I'm getting a new PC and need to know what i can put in it and what I can't?

Question

I'm pretty up with the whole PC lingo shebang but I haven't really tried to make such extensive modifications before. I want to incorporate a liquid coolant system in the base unit (instead of the tornado-like fan) but don't know how to go about it.
a)where do i get all the coolant equipment?
b)can any base unit have one installed?
c)can you get it from delland have them install it when the computer is built?
I also need to know if I can reuse some of the parts of my old comp that are still working perfectly. The new comp will have a dual core processor and therefore a completely different motherboard and memory - canI therefore take out my 2nd unused hard drive out of my old comp and install it in the new computer? Also can the same be done with the Floppy drive and the flash-opticle drive hub (the large collection of holes you can put flash cards and memory sticks into). I also have another opticle DVD drive I'd like to take out and put in my new one. Appreciate any help!!!

Answer 1

a) IYou buy all the components and build your own water cooling setup but beginners are best off getting a closed system ready made. The asetek waterchill is quite well rated. try sites such as www.overclockers.co.uk, www.scan.co.uk, www.eclipsecomputers.com ebuyer.com etc

b) I take it you mean the case. Most water cooling units are designed to work within midi or larger towers, especially with internal radiators. If you have a desktop or sff pc you'd need an external radiator (such as the Zalman reserator).

c) not too sure about dell and water cooling. they might offer it on some of their high end xps models but i doubt very much if they'd install it for you if not offered as an option on the model you're buying

I'd think long and hard about whether or not you really need water cooling. The thing about water cooling is it keeps your components cooler, therefore giving you more headroom for overclocking, and you'd think it would be quieter than cooling fans...except in order to cool the coolant most water cooling setups rely on a radiator being cooled by - you guessed it- Fans!
If you're not planning to massively overclock, a much more cost effective solution would be to just use larger, slower spinning and therefore quieter fans and maybe team them up with a fan controller.
For your processor try an arctic cooling heatsink fan. This is much quieter and much more efficient than a stock hsf and will still give you some overclocking headroom. You haven't said if you're getting an amd or intel processor but as you mention dell i assume it's a pentium d or core 2 duo cpu so look here: http://www.arctic-cooling.com/cpu1.php?p=4&disc=

Arctic cooling also produce some great replacements for the stock gfx card cooler and again much quieter.
Your tornado like fan is probably an 80mm fan if you replace your 80mm fan with 2 120mm fans inside a good insulated case you'll hardly hear them and with efficient airflow and cable management your system will run much cooler. Like I mentioned earlier you can team the fans up with a fan controller, making them spin faster when playing games or video encoding where your system works harder and therefore hotter and when you're just surfing the net or word processing you can turn them right down.

As for all the components you can use your hard drive, floppy drive, optical drive and hub with your new pc, assuming you have enough expansion bays for them of course. If you are buying from dell most dell pc's are mini towers which = less room for expansion and they often come with floppy drives anyway.

Hope I've been of help, need any advice then just mail me

Answer 2

Your question as written, is misleading to me. I interpreted it to mean you were buying a new PC and wanted to know what programs to install. In this case, I would have advised you to check the required specifications of the program in mind, then compare them to those of your PC.

Building PCs - not my thing.

Answer 3

The question confuses me a tad.. But whatever you deiced, check out www.newegg.com They have the best prices on everything, and their customer support is great.

Answer 4

Wow! Rather you than me. Have a look at:

http://www.pugetsystems.com/liquid.php

or http://discussions.hardwarecentral.com/showthread.php?t=168992

for an idea on how it's been tried.