I recently had an interesting argument with one of my friends about Power Supplies.  Our argument was about cooling fan size and placement within the power supply.  His argument was that a larger fan is better than a smaller fan.  As enthusiast, we have seen both employed, but for some reason, no standard has been defined.  Are Power supply companies just playing into the idea that bigger fans are better for cooling? Needless to say, this sparked some interest in research. Read More...

Every once in a while I run across some information that I find intriguing.  Even less often, I find something useful, but today is not one of those days.  If you haven't guessed it, I am a geek... and geeks love computers.  Given that there are 13 of them running in my house at any given time I would say that I qualify as a habitual offender.  I find more often now that I use my laptop more than any of the other machines in my house out of brutal convenience though; what I didn't realize is that it has an added bonus. Read More...

Until recently, I have never really been a huge fan of laptops.  I am given one for my company, but until I decided to get married I had no reason to be in the living room.  Now that my time can't be dedicated to being in my office on my desktop PC, a laptop has become a necessity.  Although they are named laptops, few of us actually put them on our laps.  The reasons for this vary as much as the reasons for purchasing one in the first place.  My reason is simple... THAT THING GETS HOT!  Spire has suggested that getting a laptop cooling product to keep my precious little laptop cool.  Enter the Spire PacificBreeze II - SP302AP-B. Read More...

If you haven't gone through it already, you just might. I spent a bunch of money on motherboards recently and they all seem to be having the same problem. Is it because they just don't make them like they used to? I am referring to the active cooling on my Northbridge; the fans keep making funny noises then crapping out. It drives me crazy. Usually though, the active cooling on the Northbridge was always sub par any way; just enough to get by. With all the advancements in mobos, the cooling solutions have been getting more and more important. So with two fans going on two different motherboards, what options do we have left? Thermaltake not only has an answer, they claim they have a better solution than was shipped with the motherboard in the first place. Enter the Extreme Spirit II. Read More...

You have a new CPU Cooler in the box and you are installing it. You get everything installed properly and you are getting ready to see if that $30.00 you just spent on CPU cooling will help with the temperature issues you have been worried about lately. You start your rig up, get to doing some thangs, and realize you might have just wasted your money. But alas, computer go'er, your money has not been wasted, your airflow sucks. You already have a fan installed in the front and one in the back, but they are too loud and you don't want to drill a hole in your case to mount a quiet 120mm fan... so what do you do? Scythe thinks they might have the solution. Enter the Scythe Kama Bay 5" Bay system Cooler. Read More...

To start I would like to thank Xoxide for sending this cooler for review. The first thing I noticed after seeing the flashy packaging was how heavy this thing is. I really wasn't expecting a GPU cooler to be this heavy (490 grams). As you can see from the picture the packaging is very attractive and eye catching. My second impression was that this thing is huge. It has a blower fan along one edge that also makes it very tall. Rather than go into the detailed specifications you can view them here. It has Dual Heatpipes, two cooling fans, copper ramsinks and a fan controller included. The fan controller fits in a PCI slot and is controlled from the rear of the PC. I'm not so sure about how this will work out. I really don't like the idea of having to reach around to the back of my PC every time I need to adjust the fan speed or turn on the blower. The way some people setup their systems this would be a real pain. I'm thinking of modding the switch into an unused 3 .5 inch floppy bay. But that's a project for another day. Read More...

In my pursuit of elevating myself to the upper echelons of the geek community, I am always looking for ways to separate myself from my neighbors. This started with my consumption of "extreme" computer components, to windowed cases glowing with bright blue cold cathodes, rheostats, dials, knobs, green fluids, and now; the Cooler Master Musketeer. This is in no way an introduction to a new product, but more like a great idea revisited. Products like this offer a fresh and innovative means of breaking away from the plain old beige box that most of the computing community is striving to steer away from, making computing a more personal experience. Read More...

Companies are always trying to get consumers to buy new products aimed at the current "point of concern." These days, it seems as though cooling and noise is the focal point. Our cases are no longer 1 fan cases that suffer from poor air circulation, our video cards have MONSTER heatsinks on them, our CPU's are adorned in copper and CFM's, but our hard drives remain naked; dressed in nothing but their simple enclosures. Hard drives have never really been a focus of cooling for many until recently. This is evident with the introduction of SATA and hard drives that spin upwards of 10,000 RPM's. Vantec, along with a slew of other companies, claim that their products can improve hard drive cooling over the simple mounting in most cases. Read More...

Everyone has their own ideas on how to add their own personal touch to the overall aesthetics of their computer. Some people have windows with neon lights, some have laser etched applique's, but most of these people still populate their cases with BORING wire fan guards. Why? Who knows, but with the decreasing costs of today's laser cut fan grills, it amazes me that more and more people haven't caught on. I am going to show you a few options for those of you who aren't afraid to dive into self expression. Read More...

I'm sitting at my desk in my nice comfortable chair, I have the 5.1 surround sound speakers in the perfect positions, the mouse and the keyboard are primed for fragging, BUT I CAN'T HEAR THE DAMNED GAME because my computer is TOO loud!!! There is a solution that doesn't require losing fans. I'm not introducing you to a revolutionary product here, or one that will change computer cooling forever. I am, however, introducing you to one company's idea on what a rheobus is. Sunbeam is the company and the Easy Fan Controller Rheobus kit #2 is the product. Read More...