Hardware Insights Forum

See if you can find what's wrong with this. Actually, on second thoughts, maybe it would be easier to find what's right with it.

The PC is a mITX with a Core 2 Quad CPU, no case fans, an nVidia chipset, a cheap sleve-bearing graphics card fan (which was ceased up), and TK and G-Luxon capacitors all over the motherboard (and yes, the TKs were vented when I got my hands on it).

The picture was taken after I downgraded the CPU to a core 2 duo, added a chipset fan (a sunon maglev ball-bearing), removed the graphics card, and replaced the TK caps with Nichicon HM and the G-Luxons with Rubycon ZL. I had to mod the PSU a bit to get power to the fan. The only spare connector was the extra 4 pins on the 24 pin ATX connector (the mobo only has a 20-pin connector). I cut the connector off and soldered a 3-pin fan connector in it's place (using the 5v rail to power the fan, since it spins at like 4 or 5000 RPM at 12v and makes too much noise).

No prizes for guessing what brand it is

I think it's an ACER. The Aspire marking on the chassis is a giveaway.

It is indeed an acer.

I hate how this new forum software doesn't attach images as thumbnails, or resize them, but you have to scroll through them.

and I REALLY hate the design of this PC

acer

That's a strange configuration. I won't put a quad core CPU and a discrete video card and a 3.5" HDD and a 5.25" ODD in one little computer case if I build a little PC. Most likely I will go with something like atom or APU(E350).

And I agree with your comment on the attachment.

Well, it came with windows vistrash, so an atom or similar would have been underpowered. I think that the best option would have been to use an atom and bundle it with XP. You simply can't cool a quad core CPU in that little case, period.

Im working on the forum software nitpicksn..when I'm done moving andhave internet on Wednesday

Then again I've got a PC design fail of my own. An overclocked p4ht 3.2 oc to 3.4, with no case fans a fanless antecedent phantom 350w Psu

*gasp* Shame on you for building that

I ALWAYS add case fans to my PCs. I have hundreds (literally) of spare ones which I've scavenged from PSUs and soldered connectors onto.

Lol...the autocorrect on my phone turned antec into antecedent...
Yeah it smells funny after a while but it only takes small fans not 80mm!
and it is too loud otherwise. I did change the psu to an antecedent ea380 with a fan and I backed down the overclock...maybe I will add a fan controller

I wouldn't even bother overclocking a Prescott, because when they warm up, they throttle back, so you may actually be reducing its performance.