I agree fully. About four years ago, I put together a pretty nice system which I used both for trading and gaming. Spent good money on the motherboard, video card and extra memory, top of the line CPU at the time, etc. Plus, I had a $150 UPS to protect against power surges, blackouts and brownouts. I thought my computer was bulletproof. Unfortunately, the weak link was a cheap generic power supply that came with the "bargain" case I put everything in. I really learned my lesson the hard way. One day the power supply just blew and it wrecked all of the components in my computer except the hard drives and CD-ROM drive. I had to replace everything. The only good break I got is that my data was still intact, as the hard drives were not damaged. Before this happened I had never really thought about how important the power supply is. Even if you have an expensive UPS to guard against power anomalies, it won't do a thing to help you if you have a crappy power supply.
I run three PCs in my office and believe me they can get pretty loud. I have a Lian-LI PC-60 which is the quietest box, but this may simply be because I have a better quality hard drive in it than in the other two machines. Runningbear
How does one determine which Hard Drive is the best in terms of noise reduction ? Is it by brand, Maxtor, Samsung, Seagate, Western Digital, where one brand is more quiet than another or is it by model where brand name doesn't matter but the model number of the brand is the where one should pay attention to ? Please feel free to suggest the brand and model of the hard drive that you like.
i've seen some sites that list the decibel levels of drives. also, i think some drives have options you can change, however, i think making them quieter reduces performance. generally, i think 5700RPM drives are quieter than 7200RPM drives, but i think 7200RPM drives are faster. i've used a bunch of different brands and it seems to me that maxtor drives seem loud for some reason. i recently bought a Western Digital 120GB 7200RPM drive with 8MB cache for $85 using pricewatch.com.
How feasible is it to just replace the motherboard in an older computer and reuse the case, power supply, hard drive etc, assuming they are ok? Are you just throwing good money after bad?
AAA wrote How feasible is it to just replace the motherboard in an older computer and reuse the case, power supply, hard drive etc, assuming they are ok? Are you just throwing good money after bad? What you suggest is fine IF your case has good ventilation and you have a good power supply. The new processors and video cards produce a lot of heat and suck the juice. Generic power supplies will cost you down the road.
Actually cheap power supplies can be very noisy also. So if noise is a problem, think about investing in an ultra quiet unit as well. Runningbear
Sorry guys, maybe I'm overlooking something but I still can't grasp the concept of a noisy computer. I've got two of the most generic 'puters out there (Dell/Compac) and unless my ass is under the desk chasing the donut I dropped, I don't here a peep from these machines. Even at 3:30 am when there is absolutely no noise about. Somebody please set me straight.