And at most office stores (Office Max, Office Depot, Staples).

Doe anyone know if there is a difference in canned air? Is the product purchased from Office Max inferior to Dustoff in a significant way?

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One other note on cleaning the insides: I have been told to NOT use a vacuum because you can run into static electricity issues which can zap components and render them DOA (assuming that you are using a standard household vacuum and not one that the copier repair people use with special static control).

You can get high huffing air? Well I expect that explains a lot of the seemingly dazed and confused people I meet daily (now if I just knew why they are always in front of me at the grocery store? )

One more thing I'd recommend for that system, Moonie- be sure to get a different heatsink/fan - the stock one on those chips can be horrible to install.

I've had great experience with the Zalman 9700LED (but certainly not anything for a Shuttle case- it looks big in my full tower case), but a heatsink/fan I've recently used for a couple builds is Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (probably too big for Shuttle) and the one I'm using for the new Beast, the Thermaltake Max Orb.

For a Shuttle case, you might want to consider this, the Zalman CNPS8700 NT

The Shuttle inlcudes a cool little heatpipe that when combined with the (relatively) low power Duo Core e6750 means I can get away without a Zalman type cooler. Most of the time the unit will run fanless, if I start editing video or blasing zombies then a small fan on the heatpipe kicks in.

Awesome, looks like you're gonna have a fun machine.

I have no idea when I'll be able to build my new rig, but I'll have the processor in the next 2-3 days.

I'm considering wiping Vista off our new laptop and going back to XP. I need to do some experimenting with XP to see how well it works with the Vista file server (that is working out great and I have zero reason to change) I've got set up, and I may hold off until SP1 is released, but so far the few convenient bells and whistles of Vista (and there are a few that I'll miss) just aren't worth the crappy performance.

The good news is that since I've set things up so that everything is served from the file server, switching OS's on the laptop is no big deal.

Ya know, those file servers are going to catch on one of these days.

I'm still running Windows server 2003 at home. I guess I'm behind the times again.


Oh, and speaking of being behind the times... The PC with no name was one of them snazzy all-in-on PC's. So now I have to get a new monitor to boot.

Exactly when did the standard PC monitor get phased out for those idiotic wide screen models? All the stores around here carry exclusively wide screen monitors. What's up with that?

I'm still surprised it's working out as well as I had envisioned. And having gone with ultra-low power components, having it on 24 hours a day has barely put a dent in our electric bill even.

Thought about it, but I don't own a copy. So my choice was to steal a license for server 2K3 from work or *gasp* buy Vista Ultimate. I wasn't going to spring for the cost of a true server OS for my 1-node home network. For some bizarre reason I felt like doing this one on-the-level, so I went with Vista. And on that system, for that purpose, it's been ideal.

About the time game designers started designing with wide screen monitors in mind.

So, if I still have an option by the time I buy (and I go with Dell), do you think there are any serious ramifications for picking XP rather than Vista?

Oh, and Cherny, Dell is having a sale on the Vostro notebooks, I customized it to upgrade the chip and the RAM and it still came out to be a real bargain. I believe I configured the Vostro 1700. Maybe it was the 1500, I did not save it. But, it was just over 1250

The 2003 license wasn't too bad, what killed me was the Exchange enterprise license. (at one point I was hosting mail for multiple clients)


Damn gamers. There outta be a law. Shameful I say shameful!