this thread is quite a good read.

i would only add that i've never had a quiet PC until i went mac. even when i built my own, i tried to get the quietest fans i could and it never quite worked out.

you might pay more for apple, but they've done all the hard work for you

 

Macbook Air - totally silent - early Macbooks could have noisy fans but only a few pounds to replace (did it myself!).

 

Watecooling and low noise fans is only one way how to create quiet PC..


Jura

 

I ended up fitting a Tbalancer Big NG. Software in vista is a bit glitchy, but once mapped and running its money well spent.

Mine runs fans, but the tbalancer can run a water pump. My CPU underclocks and undervolts (energy saver) when under low load so that helps a fair bit keeping it cool.

 

lol, like I said PICNIC. You always install a new OS from fresh, that is common practice, no wonder you have so many 'issues'.

Mind you I will contradict myself as I did do this once on a machine I was using as a server/backup, purely because I was being lazy and I didn't have any problems with Vista on that, but the spec was pretty high, so didn't notice performance issues at all.

 

Oh I see the phantom thread pruner has paid this place a visit again LOL!

 

mines on in about 14 seconds from touching the power button
loving the SSD,tho a faff to set up windows to stop thrashing it


cant say ive had that problem :O my previous install was going for a while w/o any issue, only fresh installed to get a nice start on my ssd


i've also been using PC's since DOS 5
im confused my all this fiddling and house keeping you supposedly need to do :O
my dads got an old xp3200 build of mine that hasnt been touched by me in years and its perfectly fine

anyhow i wont disagree vista wasnt great :P but i still didnt have particular issues with it, just was a bloated beast, which i went back to XP shortly after installing, and eventually hopped over to w7

i've built loads using Asus boards in recent years w/o said problems :O
i have 5 at work currently i built for myself and the IT peeps, which have been going 4 years w/o reliability or stability problems.. pass



Jura id agree with Corsair PSU's, samsung HDD's, but noctuas too noisy ?
on a side note they just sent out a brand new mounting kit for my noctua heatsink/fan to fit the new sandybridge board ive got
completely free of charge, top customer service



bioforger, ive done upgrades w/o issue, again maybe im just lucky :P


anyhow to summarise my dribble i dont know why so many people complain about windows yes it can become a pile of shat quickly, but its usually down to the user meddling rather than the OS's fault heh
anyhow it keeps me in a job either way
eitherway im not a complete windows fan boy, i use whatever gets the job done the best for me and the Company.
and atm that is Windows XP/7 for the users with mostly Windows 2k3/2k8 servers and some linux boxes for our DB boxes

 

]

Apple seem to manage it very successfully with OSX - so why can't Microsoft?

 

Hi there

Noctua are great and quiet(i've use before few CPU coolers from Noctua),i've said Zalman Fans are too noisy for me


Jura

 

Ha! Just as you were singing the praises of Apple as well. Bugger!

 

ah i misread
not used zalman in a while so cant really comment ;o

 

Simple. OSX only caters for MACS. MS Os's cater for all types of personal computers and their many different types of configuration

 

Oh, that old chestnut.













OK - very fair point

 

Google should think about buying a mobile manufacturer or the same fate awaits them with Android. Oh Wait!!

 

Nah! Why invest million into making the hardware, when someone else can do it....better off spending it in the courts.

Bit like Microsoft really.

 

Quite happy with the Scythe stuff. Bit of a squeeze in a HTPC case though (even a mini Ninja, which is not so mini).

 

I've post above mine favorited fans and there is Scythe,Coolermaster,Noctua,Fractal design,just i don't like Zalman which i've tested and i was been just disappointed with these.

HTPC cases i'm not using,because are too small for my builds,but if i want i would buy Lian-Li,Silverstone

Have look on Danger Den watercool section



Jura

 

what I find staggering is how easy it is to crash W7 -- just close a few windows too quickly and "pop" it locks up

and I hibernate -- but after a few hibernations you have to reboot to restore performance, shocking really

 

And people wonder why I love Apple, if you all moved to OSX I could retire properly.

 

mmm, dare i mention the new bios and boot up speeds? lol

bios is being updated (although details seem a bit sketchy at the min) so boot times will be alot less.

but fromt he origioal question, get a new machine dude and dump the turd that is vista

 

Been running Windows 7 here for a couple of years (started with the beta versions), and I can't recall suffering a single OS lockup or blue screen in all that time. That's using it about 8-9 hours a day, 5/6 days a week. I'm developing and testing software on the machines, so they get a fair hammering from sometimes less than stable code. No problem with hibernating on the laptop either. Performance is still fine. I've not needed to use any of these myriad of tools that some people seem to think us Windows users all need.

I think the Windows experience does depend a lot on your hardware, and the quality of the associated 3rd party drivers...

 

i've had a BSOD with win7 and witnessed it on another machine. both DELLs if that's of interest.

transversely, i was expecting to get the occasional kernel panics with my MBP, MP and Mac Mini, but I've had none I guess i'd been 'raised' on windows, so they were the norm.

 

My work machines are dells as well. Never skipped a beat

 

This thread is funny. Everyone who uses Windows and doesn't have a Mac has no issues with Windows whereas as every Mac user has had a shed load of issues when they have tried to use Windows.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between .... but who wants the truth?

Oh and read this qucikly folks before it gets vaped for whatever obscure reason my posts get removed from these threads

 

i think to say never had issues is prob not correct.

but i think there laot more stable than they used to be comparativley, where as macs are still as restrictive,,, lol

simply put if you want plug and play easy to use then mac, if you want more grunt then pc.

 

I did, a Macbook and OSX



I would agree if my Mac wasn't comparitively faster than my Windoze machine - when they were similar specs. Now I have an i7 I expect it to be a lot faster.

 

To be fair to Microsoft, Office is the gold standard productivity toolkit for corporates.

And with Lion and Parallels 6 it runs brilliantly under an XP VM on my Mac. You click on a PPT and it opens Powerpoint very quickly - you don't even see Windows at all unless you request it. Fabulous level of integration.

 

i can definitely edit Word docs in Pages - do Excel spreadsheets load into Numbers too?

MS Office has been available for mac forever.

 

They do but don't expect Macros to work.

 

Iain -- working all day, quite a few apps/windows open, mostly I.E7 and office apps, nothing exotic

want to go home, quickly close all the apps -- then "pop" locks up

and using Visio 2007 -- and can force a lockup at will, just searching for shapes

and this is on a HP 8440p laptop

never used a mac in anger though, no right click you see

this shared .DLL model is to blame -- I am sure of it