I’d be going along transcoding some video, checking for e-mail, perusing the news reader, listening to some recording, and organizing files – then, wham! black screen and all is quiet. A hard reset was the only recovery.
I had been using a case designed for a Pentium III mobo. Nice case. But, no modern mobo’s the power supply was positioned over the CPU cooler and there was only a front fan to encourage air flow. You’d think the power supply exhaust fan would help the CPU cooler. No dice. An Asus board with a P4 would get hot enough to howl in pain. The Athalon 7750 would run up to 60C and that may have contributed to the system crashes.
Slickdeals noted that Newegg had a deal on the CM Storm Scout case and 600 watt OCZ power supply after a good rebate. That looked like it might help. It did. Temperature of the Athalon now only goes up to the low 40’s C and the crash frequency has decreased to ‘still waiting’ – if this keeps up, maybe I’ll be able to use the machine again without trepidation.
The Cooler Master Scout case is a rather straightforward design with the power supply below the ATX sized mobo and a stack of drive mounts in the front. There are five 5 1/4 drive bays with front access and five 3 1/2 behind a big LED lighted fan towards the bottom. There are two large exhaust fans, one to the rear and one to the top. You can also add two fans to the side of the case if you need more air. The power supply can be mounted to pull air from the underside of the case for its cooling or turned upside down to pull case air. The front panel with power, reset, and LED lighting switches, 4 USB, 1 ESATA, and 2 audio ports is at front top.
The power supply features efficiency and modular cables. 600 watts should be enough for a 100 watt CPU based system with only a modest GPU for graphics.
The key is that my machine now runs in a reasonable temperature range and seems solid and stable when I load it down. That is nice. Good upgrade.
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