Monday News part 3

A quiet case? That's every man/womans dream We work hard with quiet PSU and quiet cooling. But what we do not think about that much is the case. We are going to go indepth with this case that has sound dampening mat all over and uses silicon pads with the psu etc to get the vibration noise to dissapear. This case seems like a winner at a first look but is it? Well lets find out!

Are you one of those AMD Athlon T-Bred XP2700 or 2800+ owners who are shocked at 61C idle temperatures with your old and trusty Thermalright SK6 cooler? Or, do you Overclock the snot out of everything with a clock-crystal and heat is your #1 enemy? Well, Thermaltake’s Volcano 11 Xaser Edition can be a best bud in this department, since we had some great successes with it, but QuietPC enthusiasts will want to stray far away from this monster... Here’s a snip:

“For comparisons sake, I pit the Volcano 11 against its older brother, the Volcano 7. Both are similar coolers, but once you apply them to a massively overclocked system, the Volcano 11 Xaser Edition really shows its true colors. Of course, massive cooling comes at a massive cost; but not in terms of pricing. The Volcano 11 is very noisy, but that is the name of the game if you are one that continually strives to push the envelope of personal computing.”

Lately, we’ve seen a big push from Shuttle, Soltek, MSI, and other manufacturers pimping their latest SFF rigs. However, one firm that has been there from the start and is often overlooked is VIA. Today, we look at a third motherboard/cpu product that literally blows the doors off of Home-theatre PC boxes of the past. Here’s a snip:
“Here at Envy News we have been blessed with not just a pre-production review of the VIA V9000 EPIA system but also the M9000 EPIA system. Well today we are even more blessed as I have here in our UK office a brand-spanking new EPIA M10000 with the Nehemiah CPU! The system forms the core of the new Hush Technologies case which we will be reviewing in due course. The M10000 couple with the Nehemiah core proves to us that this makes the ideal HTPC SFF computer. PowerDVD scores have never looked better...”

The final step in the installation process is to fasten the drive bay covers to the chassis. This is one area where Sunbeam really deviates from the norm. The bay covers are simply flat pieces of acrylic with one notable exception: a small half circle cut out carved into the side. Opposing cut outs on the front panel match up the plates to the case, which are secured via small push pins. The pins have a rubber gasket lining them, and the gasket acts as the backing that holds the plate against the case

Litepads, has some new surfaces out there for your mice. What did I think of them? There is some good and some bad. Overall the surface performed well with both my optical mice. So come on in and see the skinny on this mouse surface!

Schon seit einiger Zeit versuchen Hersteller aus aller Welt mit Hilfe pfiffiger Systeme gegen die Wärme in den Gehäusen vorzugehen. Bei der Hitzeentwicklung spielt jedoch nicht nur der Prozessor und das Netzteil eine große Rolle, sondern auch die Festplatten, die bei hoher Belastung sehr warm werden können. Um der Hitze den Garaus zu machen, hat nun die Firma „Revoltec“ einen neuen Festplattenkühler aus Aluminium in den Handel gebracht, den wir uns für diesen Bericht näher angeschaut haben. Ob sich der Kauf lohnt, erfahren Sie hier in dem Test.