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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Street Walker who wrote (316)	3/2/1998 10:17:00 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Respond to of 14778

Cases...PC Power and Cooling mid tower or InWin? I have read the reviews of the InWin cases at Anand's anandtech.com and Chadwick's Tweak it site digiweb.fr . I am a bit hesitant listening to reviews with the ABIT LX6 in recent memory. Both Tom and Anand gave it a rave review but there are an awful lot of unhappy owners (ex-owners) in the Internet forums. It seems like it is a great performing board when it works. My preference has always been for a full tower case. It gives you more room to work inside and more drive bays. Even if you do not assemble it yourself you will most likely end up inside the case many times. Of course you have to consider the physical dimensions and where it is going. I like a case with easy access. This is really hard to figure if you haven't actually experienced using the case. I still prefer the full tower PC Power and Cooling case and agree that it is pricey. The most compelling reason is the two ball bearing cooling fans and the air filter. The other mentioned cases have openings for fans but no fan installed unless I missed something. It also has eight external drive bays which will make an awesome CD/DVD tower in the future. OK, I know you are not convinced so my next preference is the PC Power and Cooling mid tower. The reason is the choice of power supplies. I just don't believe you can get a quality power supply in the In Win case at price they are selling the case for. I am with the crowd with the UPS, get one. However most reasonably priced UPS's are switching UPS's. They run off utility power until there is a problem and then they switch to battery back-up. We probably need an EE at this point but I will present my guesses. There is some time delay in the switching. A good power supply can handle this. I believe the hold time spec of 16-24 ms addresses this issue. If you look at a low end power supply with a hold time of 3-5 ms (from PCPC site) you might not have adequate protection. OK I am far out on a limb now so I'll just state my opinion. Get the PC Power and Cooling case because it comes with a better power supply and it supports extended ATX format...Unless you need the extra drive bays. Does the InWin full tower come without a power supply? Regards Zeuspaul

To: Street Walker who wrote (316)	3/8/1998 4:11:00 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

InWin Q500 ATX case from the PII forum....Dual CPU...Graphics newsgroups.intel.com The answer is first, then question From slyglif Subject Re: Upgrading from 166 system >> You would need to get a new motherboard, chip, RAM, and possibly ATX case. If Photoshop is your main application, I would consider running also getting WinNT and 2 P2-233's or better, since Photoshop will benefit a lot from SMP. Here are some ballpark figures from one of my vendors: Motherboard: Asus P2L97-DS $340 w/ 1 P2-233... $660..... w/ 2 P2-233... $980 w/ 1 P2-266 ... $755..... w/ 2 P2-266 ... $1170 w/ 1 P2-300 ... $900..... w/ 2 P2-300 ... $1460 w/ 1 P2-333 ... $1125..... w/ 2 P2-333 ... $1910 RAM: ... 128 MB SDRAM $285 Case: Inwin Q500X Full-Tower ATX Case $120 (This is the case I use on all systems. Lots of room for extra fans, and plenty of room for drives). >> What I'm after is to get most processing power without spending absolute top dollar or having to just buy a new computer. >> I might want to go with a single processor for now, then buy a matched set of 333's at a later date. Also, I assume that you are using UW SCSI for your disks? If not, you may just want to actually get a new system, since a couple of Seagate Cheetah drives (which are options for a some Dell's and Gateway's) would increase your performance a lot. << >>In article <MWEAdxrS9GA.229@newsgroups.intel.com>, dsprow@erols.com says... Well, after reading a few other posts, I realized that I should explain that upgrading the processor as stated seems the next step to me. I have 14 gigs of hard drive space, with substantial amounts set aside for scratch disk space for programs like Photoshop and abouit 1 gig set aside for Virtual Memory. 128 megs of EDO SRAM. And I need get these damn thing moving faster! on these large graphic files.<< bold added

To: Street Walker who wrote (316)	3/12/1998 11:52:00 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Respond to of 14778

InWin 500 case....feedback on ESC Technologies..from a post on the Tweak-it site Daryl, I too chose the LX6 and I put mine in an InWin Q500B full tower with the 300 Watt power supply. It really is a quality case and easy to work with. It looks quite nice too when all assembled. The drive bay setup is a bit unusual with the single 3 1/2 floppy bay at the very top, but there is ample room for just about any configuration. You might want to note that I have found two different variants of this case. One is the Q500A version that has a 250 watt power supply and the other is the B version that has the 300 watt power supply. For the price difference....the better money is on the B version. I can also recommend the supplier I used as they are very reliable and highly professional. By the time UPS got the order to me, the front of the case had been cracked, but I called and they got me a replacements in no time at all. In short....very quality service. The company's name is ESC Technologies out of CA. The gentlemen I dealt with is Rod. and another response I agree with Jeremy. I have the same exact case with the 300 watt power supply. I purchased mine at:http://www.a-pro.com/ for $128. The only thing that I don't like about it is the location for the power on button and the 3« drive. They are too close together, as one might push the wrong button, but its a quality case. I also purchased a extra cooling fan that mounts in the very front next to the speaker. I got the fan from Megatrends Technologies for $15 and it plugs onto the LX6 motherboard. The part number is:FSP2, Backup fan w/3-pin connector.