First time SFFers' newly built Aspire Qpack :)

N

Nakamori

Gawd
Joined
Jun 11, 2005
Messages
530
Hey guys, pulled the trigger and got into the SFF game just today, my first day as a proud owner of a SFF machine :)

specs:
MSI nforce 2 mobo
Athlon 2500+ barton, no oc (i know, i know, a shame with the 2500+)
samsung 80 gb 7200rpm
Sapphire Radeon 9600 128 mb
512 kingston 3200
ATI TV PCI tv tuner

I bought the hsf, mobo, and qpack. the rest i sort of had lying around. cost: $187 before tax

and now the pictures:

Front view. Wow those temp readings are off :). I have no clue where to stick the probes for the cpu and the hd. i just kind of put them near their respective components.
Qpack1.jpg


The machine it was replacing is underneath, to show 1. The relative size of the Aspire Qpack and 2. That I really needed to upgrade my comp!!! The Qpack is very light- Even when fully equipped it weighed maybe 1/3 of my old hp metal slab. The monitor is a 19'.
Qpack2.jpg


Side view, showing my lovely wire work :p
Qpack4.jpg


Other side view. See the Note the thermaltake silent boost- an EXTREEMELY tight fit. I actually had to saw off the top ring of black plastic surrounding the fan in order to get her to fit. thank goodness it did. For reference, the HSF fan is listed at 74 mm high. Otherwise, its suprising how much room there is in there, especially between the front panel and the mobo.
Qpack3.jpg


TV tuner, Radeon9600, all that other good stuff.
Qpack5.jpg


What my Temp/voltage utility is telling me as i post this. ~41C idle, 53C full load. By the end of the burn-period I hope to be idleing well into the 30's. How do those numbers look for the stock PSU guys? Do you think i can add a dvd drive and another 512 megs of ram?
QpackDay1.jpg
 
Congrats on your first SFF, I'm looking to go the same route my self. I'm not exactly versed in reading voltage meters, but I see no reason why you shouldn't be able add an extra DVD drive and RAM. Even if some say the powersupply for the QPack is weak, from what it looks like, your components don't seem to draw that much power for it to be an issue. In fact I would recommend adding more RAM if you're going to be using the TV tuner extensively, for recording. But now I'm curious as to whether you have 500mb or 1gb from reading your post and what you have in your sig.

In response as to where to place the thermal probes, see if it's possible to place the CPU probe underneath the heatsink, because as I look at pictures of the processor, it looks like there should be some space between the core and the outer edge of the chip as the 2500 is without a heat spreader. From what I know about Seagate hard drives, most of the heat is generated on the top (label portion) of the drives so you might want to start there in terms of getting an accurate temp. The reason I figure this side is because (on seagates atleast) there is an anti-shock (from drops) barrier that really insuates the bottom electronic components leaving them much cooler than the top. I don't know about Samsung's, so you might be able to get away with planting the sensor on the back side of the drive.
 
Drives radiate most of their heat through the sides, but it really does not matter. Measuring the temps of your hard drive are non-critical, unless you are trying to suffocate it in a foam box or something.
 
AHHHH!!

someone order this man a black floppy ASAP!!!!
:p

other than that, it looks great
 
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