27 Jun
2006
27 Jun
'06
11:08 a.m.
Hi Dave,
What is the exact model of the mobo? Is it by any change the
MSI K8NGM2-FID ? There is very useful info in this forum
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=29&threadid=1803985
2) Recommended case/power supply ?
I recently helped a friend with a very similar setup (with above mobo).
He went for the Antec P150, which is a very nice quiet case, with a
quiet PSU, for a good price.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article272-page1.html
The Antec P150 is the second recommended case of SPCR, but !!! note
the warning:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article75-page3.html
In my friends case, the PSU got replaced with a different model,
because of these issues (The store he bought the case was aware
of them). So, make sure that when you buy it, that the PSU is
a revised one, or that you can return it if it fails. A bit of
a hassle maybe, but the case is really really nice.
3) The MSI box says it includes an nVidia nForce3
chipset, which I
assume means that there's an audio/video chipset on the mobo. I'll
probably disable the audio, and I have a gForce AGP video card to put in
the machine. Question: Am I better off using the integrated video or
should I use my card instead ? (Btw, I use the kernel nv driver, not
nVidia's binary driver).
If you use the nv driver, I think you will not notice any difference
between the onboard and external video card.
4) I assume I'll have to buy new RAM. What
should I buy ?
See the anandtech forum.
5) The CPU includes a fan, but should I get
something more powerful ?
Something more silent, rather. Maybe a Zalman heatsink+fan?
6) How can I best reduce the noise from this system
?
See above. A good case with damping and good airflow, a silent PSU, a
silent CPU fan, and one large case fan (maybe 120 mm) at low speed. It
will not give you a perfectly silent system, but it won't be the
vacuumcleaner noise level you'd get without taking care of these
issues :-)
7) Am I correct to assume that this system runs in a
32-bit more as
well as the 64-bit ? How do I determine which mode I'll run in ?
You may run into some hassle running at 64 bit, 32 bit will work fine.
But since you are no newbie, you might want to go fo 64 bit.
This system will replace my ancient desktop machine,
so also I need to
know if there are any precautions or warnings re: running Linux audio
software on it. The distro of choice will be Debian Etch a la Demudi 1.3.0.
Hm, on the MSI based system of my friend, I didn't get the reverse engineered
driver for the nvidea onboard ethernet to work, so I installed the binary
driver from nvidea. Many people however do report the reverse engineered driver
to work, and better even than the nvidea binary, so YMMV. But if you are stuck
with the binary driver (for either video or ethernet), low latency might be
at risk.
Maarten