My new rig

[Chandler]

Here's the finalised parts list (all of which is ordered now):

• AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton (New)
  
• Biostar M7NCD motherboard (regular version since I'm not interested in SATA or overclocking) (New)
  
• Kingston 512MB PC2700 DDR RAM (New)
  
• Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (New)
  
• Creative Audigy 2 ZS (New)
  
• Hauppauge Nova-t PCI
  
• Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 200GB ATA (New)
  
• Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB SE ATA
  
• LG GSA-4081B
  
• LG GCE-8160B
  
• 400W 120mm Large Fan PSU (New)
  

I also bought a new heatsink/fan, since the Artic Cooler Copper Silent 2 I bought a while back has got a bent clip - I didn't want to risk using it.  I've bought an Arctic Cooler Slim Copper Silent 2, which is only 60mm high overall and should give a bit more breathing space in the strange Quantex case.

I like my existing Santa Cruz sound card, but its got to the point where there are going to be no new drivers for it, so it will be kept in the Pentium III, and an Audigy 2 ZS will be in my new PC.

I had planned on reusing old parts for the Pentium III, but the price of the above components (Radeon 9800 PRO for ?130) was pretty hard to beat, and should make the new PC excellent for 3D AutoCAD work (and Farcry ;)).  

I settled for a 120mm fan power supply, where the fan directly faces the CPU, it's also near silent and I'm sure the hard drives and Radeon will be louder than it is.  For the hard drives I bought a 3.5" to 5.25" adapter, as there are only 2 hard drive bays free (the floppy drive bay is narrower somehow) and also a new "silent" fan to go in the front inlet under the hard drives (bearings have worn out on the one I'm currently using)

I got the 512MB RAM very cheaply as it was listed as being HP RAM, and no-one was bidding on it (it was new and sealed on eBay).  I only bought one stick to be cautious in case it was incompatible, but have since tested it and it works.  I wish I had bought another stick - 1GB of RAM would have been pretty sweet.

I've got a small KVM switch because I only have one monitor for now, and it will also save space with the keyboard and mouse.

The fun part is going to be putting it together, but thats a few weeks away. :(

[Neon]

It looks like you did your homework on the parts selection. I think that will be a very satisfying setup when you are finished construction. you are probably right about the memory - CAD is supposedly memory intensive, and would benefit from more RAM.

[Chandler]

I hope so.  I hope that its quiet once its all put together.  I'm considering getting a silent graphics card cooler if the Radeon 9800Pro  is too loud.  Has anyone tried the Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer?

[slaxorz]

The active cooling is inaudible on radeon cards.  Its no louder than the heatsinc could be

[pat]

Well have fun Chandler, that will be a nice system when you get done.
I?d like to gut my old Q and put in some newer components as well. I?m concerned the case wouldn?t allow for the proper cooling of a modern AMD system. I?ll be interested in hearing how that power supply with the 120mm fan works out.
I?m not looking for cutting edge technology just a more modern setup. This system will mainly be used for experimenting with various versions of Linux. The old P2 450 runs Red Hat 9 ok, but I think I could use some faster hardware.

I?ve been pricing some of those Biostar boards and think that one might work out nicely for me.

[Chandler]

Sure, I'll keep you all updated.

With the vertically mounted PSU in my Quantex the 120mm fan should be more benificial than when used in a regular ATX case, since I hope it will suck warm air directly from the CPU area (if not then I'll have made an expensive room heater).

As for the Biostar boards, there are a couple I considered before settling on the M7NCD.  There's the M7NCG which is a MicroATX, but has integrated video, dual-channel DDR support and SoundStorm audio with SPDIF Out.  There are also more versions of the M7NCD, which have things such as SATA and overclocking features for not a lot more than the standard board.

[Chandler]

My only concern with the "quiet PC" is the Hitachi 7K250 hard drive, which I've recently heard make "cats meow" sounds every few minutes.  Has anyone heard this sound, and if so how loud is it?

Apparantly it's to avoid the problem with the "Deathstar" drives where the head was left in a fixed position for too long when idle.  Now, they move the heads.  While I'm on the topic of this, if you have an older Deskstar, it is worth updating the firmware on it (released September 2003) because once the damage has been done, the firmware update won't fix anything.

[Neon]

Yes, I have heard the sound on my GXP60's on which I updated the firmware about a year ago. It is noticeable, but not all that loud.

[Hoot]

Should work out very nicely. The Biostar boards are the most reliable I have used this year. Even though they're considered budget. Alot of though in layout and great bios revisions. The board you are using I've built many systems with. The nforce2 400 chipset is actually slightly faster than the Ultra 400 conterpart too - even though the memory will not be in dual channel configuration. The board is dead on reliable though, along with the M7NCDP.

[Chandler]

That's good to know.  Thanks for the info Hoot!

This is my second M7NCD based system, since I was so impressed with the first one.  At that price point it is a choice between Biostar, ECS or ASRock, and in my opinion Biostar is the only one to consider.  There is a VIA KT600 based Biostar board (M7VIT Grand) for the same price, and which offers a few more features (SATA as standard, SPDIF In/Out).  I've never had any issues with VIA based boards, but chose to stick with what I knew works well.

I've heard people complain about Biostar's technical support, but this hasn't been the case whenever I've contacted them (US, Europe and UK) and my e-mails were generally answered the next day with proper responses (unlike some companies who put out an automated response).

Another complaint appears to be with the manual being too thin.  I don't see this as a problem.  Every header/jumper is fully described as are the BIOS options.  If people are not able to put a computer together with the manual provided then they probably should get someone else to assemble it for them.  Not that there are many jumpers to set.... with the default configuration it worked fine, but I wanted to have the keyboard power-on option, so I moved the jumper to enable 5V PS/2 standby current.  I didn't bother with the front panel audio connectors though, not because the motherboard is labelled wrong, but because the cables from the case had no labels!

I hope to write a full review on the M7NCD soon, but for now I'll just say that it's HIGHLY RECOMMENDED[/color]

[Nestor]

Front panel audio is typically a single three wire plug, right? If you're referring to front panel USB as well, red-white-green-black-ground is the appropriate setup, from left to right.

[Chandler]

Thanks, I'll take another look.  Unfortunately with the case that I bought (not this computer) the wires are split up rather than being joined, and there is headphone out and microphone in.  Some of them are labelled but they use different labelling to the motherboard.

[Chandler]

Well my second case arrived... in pieces.  Fortunately I had taken out insurance on it but it means that I need to locate another case.  Things appear to get a little warm (55C) so a better case might not be a bad idea for the Athlon system, and stick the P3 motherboard back in the Q case.

I've been looking at the CoolerMaster Centurion 1 in Silver (CAC-T01) which looks attractive and is very cheap.  Any ideas on how it is?  I'll be getting the CoolerMaster aluminium drive covers to go with it too.  I wouldn't go for an aluminium or black case normally, but most beige boxes are covered in fake chrome or huge plastic/chrome-effect buttons.  At least with the CoolerMaster I know the colour isn't going to rub off.

[Nestor]

I'm gonna have to clarify my earlier poast, because that was a little vague- I apologize.
Your typical front panel USB pinout looks like this:

13579
2468

The 10 pin on the bottom row is typically removed. the color arrangement goes from left to right, as stated before. If I could remember the specific indicators for the wires (power, data in, data out, power and ground) I'd include them, too because they don't always follow the wire color convention.