hmm, looks nice.. not even usign all the fan spots on your case?? (got a glimps of the back of your cae)... tho I'm trying to keep everything in the case (to keep noise down, and to make the comp more 'portable').

Ok, just read the cooling article thats on this site, and it says the Reservoir (or 'Air Catcher') is supposed to be above everything... which seems to be a big problem (atleast as far as I can see it) having to put it at the top of the case, and I always thought the reservior was supposed to be right nexted to the pump.

I got 3 panaflo's in there all are L1a's 80MM. The two 120 MM (heater core) Panaflo's 86 cfm are running at 7 volts, the squeal from the damn hard drive is making me nuts now! My Maxtor 30 gig was not so noisy before?

My 1.33 tbird is oc to 1587 and the max temp I reached at 74F ambient was 39c. Not geat but not bad either.

I am going to build a new setup some day, work is real slow no cash, with a 6 x 10 heater core indoors and a 1800 XP probably a KR7A MB.

Jim

Well, first off, KR7A.. best of the Via KT266, but, Via, YUCK!

Get yourself a nice Nforce (asus 415 is nice)... first off, the Asus nforce overclocks pretty good, second off it is REALLY stable (and doesn't have the PCI, and Sound Blaster problems that via has). Also, the sound on the nforce is just unbelievable (especially if you use the coaxile spdif out). And unless you want more then 1 gb of ram, the 'ram problem' with the nforce wont really be a problem (2 sticks works good, 3 sticks gets you a bad score). on the other hand, with the dual bank memory, with 2 sticks you'll get some real nice memory scores.

As for the Tbird, that seems like a pretty good temp, considering its the second hottest athlon CPU made (atleast I think it is.. 1.4 being the hottest).

Oh, and I guess the case pics are just before anything was added in. Good choice on fans, I intend on going all L1As.

This N force board where does it fall in with the 266 / 333 Via's.
WHich memory is best to use with it 2700?

Clearance around socket for water block, OK regarding room?
Jim

It beats the 266, not sure about the 333.

I'm guessing your familiar with Ace's hardware, and know he does respectable/accurate reviews (as opposed to Toms hardware)... heres a sockket A shootout he did:
http://aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=45000290
(he didn't test any of the 333, i think the article was made right around the same time the 333 was being released)

Clearance, well, its pretty good, not really the best, but you should look for youself (newegg has some desent pictures). it does have the 4 drilled holes... pretty standard with most newer AMD boards.

As for Ram, well.. how much you going to overclock, I'm not sure if any brands have problkems with the board (don't think so)... Corsair, crucial, etc. are of course the top choices to use. I prefer Corsair PC2700 personally.

Oh, but if you intend on overclocking a desent amount, dont get a MSI nforce.. they are really good, stable boards, but only reach about 140 stable (actually I got mine a little higher stable, but only did a few days of testing, but I brought my FSB and Multiplier down to normal because of my high room temperature in the hot weather.. and I'm using a cheap, yet not too bad HSF).

heh, id get a KT266a over an nForce board any day. the KT333 would own it hands down.

but anyway...

Cyco: you ever use an nforce? you might be surprised. (and as I said, it doesn't have the PCI problems via has, and it outperforms Via KT266a... but even nicer is the nforce sound, which is just plain unbelievable for onboard sound)

That was an error. I meant to bring that up with Joe, in actuality, you can run the reservoir at the bottom, middle, even under the case. All you have to do to make the reservoir catch air is put the return line halfway up, and the output line at the bottom. As long as there's enough water in the reservoir, and your not flowing like 1000gph, the bubbles will rise to the surface in the reservoir. Even if one bubble out of ten gets sucked back through the loop, after 3 loops, they'll all be gone. ;) Even with the resevoir under the case, the bubbles will still rise to the surface of the water in it. :)

ok, thats what I figured. Makes things 10 times easier, heh.

I have not heard of any PCI problems with the KR7A? I did read the threads around the circuit quite extensively.

We are kind of straying from the topic of this thread sorry, where are we suppose to discuss motherboards on this forum?
Jim

Yeah, we are straying off topic (I don't mind, pretty much got all the info I need, but the mods might not like it so much).

As for the Via problem (all Via baords have.. well, I'm not sure about the 333, but atleast the the 266). I can't find an article on it this second, but when I find one, I'll PM you (or if you open a mobo topic in a different section, I'll post it there)

Oh, and just 1 last thing, theres one other somewhat 'bad' thing about the nforce, they don't really have many Ram tweaking options.

Heh, I don't think we mind at all, we're more than happy to see our forum growing, no need to clip it's wings. :)

Bob-
The 133 boards used the VIA 686b chipset, the 266 boards use a different Via chipset. I think the 266 boards were fine with PCI and sound cards.
Jim

Thanks UnaClocker-
I sure would like to put out questions about motherboards and such right here on this Forum.

The guys here all must have a motherboard and some opinions about different brands and chipset types. Just don't really know where to post these questions. :shrug:

Trying to be informed before I build my next rig, and I am not comfortable with the 333 boards yet. I like stability very much. My old fashion K7 Master is one stable board but not too fancy. I don't need to OC to the fastest speeds, just want to over clock some and keep things stable.

Folks here have experiences not only in water cooling. I got lots on water cooling here, excellent help. Now I hope to tap the brains of visitors on other hardware and software alike.

In return I hope I have helped some builders along the way recently.
Jim

Yeah, I'd have to agree, the ones doing watercooling are for the most part the experts on Motherbaords (not always true).

And Jim, you should ask around about the Via problem, I'm no expert (since I haven't gottan a Via baord since the 133)... but I am sure there are a lot of people who know about the problem I mentioned... though the problem isn't too big, and you may not encouter it... wouldn't recommend getting an Sound Blaster anyway (unless you need all those extra ports... you should get the Santa Cruz)... but I think the problem goes a slight bit further then just the Sound Blaster.. #athlon on efnet definately has a ton of people who know about it (you just got to go on the 'right' time when the real 'experts' are there)

<-- using Abit KT7a-RAID (VIA KT133a, 686b) w/ SB L! 5.1 using win98se, no probs. i have heard about the PCI prob, etc., but newer BIOSes have options that are supposed to take care of it. the newer 4-n-1 drivers are also supposed to fix it.

Pauls KT7 FAQ should help you out if you have any probs. I have this MB too.

Well we're looking for somthign on the 266 problem, not the 133 one (so KR7, no KT7)