My Signature computer in Pics

[Carskick]

I have finally done it! I opened up my signature computer today to clean it, and make sure everything was operational, and I thought "Hey, I'll take some pictures of it." So I did. Here is my custom build. Through HP, that is. ;)

[trav]

OOHHHH cool!!! :D  :o  :D

[iansl]

Suweet, mon. I have a pic of my case with everything off of it (front panel, side panels) when we were replacing the DVDRW drive. But inside, mine probably looks quite a bit like yours.

[trav]

How many PCI slots do you have? 3?

[iansl]

I'm pretty sure I do.

[trav]

My question was aimed at Carskick ;)

[iansl]

Looks like 3 PCI slots to me in his pix. That's pretty standard for HPs anyway, at least consumer esktops. There looks to be 4 slots there. One of them is AGP, like on my system.

[Carskick]

Yeah, 3 PCI. Iansl, yours probably looks similar in size inside, as far as same size board and number of slots, but I doubt the board looks the same, as yours is an intel. It's probably not even orange. Most likely an Intel board with an intel chipset.

I also kind of tested my video card's abilities white I was in it. When the fan on the card spun up, I could barely tell any audible difference, which was great. I noticed that it spins up when it goes into 3D mode, then leaves the fan on after it goes back into 2D mode to cool the card back down. I think the card looks awesome!

Only having 3 PCI slots is no big deal for me since I just use integrated sound, integrated ethernet, AGP video, etc.

I think it's funny how HP used tie wraps to knot all the power and IDE wires together. There is very little slack, so I can't do much organizing to them.

Glad you guys enjoyed the tour of my PC.

[iansl]

Mine's an Asus board. Too, I guess. It probably has an Intel chipset, but our boards are probably fairly similar.

[Carskick]

Huh, I thought HP used Intel boards. I guess they switched.

[Whizbang]

Looks like a 120mm fan on the exhaust.  I think that should be accepted standard, although I must admit that each of mine on the two units are 80mm and must be complemented carefully with at least two more fans to get the necessary air flow.

[Carskick]

Yeah, it is. According to the BIOS, it runs at about 2200RPMs. The CPU Fan at about 4400RPMs. With these fans, I'm surrprized the system doesn't run very cool. Probably The lack of good air slots in the front or a fan in the front is a contributor to this. The CPU runs at about 50 degrees Celcius according to the BIOS.

But for being an HP system, I have been very happy with it. It is very quiet, runs very quickly, and complains very little. I guess you could find fault in the supposedly underpowered PSU, but air comming out of the PSU fan isn't very hot, and it's had no problems, even with my power hungery video card. All the parts are very good quality. And again, even though the PSU isn't rated very high, it has a large 120mm fan and seems sturdy. It's now over a year old and still running strong, even with the stress I put on it.

[Whizbang]

The desire to lower the CPU temp was why I added a side fan with a duct on my old unit.  It did not have a hole in the side for the fan, so I used a drill press circle cutter installed in a hand drill to make one.  I would not advise that unless you have had some experience with that procedure.  Both of my new units have pre-installed side fans over the CPU, and I just added an acrylic duct to direct the air to the CPU.  It works very well and CPU temps rarely get above 113? F  (45?C).  Right now, with 72?F ambient and 77?F case temp, the CPUs are running at 102?F and 109?F.  

[Carskick]

I don't think I'm ready for those types of mods. Maybe when it's my second computer. Anyways, the temperatures are well within the range of safety. My gfx card usually is what runs somewhat warm. Once it kicks into 3D mode and kicks on the fan, it easily exceeds 60 degrees celcius. The next PCI slot over is empty, so it's not that. Just for fun, I've overclocked it with no stablity problems from 400/800 up to 420/840, but I don't keep it there.