I’ve finally got around to installing a few
bits and pieces from Akasa (sold at both Overclock and overclockers.co.uk,
and
other PC hardware boutiques, rather than the mainstream sheds) in my PC.
For historical rather than any other reasons I
run
SCSI drives in my machines so I have an LVD cable running from a PCI card,
an
ATA cable running from the motherboard to a CD-ROM drive, and a floppy
cable
running from the motherboard. I replaced the standard “out of the
box”
cables which came with the motherboard with Akasa rounded cables in all
three
instances, and motherboard monitor showed a reduction in temperature from
32 to
30 degrees mainboard, but most importantly 2 degrees down to 47 at the
CPU.
I run an Athlon XP 1500 which I unlocked myself
at 180
x 8.5 (1800 equivalent, because I can more than because it saves money)
–
so it does pump out a fair amount of heat. The whole shebang is cooled
using an
ALPHA PAL 8045 heatsink with a YS-Tech FD8125 fan.
I also installed an Akasa PAX-mate Acoustic
absorption
mat – which is basically horrible smelling self adhesive carpet
underlay
type stuff which fits on the inside of all the aluminium panels which make
up
my Coolermaster aluminium case. While I could only register a 1dB reduction
in
noise at idle, it does seem to have removed the more offensive parts of the
spectrum, so the two inlet and two exhaust fans over and above the CPU fans
encroach less on normal living.
We do all tend to run our PCs 24/7, and for those
of
us that use the PC as an entertainment hub the Akasa stuff will help to
keep
them cool and quiet, and at the same time only add a few quid to the cost
of
building a new PC. The CoolerMaster cases are a different matter though.
They
certainly look nice, but the cheapest (steel/alloy hybrid construction)
comes
in at 100 quid without power
supply, or so Phil (it was a bargain) Harris tells me.:)
Tim