Easily one of the best ways to get a near silent computer is to use a technique used by overclockers such as myself for a long time - replace the fast spinning fan on the cpu heatsink with a waterblock- a piece of metal which has water pumped through it, and out to a radiator of some sort. Now, you probably don't want to get into crazy do it yourself computer mods, so i will refer you to koolance.
They build computer cases, complete with power supply, which are completely ready for use with a regular computer system. Simply put in hard drive, mobo, cpu, ram, and cards of your choice, attach the included copper block to the cpu, and turn it on. There is NO fan in the power supply as it is also liquid cooled, and the fans cooling the radiator (and only when it gets too hot) are NOT audible. Very nice, and pretty much silent. Also, try suspending your hard drive with elastic bands, or securing with rubber grommets, so that vibrations do not get outside the drive cage. Also, mounting fans (power supply fan included) with rubber grommets cuts down on noise a lot. Try replacing a normal power supply fan with a larger one, but run it at 7v instead of 12v (use the +12 and +5v leads). Cut out the back of the power supply to let the air flow through unobstructed. An hours work can make your computer almost silent.
Hope this helps.
I have tried this actually. And to tell you the truth, i havent run out of juice when doing it(although we really didnt use them for prolonged periods of time). We used them to run laptops which collected ocean data on small expeditions in small boats. Most car batteries are around 23 AH at 12v (so 276 watt-hours) Hooked up to inverters, which can be had for an insignificant amount of money, the laptops were able to run for a good 4-5 hours in addition to the time they ran with their internal batteries. Not highly effective, but easily done and useful for those without money and in need of a long-life mobile computer.
On electrofuels website they show their "powerpad" external power solutions...they seem to be about the same size as a regular laptop battery, and allegedly give out either 160 or 210 (depending on model) watt-hours. Assuming a 40 watt laptop (im not sure about the number here...but it should be somewhere in the ballpark) the 210 would run it for about 5 1/2 hours. The laptop would need to take up a measly 17.5 watts for the 210 to run it for 12 hours...thats not enough power to run the cpu alone on almost any laptop (crusoe-based aside).
Maybe with the help of an internal battery, these could extend life to about 8 hours.
I remember sony claiming to have found an inexpensive method of manufacture for plastic drive platters (inexpensive due to lack of need for metal polishing). Although it was said to be fairly low density, and speed (due to plastic becoming "floppy" when rotated at higher speeds) the low cost warranted its existence....but have we seen these on the market? No. I doubt this will catch on...people are willing to pay up for metal.
...to port over snes games with a (relatively) inexpensive rom-writer. I know that original game boy rom writers can be purchased for around 80...so this couldnt be *too* costly. Of course, I'm not implying this be used for pirating, so much as for simply using non-ported snes games. My understanding is that advanced can more or less emulate snes...so no real porting effort would be involved...
I find it rather unlikely that a) the CIA would be using this (as opposed to the NSA), and b) that anyone has this at all. What are some possible uses you can think of? Seems like too much effort for too little. I see no reason why the CIA would have this instead of the NSA, and i don't think the two would share software with eachother too freely. Also, how can it tell if it is the original speaker? Enlighten me if i'm wrong, but what if the broadcast replaced the entire audio track? I doubt any software could detect a completely different track being used as long as it was recorded using the same method.
I don't know about the rest of you, but until I see an intel announcement I won't believe it. Makes you wonder...if they have a process capable of.03um and 10GHz, why couldnt they get p3's above 1.13?
Maybe there is some validity to this claim...perhaps they have theoretically shown that it could work...but i doubt they will have the capability of making it happen by 2005.
I thought that andromeda was going to be good...looked promising. But what happened to it? It really does not have any appeal.
I have to question whether or not writers will be able to think up original new episodes that won't immediately remind you of a previous series episode. It seems to me that unless some drastically different story is created, many episode ideas may make their way back into circulation. Perhaps they should try a more 3rd person approach...say, something from the POV or starfleet command...
Slashdot Mirror
Easily one of the best ways to get a near silent computer is to use a technique used by overclockers such as myself for a long time - replace the fast spinning fan on the cpu heatsink with a waterblock- a piece of metal which has water pumped through it, and out to a radiator of some sort. Now, you probably don't want to get into crazy do it yourself computer mods, so i will refer you to koolance. They build computer cases, complete with power supply, which are completely ready for use with a regular computer system. Simply put in hard drive, mobo, cpu, ram, and cards of your choice, attach the included copper block to the cpu, and turn it on. There is NO fan in the power supply as it is also liquid cooled, and the fans cooling the radiator (and only when it gets too hot) are NOT audible. Very nice, and pretty much silent. Also, try suspending your hard drive with elastic bands, or securing with rubber grommets, so that vibrations do not get outside the drive cage. Also, mounting fans (power supply fan included) with rubber grommets cuts down on noise a lot. Try replacing a normal power supply fan with a larger one, but run it at 7v instead of 12v (use the +12 and +5v leads). Cut out the back of the power supply to let the air flow through unobstructed. An hours work can make your computer almost silent. Hope this helps.
I have tried this actually. And to tell you the truth, i havent run out of juice when doing it(although we really didnt use them for prolonged periods of time). We used them to run laptops which collected ocean data on small expeditions in small boats. Most car batteries are around 23 AH at 12v (so 276 watt-hours) Hooked up to inverters, which can be had for an insignificant amount of money, the laptops were able to run for a good 4-5 hours in addition to the time they ran with their internal batteries. Not highly effective, but easily done and useful for those without money and in need of a long-life mobile computer.
On electrofuels website they show their "powerpad" external power solutions...they seem to be about the same size as a regular laptop battery, and allegedly give out either 160 or 210 (depending on model) watt-hours. Assuming a 40 watt laptop (im not sure about the number here...but it should be somewhere in the ballpark) the 210 would run it for about 5 1/2 hours. The laptop would need to take up a measly 17.5 watts for the 210 to run it for 12 hours...thats not enough power to run the cpu alone on almost any laptop (crusoe-based aside). Maybe with the help of an internal battery, these could extend life to about 8 hours.
I remember sony claiming to have found an inexpensive method of manufacture for plastic drive platters (inexpensive due to lack of need for metal polishing). Although it was said to be fairly low density, and speed (due to plastic becoming "floppy" when rotated at higher speeds) the low cost warranted its existence....but have we seen these on the market? No. I doubt this will catch on...people are willing to pay up for metal.
...to port over snes games with a (relatively) inexpensive rom-writer. I know that original game boy rom writers can be purchased for around 80...so this couldnt be *too* costly. Of course, I'm not implying this be used for pirating, so much as for simply using non-ported snes games. My understanding is that advanced can more or less emulate snes...so no real porting effort would be involved...
I find it rather unlikely that a) the CIA would be using this (as opposed to the NSA), and b) that anyone has this at all. What are some possible uses you can think of? Seems like too much effort for too little. I see no reason why the CIA would have this instead of the NSA, and i don't think the two would share software with eachother too freely. Also, how can it tell if it is the original speaker? Enlighten me if i'm wrong, but what if the broadcast replaced the entire audio track? I doubt any software could detect a completely different track being used as long as it was recorded using the same method.
I don't know about the rest of you, but until I see an intel announcement I won't believe it. Makes you wonder...if they have a process capable of .03um and 10GHz, why couldnt they get p3's above 1.13?
Maybe there is some validity to this claim...perhaps they have theoretically shown that it could work...but i doubt they will have the capability of making it happen by 2005.
I thought that andromeda was going to be good...looked promising. But what happened to it? It really does not have any appeal. I have to question whether or not writers will be able to think up original new episodes that won't immediately remind you of a previous series episode. It seems to me that unless some drastically different story is created, many episode ideas may make their way back into circulation. Perhaps they should try a more 3rd person approach...say, something from the POV or starfleet command...