Domain: plycon.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to plycon.com.
Comments · 29
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31.7db isn't silent
While I'm impressed that they actually bothered to measure the sound coming from their case, their final measurement of 31.7db hardly counts as silent. In fact I personally regard that as fairly noisy, though I'm perhaps pickier than most. Realistically how much noise one can tolerate is a personal thing. If it bothers you it's too loud no matter what the acoustic measurements might tell you. And what bothers me might not bother you. I have just listened carefully to my machine and whichever component made the most noise got replaced.
The only way to have a truly silent case is to have no fans and an idle hard drive. If that isn't possible fans like Pabst 8412 NGL are the next best thing. They don't move much air but they're very quiet. And a better solution IMO than the hard drive enclosures which drive up heat and reduce reliability is vibration isolators combined with a naturally quiet drive like Seagates. There are some fanless and semi-fanless (doesn't run unless it gets hot) power supplies out there like the SilentMaxx Semifanless. And replace those stupd 60mm fans that they insist on using for CPUs and GPUs with big headsinks and/or heatpipes. Also install neoprene or other washers and use rubber to deaden case vibrations. Home Depot is a great source for a lot of this stuff. -
The expensive way to silence a caseMy machine was driving me nuts. So I've steadily been quieting it down. Here's what I did.
- A Zalman Silent 400W Power Supply helped a lot and only emits about 20db of noise. Still not silent enough for me so I'm going to get something like a SilentMaxx Semi-Fanless 450W soon.
- I replaced my case fans with Papst 8412 NGL fans which only emit 12db; basically silent. I tried one of the PC Power and Cooling Silencer units and it's a fine power supply but still pretty noisy.
- I put some new rubber feet I picked up from Home Dept (about $3 each) which are normally used for door stops to help dampen case vibrations.
- I switched over the 7200 RPM Seagate hard drives from the 10000RPM Maxtor/IBMs I was using. The old drives were fine but rather noisy.
- I replaced my graphics card fan with a Zalman Heat Pipe system which emits no noise at all.
- I picked up these hard drive coolers with rubber shock absorbers from CompUSA which further helps dampen case vibration, and helps keepd the drive quieter. My case uses drive rails and I had to drill an extra hole in the drive rails to make them compatible.
- I also installed this Anti Noise Kit from CompUSA. One caution is keep at least one screw from the case touching both the power supply and the case with no padding. Helps keep a ground between the power supply and the case.
- I also bought some rounded cables (yes I'm aware of the crosstalk issues but they haven't been a problem) which helps cooling. I got some cable wraps and zip ties to keep the cables bundled and out of the air flow as much as possible.
- Installed a HUGE Thermalright SLK800 heat sink with a Pabst fan (above) to keep the processor cool and silent. This actually dropped by processor temp by several degrees in addition to being quiter.
- I installed Melamine foam from Home Depot throughout the case to dampen noise.
End result? Nearly silent. Quieter than my thinkpad laptop which doesn't make much noise. I still want a quieter power supply fan though I'm reasonably satisfied with the one I have. Basically anything rated at over 20db is too loud by my standards. Yes, many people will tell you you can hear it and that's true if you are 10+ feet away or have damaged hearing from too much loud music. :-) Right near the unit however you can hear it just fine and case vibrations will often amplify sounds.
Obviously if you want a machine with super high performance, you may need better cooling that I do and better cooling usually equals more noise. My machine is a linux file/print server so I'm not looking for maximal performance, though I do have a SCSI drive system in it. Make sure you keep the air pathways clear if you use the fans I recommend because they don't blow a lot of air. Don't block any ventilation though you can use air filters if you feel the need. Every so often get a can of compressed air and blow out any dust in the system which will help with the cooling. - A Zalman Silent 400W Power Supply helped a lot and only emits about 20db of noise. Still not silent enough for me so I'm going to get something like a SilentMaxx Semi-Fanless 450W soon.
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Re:$1400!? Try $100!
I have a couple of the single-fan controls that dangle inside the case - they're made by zalman. They basically just have a knob that varies your voltage from 5v to 12v. I found them at sharkacorp.com and plycon.com"> Both of those sites have a other components for noise reduction also...
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Re:What about the rest of the computer?I recently upgraded my box with 'quiet' components and it wasn't too difficult or expensive. I took off the stock AMD Athlon heatsink/fan combo and installed a ThermalRight SLK-800 ($40) heatsink and an Pabst 8412N ($17) 80 mm fan. I also took off the rear 80 mm fan on my case and replaced it with a Pabst (another $17). For the power supply, I put in a Nexus NX-3000 ($75).
For around $150 total, the improvement was pretty dramatic. The only sound I hear from my box now is the hard drive, and if that ever starts to become an annoyance, there are options.
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Re:What about the rest of the computer?I recently upgraded my box with 'quiet' components and it wasn't too difficult or expensive. I took off the stock AMD Athlon heatsink/fan combo and installed a ThermalRight SLK-800 ($40) heatsink and an Pabst 8412N ($17) 80 mm fan. I also took off the rear 80 mm fan on my case and replaced it with a Pabst (another $17). For the power supply, I put in a Nexus NX-3000 ($75).
For around $150 total, the improvement was pretty dramatic. The only sound I hear from my box now is the hard drive, and if that ever starts to become an annoyance, there are options.
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Electrostatic Air FiltrationI would think that a form of electrostatic air filtration would do the best job. Sharper Image has two or three (here, or here) would be the kind of thing your after. There are different sizes, etc, but this is probably the best thing you can get. On top of this, you might want to invest in some of those fan filter covers for computer fans that are made of fabric or whatever to keep dust out. There are some here, here, and here. I would think that the combination of these things would keep you pretty low on dust. That said, make sure to clean the air purifier and check the fan filters every once in a while to make sure they're clear or else thing might end up worse than before. Once the room is clean (after the first week or whatever) and you've cleaned everything out, I'd imagine that you'd wouldn't have to check the fan filters much at all (maybe only when working on that specific PC) as long as you keep the electrostatic air filter going on clean.
Also, see if you can talk to whoever in incharge of the heating/AC system in the building to see if there is anything they can do. Maybe Allergy Free has a filter that would work with the system or maybe you could get together the with the other groups of people in the building and buy an electrostatic air filtration system for the whole building. They work great on both dust and allergies. These are just wild ideas from brainstorming, they really aren't that realistic I guess. The first paragraph though will probably work well.
PS: We have electrostatic air filters installed in our house. We also had them installed in the house we had before this one. Our family has allergy problems and when we clean them, you'd be amazed the colors the water turns from what comes off them. They really do catch alot.
PPS: Or you could just watercool everything and run it all through one massive radiator. But this would be a bit more than $500. More pipedreaming.
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No Help in Canada :-(I also live in Canada and a few months ago went through lots of frustrating phonecalls to get some silent-PC equipment to Ottawa.
In the end, I ended up using US-based Plycon for the Papst fans (they are the best queiet fans you can get, bar none) and Magic Fleece. Other bits, like the Zalman cooler, I had to buy in the UK.
Why is it that it's so difficult to find any of this gear in Canada? In this regard, Canada is a third world country!
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As long as we're running ads disguised as stories...Let's at least be more comprehensive. Here's the kit from 1coolpc, formerly 3dfxcool.
There's also the Koolance and Sen Fu product lines at Plycon Computers
Those are the ones I knew about. A Google search turned up a whole bunch more. Man, I'm glad I don't subscribe -- ads are unavoidable, it seems.
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Re:longer lifespan?You may want to look at Plycon Computers. I've ordered from them before and really enjoyed the fan grills and Thermaltake DragonOrb 3 (despite its loud noise) I bought from them. You're probably referring to finding fan filters (I have 2 of the 80mm aluminum mesh ones installed on my computer now to cut down on dust).
I've also thought about adding cheesecloth in front of my one fan to really cut down on the dust intake, but as of yet, haven't done so.
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Re:longer lifespan?You may want to look at Plycon Computers. I've ordered from them before and really enjoyed the fan grills and Thermaltake DragonOrb 3 (despite its loud noise) I bought from them. You're probably referring to finding fan filters (I have 2 of the 80mm aluminum mesh ones installed on my computer now to cut down on dust).
I've also thought about adding cheesecloth in front of my one fan to really cut down on the dust intake, but as of yet, haven't done so.
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The Hitachi just has a heat pipe like most laptops
Gez every 2nd laptop currently being made has a heatpipe - its no big deal
"Heatpipes" are nothing new.
Although heatpipes are mainly utilised where things are cramped arround the heatsource, to move the heat to another spot where there's more room for a heatsink (hence its popularity in laptops, where they move the heat from the CPU to behind the screen, where there's room for a wide albit flat heatsink), there are a couple of Socket 7/370/A heatsinks that utilise the heatpipe effect. The "Zen Radiator", which uses the heatpipe as the core of a radiator like arrangement; & the "Coolermaster HHC-001 Heatpipe Copper Cooler", which has long (as in high) fins & uses heatpipes to help conduct heat to the top of the fins.
All this article shows is that PC World employs a laptop reviewer who doesn't know what he's talking about in regards to laptops.
Really if a tech mag is going to have someone write a blurb about laptop cooling they should employ someone who actually knows something about laptop cooling. -
Just get the right kind of heat sync...
If you didn't want to go with water-cooling, (such as ripping apart a koolance 1U case), you could instead just go with a convection-cooled style case similar to the Mac cube (iCube?).
Plycon sells a nice assortment of different heat-syncs, the one you would be particularly insterested in is this one, it's designed to use a moving air current to cool the CPU rather than a direct fan. If your using a slower or underclocked CPU, it probably won't take very much to keep it cool.
Your biggest problem will most likely be finding room for a large enough heat-sync that doesn't require a fan of some sort. -
Just get the right kind of heat sync...
If you didn't want to go with water-cooling, (such as ripping apart a koolance 1U case), you could instead just go with a convection-cooled style case similar to the Mac cube (iCube?).
Plycon sells a nice assortment of different heat-syncs, the one you would be particularly insterested in is this one, it's designed to use a moving air current to cool the CPU rather than a direct fan. If your using a slower or underclocked CPU, it probably won't take very much to keep it cool.
Your biggest problem will most likely be finding room for a large enough heat-sync that doesn't require a fan of some sort. -
Re:the good toms hardwareNo other tech site [besides Tom's Hardware] has anywhere near the ability to do stuff like this.
You might want to look at icrontic.com or at this blurb about how to use trace tape to unlock the Athlon XP. I know I saw the latter something like a week before I saw the Tom's Hardware article.
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Re:68 C? Ouch!
I agree -- 64C sounds too high. Here is a good article on the subject from Via Hardware.
I recommend the following three steps to cool it down:
- Run H.ODA's WPCREDIT/WCPRSET and set the ACPI HALT cooling on, if your processor is running at under 1.33 GHz or if you're not running Win2K. This will keep your idle temperature down. See the end of the VIA Hardware article for the admonition about CPU speed and Win2K stability.
- Use Arctic Silver II thermal paste. I bought some at Fry's and it's pretty cheap. It brought the temperature down 2-3C under load.
- Try the NoiseControl Silverado fan, if it fits in your face. North Americans no longer have to buy it from Germany, as Plycon sells it in the US now.
I have a 1.2GHz Athlon which I run at about 1.35GHz by upping the FSB. My IWill KK266 board claims that it idles at 26C, and it gets up around 41C during heavy use, and 49C in a tight loop.
I have a shutoff at 50C, which it last reached when Outlook went into a tight loop overnight. I ran a program called MBM to check on it, and it recommended a program called Shutdown Now to shut down and power off in case of alarm. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed that Shutdown Now was nagware, and my system was up all night at 50C, sending me pages every 5 minutes. When I got to work in the morning, there was a pop-up dialog saying to please send in $15 to them before it would shut off my computer. Talk about lame! It would have been fine to nag a boot time, not not at shutdown time! I'm just glad the program didn't fry my CPU. Anyway, I replaced it with the NT Resource Kit program called shutdown.exe that took a little bit of mousing around to get into MBM's configuration, but no way was I going to give money to the guy who almost fried my computer.
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Re:Can we get rid of the fan though?
If you're looking for silverados... check www.plycon.com. They have them for $60, and they are in the US, so no import hassles. I can't speak for their quality, yet... but mine should arrive tomorrow.
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Athlon 1.4Ghz, Thermalright SK6 and Delta 38cfm
I'd just put together a new machine based on the Gigabyte GA7DXR (great board!). Everything was fine for about 2 hours, and then the Delta just stopped. Now, for those that don't know, this particular fan is LOUD. It has a high pitched whine that's unmistakable. I can hear it down the hall and into the livingroom. I knew immediately when it quit, and hit the power button faster than I'd ever hit it before... and STILL had to wait the 4 seconds for it to finally shut down.
;)Don't know how hot the processor got, but that heat sink saved it. Turns out the Delta just blew the motherboard CPU fan header - as several sites that I found later said it would. I was VERY happy to find that plugging the Delta into the PS via a 3-4 pin adapter worked, and the machine hums right along to this day.
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Re:Quite suppiles
you may want to check out this power supply or the enermax whisper series.
alternatively, i understand it is fairly easy to disassemble a power supply and get really nice quiet sanyo denki or panaflow fan to replace the (most likely) lower quality noisy sleeve bearing fan in there now. check out plycon for fans if taking this route.
hope this helps.
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Re:How noisy is this beastie?
An effective way to reduce fan noise is to use an 80mm fan through the use of a 60mm-to-80mm adaptor. Some really slick adaptors can be purchased from www.plycon.com under fan adapters.
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My quiet case project : it's an answer ... sort of
Well, it seem these days, most of the power user just care to get something like 200fps in Quake III. Why ? Beat's me ! I'm not on a quest to get the ultimate frame rate, I just want my box to be quiet as possibly can be.
To help you understand my take on the subject, here is the background
:
My PC has the following components :- A OEM case
- A 235W OEM power supply
- ASUS P3B-F
- Intel Pentium II rated 400Mhz @ 400Mhz
- A cheap OEM SECC2 Heat-Sink made of aluminum
- A 128MB CAS2 no-name DIMM
- Two 32MB CAS3 Samsung DIMM slowing down my memory timing, but preventing the appearance of the all mighty evil SwaP
- A ATI All-In-Wonder Rage128 16MB
- A Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value
- A Realtek 8139 Ethernet NIC
- My beloved USR 56Kbps ISA Real Modem. Sorry but to me a component that uses CPU power to do it's processing instead of taking the load off is not worthy of being in my computer. Not to mention the M$ Win part...
- A Creative 48x CD-ROM drive. It's the loudest damned thing in my computer when it's spinning
- A Quantum Fireball AS PLUS 40GB (7200RPM) in a removable tray
- A Quantum Fireball CX1 10GB (5400RPM) mounted inside the case
- Of course the stupid old 1.44 MB floppy drive only used for booting Tomsbrt in case of emergency
Soon to be
:
- A Adaptec 2940UW
- A Diamond Monster 3D II for Glide games
It turn out that the Quantum Fireball AS makes less noise than the Quantum Fireball CX1. I still have to figure it out
...I use my PC for
:
- Running Linux and learning as much as time allows me (Jez I had so much time when I was a student... Think of all the time I wasted in High-School running the evil W monster)
- Doing some gaming i.e. : Diablo II, Unreal, UT, Undying (Although that thing is going to cost me a new box)
- Spending numerous nights filling my brain @ Slashdot, Tomshardware, Anandtech, Arstechnica, StorageReview, Developper.Intel.com, and most importantly, hounding the web for all the case manufacturers and their take at a quiet box.
As I'm writing this post, that is probably going to be the base documentation for my Silent Case Project, you're guessing that my sleepless night of browsing have not yielded the desired result.
I've check out many options such as water cooling, moving the PC to the closet, returning to the forest where a PC is pretty far from your everyday quest for survival. None of them suits me.
The objective of my project is to build a case that meets the following criteria
:
- A silent as possible
- Accessible
- Provides sufficient ventilation to maintain all the components running within thermal specs
- Be light enough to be easily transportable (Let's not forget the Lan parties
;-)
To attain those goals I have to
:- Read all I can about noise, sound, aerodynamics, PC specs
- Find suitable materials : A case is not just a protection against unwanted fingers and dust ; it must provide EMI shielding, proper grounding, resist to impacts, and fit into my conception of the king of object you want in your bedroom (If you were thinking about plywood and a box of rusted leftover nails, forget it)
- Find the tools or the companies or individuals with the means to work the materials I choose to build the casing
For the sound isolation I was thinking about some kind of foam. Mineral lint would be affective but that takes too much space and it's not the kind of thing I want beside my bed. Form the casing itself, metal is almost inevitable if you want EMI shielding and grounding. And as for you who wonder why I have not mentioned water cooling yet, the greatest source of noise is not my CPU cooler and your just moving the problem out of the case (Nice ; you have water heating up but unless your reservoir is like a bathtub or something you will have to transfer the heat for the water to the air).
That about as far as I am. If you have any idea that might help me, please fell free to send me some bits forming ASCII characters at Prozzaks@operamail.com
To finish up, here is a list of thing that might help people wanting to achieve similar goals
:
- http://www.formfactors.org/ You should be able to find all the documents regarding the ATX form factor and thermal design guides. A must if you want to build a quiet PC.
- http://developer.intel.com/ Intel has contributed a great deal to the ATX definition ; here you will find many relevant documents including thermal design guides for all Intel processors.
- Etract from my favorite's :
Hardware\cases PC CASE
Fong Kai
PowerOn
Enlight Corporation
dir.yahoo Enclosures Manufacturers
procase
YY Computer
Psi
IN WIN
Amtrade
American Suntek
Addtronics
A-Top Technology, Inc
Nikao
Palo Alto Products
Antec
Lian-Li
amaquest
Koolance
Quietpc
PC Power & Cooling
Hardware\Heat Sinks ALPHA
Cooler Master
AVC
ekl
GlobalWIN
globefan
RDJD
Foxconn
Spring Spread
Sanyo Denki
TITAN
TaiSol
ChipCoolers
Orb a
ElanVital
Hardware\Info\Form Factor Platform Development Support
SSI
WTX
Hardware\Info\Standards Fibre Channel Industry Association
PCI SIG
RAB
serialata
SPEC
Hardware\Info\Storage RAID.edu
Hardware\Info\Cours CS 252 - Graduate Computer Architecture
Hardware\Info The PC Guide!
Hardware Bible
FullOn3D
developer.intel.com
HwB The Hardware Book
United Overclockers
Ars Technica
Tech-Junkie
HardwarePub
Webopedia
Illustrated Guide to the PC Hardware
SysOpt
2CPU
Ace's Hardware
Technical Support - RaidHelp v1.0 - Free RAID Technology Guide
Computer Architecture
OPENCORES.ORG
TechFest
MidWest Micro Support
Hardware\Resalers GeekTek!
Micro-Bytes
ALCO
ABC Micro
2CoolTek
Plycon Computers
TCWO
ABC Micro - Lprix
Case Outlet
The Chip Merchant, Inc
Cimsys
OrdiGros
ALIENWARE
SHENTECH
FireStorm
Hyper Microsystems
TWEAKBOX
Hardware\Reviews Tom's Hardware Guide
Sharky Extreme
StorageReview
HardOCP
AnandTech
SystemLogic
x-bit labs
Active-Hardware
FiringSquad
SocketA
Overclockers Australia
HEXUS
dansdata
SysReview
Hardware\Manufacturers AMD
ASUS
Belkin
MassMultiples
Promise
StarTech
VIA Technologies, Inc
ABIT Computer Corp
Comcase
Micron Semiconductor
ECS
Hardware Freeboxen
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Re:Sad but true
"In a attepts to remedy this, we put cheesecloth filters over the sites of heavy air intake -- it helps immensly, and I would suggest you try it if you need to. Alternatly, many 'server' cases have washable filters that snap over the air intake ports, but those cases are in the 100+ USD range."
Plycon sells computer fan filters, although I don't know if they'd help with cigarette smoke. I believe Radioshack has a few in their catalogue too.
A used fabric softner sheet also seems to work well, as the loose weave doesn't hinder air flow too much. It doesn't keep the smaller particles of dust out, but I can attest to its ability to stop cat hair.
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Re:What it needs
Here's a keyboard you can roll up and shove in your pocket.
http://www.plycon.com/flex.htm -
It's been done before
Well more or less (similar concept, different materials - plastic)
Check out these keyboards -
Re:Non Computer GamesDon't get them a game -- get them something that lets the game better! Ratpadz are very awesome, very accurate mouse "pads".
I can testify that it's big enough for my mouse, a cup of coffee, AND an ashtray. It's also durable enough to handle a cup of coffee, and if you spill something on it, you can just rinse it with water. As far as mousepads go, it's the last one you'll ever buy. I have actually ordered two, but that's just because I wanted one at work, too
:)Instead of going on about it, I'll throw you a link to the main site. You can buy them there, or find links to other distributors (mainly overclocking/cooling stores like 2CoolTek or Plycon).
--
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You can buy them, too
If making cables' isn't your thing...Plycon Computers (my favorite vendor online) sells them, both ATA-33 and -66, as well as SCSI and floppy drive connectors.
Very expensive, sure, but waaaay cool and they certainly can't hurt airflow in your case. -
ata66 isn't so bad either
for one thing, this isn't news. i just thought i'd point that out. there have been tutorials on how to do this forever on enthusiast sites like virtualhideout, etc. not to mention plycon sells pre rounded cables. but anyway, as long as you have a sharp enough blade ata66 is equally possible (but if you're scared you can always pay $30 to have someone else do it for you...)
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I've done this to *most* of my cables...I think the rule of thumb on this one is that you shouldn't try rounding out cables that have stiff wires.
Floppy cables can be rounded (you can even remove the middle connector), the older IDE cables can be rounded, and 50 pin SCSI wires can also be rounded. Bind everything together at the end with zip ties and then wrap it up with spiral wrap from Radio Shack and similar (e.g. Ax Man in the Twin Cities).
ATA/66 and 68 pin SCSI cables are a different story. The wires are stiff, and if you don't do the cable exactly right, you have either trashed an expensive cable, corrupted the data on your hard drive. People seem to have mixed success with those.
If you want to mess with your cables, try some old junky ones, first. If you must use a knife or razor, make the incision as small as possible, then peel the cable apart in opposite directions -- those grooves are the path of least resistance, so it should be more reliable than making a long, perfectly straight cut with a small sharp object.
If you want rounded cables and don't want to take any risks, I know that Plycon has all sorts of high quality machine made cables of all types, albeit for a very steep price (just like everything else they sell).
I'm still not sure why this isn't the standard. Some PC manufacturers have been doing this in their servers and micro towers to improve airflow through the chassis. I'll bet that these kinds of cables eventually become the standard, especially if the cooling requirements for x86 hardware is going to start requiring 1lb. heatsinks like the upcoming P4...
WARNING: the above comment does not link to goatse.cx
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What if you're too lazy?
Here's place that sells them pre-rounded. You can get rounded cables for ATA33, ATA66/100, floppy, and SCSI 50-pin.
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Cheaper Flexible KeyboardIf you're looking for one for a lan party, these guys carry a similar product for $79. I havn't tried one myself though.