better to mount a fanless PS at the top or bottom of the case?

[PeterSt]

My idea ?
At the top so it won't heat up the other components;
At the bottom so it won't heat up itself.

But net, at the top seems worse because its own heat can't go anywhere.
But neither seems very okay. Ah, that's what you thought yourself eh ?

[boleary]

Right. My thoughts exactly! I'm just wondring what others that have a desktop case and went fanless, if any, decided.

[boleary]

Here's one case I'm looking at. It's cheap but has everything for either water or fan cooling. Also, it has a top air grill as well as back/top air vent for a fan. The only problem is that the PS mounts on the bottom.

http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=3009&product_name=HAF 912

[juanpmar]

Hi Brian,

Check with the Cooler Master web site or the store if you can change the PSU position in the box and place it at the top. I own a Cooler Master Sileo 500 and although in the pictures you can see that the psu is placed at the bottom the placement of the hdd box can be changed for the PSU box.

The Sileo is also a great case and very silent although it´s not prepared for water cooling.

You can check also the Silencio 550 that besides it is a silent case it also has a removable (interchangeable) hhd box and is prepared also for water cooling, I´m sure you can change the psu position. http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=3044&product_name=Silencio%20550

Best regards,
Juan

[boleary]

Thanks Juan.

[boleary]

Hey Juan the 550  looks very nice, not like the cheap one I mentioned before, a kids gameing box..... BUT...I would think that a side and top vent would be necesary for heat transfer in a fanless box and I don't think the Silencio 550 has either. I'd also worry about the extra noise reducing padding as an impediment to heat transfer. I don't really know, just going on intuition here......any other suggestions from you or anyone else are certainly welcome!

[praphan]

Hey Juan the 550  looks very nice, not like the cheap one I mentioned before, a kids gameing box..... BUT...I would think that a side and top vent would be necesary for heat transfer in a fanless box and I don't think the Silencio 550 has either. I'd also worry about the extra noise reducing padding as an impediment to heat transfer. I don't really know, just going on intuition here......any other suggestions from you or anyone else are certainly welcome!

Hi,

You may like to consider cases that do not really need any fans. Antec used to offer Skeleton which was posted in XX forum 2 years ago. I think it is no longer available. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129056 

Lien Li also offers similar bare bone style. I like Lien Li aluminium range manufactured in Taiwan. Great craftsmanship.

[praphan]

But net, at the top seems worse because its own heat can't go anywhere.

Hi,

I am 100% aligned with Peter. If you place SMPS on top of the case, heat generated from other components such as north and south bridge heatsinks will soak your SMPS. Combined with its own heat, your Seasonic fan will kick start all the time.

Why don't consider placing the PS outside the case, so you can go for multimedia PC case. For more noise (both audio and RFI/EMI) immuned linear power supply system, please check this out. It will be available next month.

http://www.itemaudio.com/index.php/power-supplies/detail/1-power-supplies/flypage/1011-item-linear-atx-power-supply?sef=hcfp

Regards,
Praphan

[juanpmar]

Hi Brian,

If the problem is to avoid noise I´d go for the configuration I have in my Sileo 550 case with a Be Quite! 730w psu in the top of the case, I could use also the Corsair AX750. This is the system I use for work with an i7 2600, 16Gb of memory and a passive graphic card. I wanted this pc silent because I work at home in the same room I have my sound system, this way I can listen music all the time while working. This pc is, as I say, absolutely silent, more in fact than the  one I use for music. At a distance of 20cm the noise I can hear is zero. The case has two 12mm fans one in the front, one in the rear and one Scythe fan in the cpu, all of them working at low rpm. So, no noise and no heat.
I have not tested this pc though with my sound system so I can´t say if it makes the sound better or worse than the one you can see in my sig.
Let me tell you again, if the problem is noise, I´d go for a pc similar to the one I use for working because also is very easy to set up and very cheap.

On the other hand, if the problem we want afford has to do with interferences, besides noise, maybe I´d go for something like Nick and others are building. Well, the problem is in my opinion that:
- you are changing the fan noise (negligible in the pc I´ve described above) and interferences inside the case (motherboard,etc) for the noise of the external water cooling pump, if any, and the interference you are putting into the wall that maybe also affect the sound.
- The system that Nick is building is still under experimentation and although maybe at the end would be applicable in an easy way so far is: a) hard to understand for the non technical guys like you and me  (and many others here, I guess). b): this system is more complicated to build and more expensive.

What I´d do in your case is build a pc like the one above which is not expensive, as silent as possible with fans and wait that Nick, Peter and others finally get a great pc to be used with XX and NOS1 and wait that they put it here in an easy way to be appicable for all of us. Meanwhile I´m glad and feel lucky that they are working hard on it.


Best regards,
Juan