The RAM/HD upgrade was done on the following system:
-Mac Mini 3,1 (MC238LL/A)
-2.26 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
-2 GB 1067Mhz DDR3 (upgraded to 4 GB)
-160 GB 5400 RPM DRIVE (upgraded to 500GB Seagate 7200RPM drive)
-nVidia GeForce 9400M video

Note #1: This is laptop DDR3 RAM. You can’t use desktop DDR3. There are 2 memory slots, and each is occupied by a 1GB stick by default. I used some “Lexar” brand stuff from Best Buy (two 2GB sticks). Also note that it’s a 2.5″ laptop hard drive – you can’t use the big clunker from your desktop!

Note #2: If you break something, your warranty’s void. Do it at your own risk.

Note #3: You may want to keep the original components around in case you have to send it in for warranty work and they decide to send you a replacement rather than repair it.

Let’s get started…

Opening the Mini is the same as every other guide. You can use a thin putty knife (or a metal spatula/flipper that you’d use while cooking) and work your way around gently prying around the bottom until the case comes apart. You’re basically pushing the “middle” inwards so that the clips give way. I didn’t want to break anything, so I was pretty careful mindlessly (but gently) working away at it for about half an hour while I was on the phone – it eventually came.

Once it’s open, there’s an orange ribbon at the back. It has a clip that pops off from the main middle section with your nail.

there are 4 screws to disconnect the main piece containing the DVD drive and hard drive. To get at one of them, you’ll need to pinch 2 clips holding an AirPort antenna in order to disconnect it. Again, covered in other guides. You’ll notice 1 screw is longer than the others – KEEP NOTE OF WHERE IT WENT FOR REINSTALLATION (it’s not in the more obvious choice if you were guessing when reinstalling).

Here’s where things differ. You may read about the need to disconnect a battery connector. I didn’t – the battery was “part” of the bottom circuit/mother board.

However, once you’ve removed the 4 screws and start pulling out the drive tray, at least 1 of the AirPort connectors (1 of the 2 on the left side) is going to pop off of the circuit board inside. It just clips on/off, but note the location when it does.

There’s no way to avoid that connector coming off. The wire’s tight. When reassembling, it’s tricky to get it back. You’ll want something like a popsicle stick to position and push it back into place on the chip. You’ll understand when you’re putting it together.

One of the other connectors will come off as well, although it won’t be right away. Fortunately, you can put it back on later by hand – the wire’s long enough that there’s ample room.

The final (3rd) AirPort connector wont be as big a deal, because you’ve unclipped the AirPort antenna associated with it.

Note that you can try simply disconnecting all 3 AirPort antennas so that none of the wires pop off. It might make it easier, although 2 don’t have “clips”, so I’m not sure how they’d come off.

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In any case, once that drive tray’s out, you’ll see the RAM. Same instructions as the other guides – pull the clips to the sides, and each chip will pop up at an angle – you then pull/slide it out diagonally. The new chips go in the same way the old ones came out. Make sure they’re in all the way.

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The hard drive’s not quite as easy – first, there’s a thermal sensor. It’s either double-sided-taped (or glued) to the hard drive. Gently pry it off with your fingernail. Then remove the black tape holding the wire.

Next, it’s 4 screws – 2 at the sides, 2 at the bottom. Now you’ve got to get the hard drive to slide out from the connector – don’t push it down, or you’re likely to snap the connector. You want to use whatever you can to slide it out from the connector. I used a tiny screwdriver pushing it gently from the connector-side in a small gap near the front of they bay. Once it’s out from the connector, you should be able to get it out at an angle.

For the new drive, you’ll have to put it in at an angle, then line it up with the connector (probably in an upside-down position), and slide it in. Slip in a couple screws to keep it from sliding back out (or putting pressure on the connector), and once the screws are in a little, you should be able to move the whole thing around and get the rest of the screws in nice and snug. Push the thermal sensor back on in a similar position – it’s generally got enough sticky-ness left to hold, but if it doesn’t you might want to try some dual-sided tape, or tape the thing in place. Tape the wire back in place.

Now you’ve just got to get everything back together.

If your AirPort wires came off the main circuit board, you’ll want to pop them in place as you start getting the assembly positioned into place. Remember, one is a big pain, and you’ll want a popsicle stick (or something else non-sharp) to position it and pop it into place. I used a screwdriver, but I also knew that 1 slip would turn the Mini into a doorstop. Use something wood or plastic and take your time – when it’s lined up, you can definitely snap it back into place.

Use a magnetic screwdriver for the 4 screws – if you don’t have one, grab a big bingo magnet or fridge magnet and stick it on the side of a regular screwdriver to turn it into a magnetic one. It’s the only way to line up the screws which are recessed in plastic. Again, remember to put the longer one in the original position – otherwise you’ll find that one of your screws never tightens.

Once it’s all tightened up and you’re sure no screws are loose, connect the orange ribbon again, pop the AirPort antenna into place, put the cover back on and start it up.

You’ll need your installation DVD to install to the new hard drive.

Finally, images of the Mini with the case off:

The orange ribbon. Use your finger nail to gently disconnect the yellowish connector from the circuit board.

The light blue wire you see starts at the AirPort antenna and ends at a circuit board. It will disconnect when you lift the assembly off, and will be a pain to reconnect. Use a popsicle stick or some other non-sharp object to pop it back into place when reassembling.

This is the AirPort antenna that blocks access to a screw. Beneath it are 2 black clips you can pinch to remove the antenna.

Unfortunately, if you decide to actually utilize all those things, you’ll notice it gets very, very packed:

To be fair, other small form-factor cases are going to suffer the same problem. If you’ve never owned a small case though, this is certainly something to keep in mind. While the airflow characteristics can be surprisingly good, things get very tight.

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Component Installation:

The case didn’t come with much. No instructions, just the case, power cord, and 4 plastic pieces which snapped together to form 2 stands.

I won’t lie – instructions would have been helpful. I got the case off, and was left looking at the black shroud that goes over the CPU for airflow reasons. Obvious as that was, getting the shroud off wasn’t as obvious. I pried it out (it’s plastic, so you can force it out).

Next I needed to get the motherboard in. You’ll probably notice the yellow/green tabs/levers in the above picture. I pushed them down but nothing happened. In any case, I slid the motherboard in just like I would on a normal system. The case has built-in bevelled standoffs, and comes with screws to secure the motherboard with (although 1 odd screw threads differently and doesn’t actually secure the board – it looks the same as the others though so if you’re not expecting it, you’ll be turning the screw in forever until you realize that it’s not the right size).

The CPU went in next. There’s ample room to work, so it wasn’t a problem. I hooked up all the front panel stuff to the motherboard – fortunately the USB and front audio plugs are actual plugs (not single-wires like some other cases). Easy enough.

Next up was the drives. Unfortuantely there wasn’t room to stick in the lower hard drive. “Hmm…,” I thought. “There’s no way to get the hard drive in if the motherboard’s in first, but if you do the hard drive first you’re not going to have room for the motherboard”. I then started playing with those green/yellow tabs some, and found that they push forward/back to unlock the drive bay frame. “Wish I’d noticed that earlier,” I thought. Oh well. I noticed the front panel cover coming off at this point and figured I’d remove it before it snapped.

The drive bay frame is actually well thought out. Flipping those tabs unlocks it, and it pulls right out. You then have ample room to get the drives in, hook up the connectors, and then slide it back in. Not only that, but it gives you piles of room to work on the motherboard.

Here’s a shot where I’ve disconnected it and have pulled the drive bay out some:

A bit more room to work, and the only way to get all the connectors plugged in when you start getting a mess of wires.

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Problems

A few issues, ranging from minor to major.

Minor: First, cable management in general is pretty rough. Things are tight, you have to route certain things around the bay frame, and since some of the frame is sharp, you risk slicing open a wire. Since a sliced wire might cause a short, a fire, or simply some dead components, you want to be careful here. Second, the motherboard had to be pushed pretty hard towards the rear for the screws to line up. Something that undoubtedly contributed to one of the shroud issues I mention next.

Medium: The plastic CPU shroud.

1) There’s a “cutout” near where you put the CD/DVD-ROM drive for the wires, but it doesn’t extend out enough. If you’re using a SATA cable there’s a very good chance that you’ll snap the connector off if you’re not very very careful, so be meticulous about your routing, and bend where you have to. If worse comes to worse, you’ll want to cut/modify the shroud so that you don’t have stress on your SATA drive connector. You may notice that I have a 3rd hard drive in there instead of a DVD-ROM drive. With the proper mounting bracket, you can make the smaller hard drives fit more easily.

2) The next issue is that the shroud also presses really hard against the wires coming from the 24-pin motherboard power connector. With the H55M-UD2H Gigabyte motherboard I was using, I already had a problem with the power connector wires pushing up against the RAM when all banks were full, so this just exasperated the problem that much more.

3) Finally, the shroud has a section that flips to accommodate 2 CPU positions depending on what CPU you have (no instructions for this, but it’s easy to figure out). Even when swapped though, it didn’t line up perfectly with the CPU at first. I had to flex it quite a few times before it bent enough not to put pressure against the CPU cooler.

Exasperating the shroud issue is that if it’s already pushing on something, the drive bay frame will cause it to push that much more upon installation. Be careful.

Large: Case Flex. When the case is assembled, there’s no issue. However, when the top cover is off, assuming you’ve got a couple of drives in there causing weight, the case will flex significantly. Enough that you could damage your motherboard. I was fortunate in that I noticed the case warping as soon as I started to lift it. If you’re unfortunate, you’ll probably hear the motherboard cracking instead. Either be very very careful when moving it, or wait until the top cover’s on and screwed in before moving it around.

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A couple other things worth mentioning…

The included power supply claims to be 300W – the most powerful supply that IN-WIN offers for this case. It was quite quiet and had a pretty low fan speed. You get 2 cable-runs coming out of the supply – each has an older molex-style connector, and a SATA-style connector (one also has a floppy connector). If you use 3 drives and they’re all of the same type, you’ll need an adapter.

It’s very possible to put a half slot video card in there. I had one in for a time. Of course, that leaves even less room for the wiring, but it’s doable.

You can add an 80mm case fan. You might see it in the above 2 images towards the top – it just slides into a holder, no screws or anything. Just make sure the pile of cables right beside doesn’t hit/jam it. Even at a low speed setting, my Antec 80mm case fan was audible. Still, I’d strongly recommend using one if you’re using more than 1 hard drive, are using a hot CPU, or have added a video card.

Air flow itself is pretty well designed, although you might want to tape over the expansion bay slot holes. There’s an intake cut-out above the CPU, and the shroud directs that air out the back of the case. There’s another cutout above where you’d put a video card that allows intake air to come in over that area of the motherboard, and ideally the power supply pulls that air out. However, like I said, you may want to tape over the expansion bay holes so that you don’t have it pulling in the warm air that the PSU just pushed out.

There’s a small air intake at the front of the case, but it’s not likely to do anything unless you have another fan added – the PSU fan simply spins too slow to pull air from every single intake. Adding the extra 80mm fan does help, but otherwise you’ll want to tape up everything you don’t want serving as an intake.

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Finally, a couple images of the finished product:

I’d recommend using the stand. You can lay the case flat if you want, but instructions weren’t the only thing IN-WIN forgot…. there also weren’t any rubber feet included to match the 4 areas moulded into the case for them.

I wrote one before about sleep issues in Vista – It’s possible that a similar change in device manager would work in Windows 7, but here’s another way to fix it, in all your operating systems, for good:

It’s the little jumper you see here circled in green, located on your motherboard (I made sure to get the rear ports and CPU fan in the picture to help you locate it). By default, ASUS has in on the left 2 pins.

Pop it off and put it on the right 2 pins (as shown in the picture).

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For whatever reason, ASUS is addicted to putting this jumper in the other position by default, which always causes problems with sleep. I don’t remember the specifics of what it does, but it’s got something to do with standby voltage being put through the USB ports.

In any case, both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard properly go to sleep after this change, and can still be awoken by hitting a key on your USB keyboard. If your P5KPL-CM doesn’t sleep, give it a try.

…well not much happens. If you’ve gone to Samsung’s site, you may have found 2 possible files to download (technically more, but only 2 that have any hope of working), and you’ll find that neither seems to work well.

The Universal Print Driver will install, and you’ll probably get it to even find your ML-1210 eventually. If you get farther than that, congratulations! You’ll have gone farther than I was able to with that package.

The GDI driver on the other hand will refuse to install. Windows will pop up and ask if you want to try compatibility mode. Unfortunately, it’ll still refuse.

The solution?

No, it’s not a Lexmark E210 driver this time (I tried it… no such luck).

The solution is simple, but not elegant.

1) Download the GDI driver install package from Samsung’s site. If you’re lazy, I’ve uploaded it here:
20070128180408375_ML-1200_GDI_Vista.exe

Or zipped in case you have problems with the above (make sure you unzip before continuing):
20070128180408375_ML-1200_GDI_Vista.zip

2) Right-click on the file, choose Properties.

3) Run in Compatibility Mode for WINDOWS VISTA. Also check RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR. Click OK once you’ve selected those.

4) Run the program. It should install without warnings now (and let you print a test page).

One issue is that you’ll end up with 2 copies of the Printer in the “Devices and Printers” control panel. The first is the original non-working one, and the second is the new working one. It’s kinda ugly, making this an ugly solution for now, but it works.

At the very least you should have your ML-1210 up and running with Windows 7. Hopefully Samsung eventually spits out a proper Windows 7 driver package, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Note that this was done using the 64-bit version of Windows 7. I’d be surprised if the 32-bit version went any differently though, so instructions should be the same.

The good news is that Intel designed the X58 northbridge to safely handle temperatures of up to 100 degrees celcius, so if you’re not quite there, technically, you should be safe.

The bad news is that if you’re flirting with high 80’s or 90’s already, a bit of overclocking or a hot day may very well put you over the top.

If you’re concerned about temperatures, you have a few options:

1. Contact MSI and inquire about an RMA. Note that unless your temps are actually passing 100 degrees, they may simply tell you that it’s operating within design limits… which is true.
2. Keep the environment cool, be careful with overclocking, and hope for the best. Worst case scenerio is the motherboard dies outside of the warranty period. Chances are you’ll be fine.
3. Add some internal cooling. Internal fans help, or you can glue a little fan to the heatsink.
4. Upgrade to an aftermarket cooler. Pricey, and it would probably cost less to simply buy a motherboard with better default cooling instead, but it’s an option.
5. Remove the thermal interface pad from the Northbridge/Southbridge and apply some high-quality thermal paste instead.

Option #5 is the one we’ll be looking at here.

Feel free to watch the video below for a walk-though (skip to the 3.5 minute mark if you just want to see how it’s done). Alternately, you can scroll down for the write-up.

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Step 1: Remove the heatsink mounting screws from the back of the motherboard.

There are 2 screws for each the northbridge and the southbridge. Both have springs and a black rubber washer – don’t lose them, and don’t forget to install them later! Note that there are also 2 screws for the mosfet cooler – DO NOT REMOVE THEM, as you won’t be removing the mosfet heatsink. Not only to the mosfet’s already run fairly cool, but if you remove the heatsink & peel off the pad you’ll have contact issues when re-installing (I removed it in the video and gave the reasons/workaround there – suffice it to say with the work involved for something very much un-needed I probably wouldn’t do it again).

removing the 4 heatsink screws

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Step 2: Take off the northbridge and southbridge heatsinks.

With the screws removed, you can now work at wiggling the heatsinks until they come off. Note a few things here:

1. Because the northbridge and southbridge heatsinks are connected via a heatpipe, both have to come free at the same time – otherwise you may bend/crack the heatpipe.
2. The easiest way to get them free is to wiggle them both at the same time. Wiggle in different directions – clockwise, counterclockwise, up, down, etc.
3. It will take time. Be patient. Don’t force anything, and don’t be tempted to “pry” the heatsinks up with anything (a screwdriver has a very good chance of damaging your motherboard). You also want to be gentle so that you don’t crack/break the die on the northbridge. If you crack it, the motherboard’s toast.
4. It took me close to a minute. It may take you longer. If the heatsinks absolutely won’t budge after a few minutes of wiggling, you may want to leave it be – it’s not worth damaging the motherboard over.

the 2 heatsinks to be carefully removed

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Step 3: Once the heatsinks are off, clean up the remaining thermal pad that’s stuck to them.

You can use a razor to scrape the pink gummy material off the heatsinks as long as you’re careful not to gouge them. A little isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol can help too. Don’t use anything metal to clean off material that may be stuck to the northbridge itself though – just use the isopropyl and nothing harder/sharper than a fingernail to gently scrape off the old material.

One thing to note is the black fuzzy square surround on the northbridge heatsink – don’t remove it – if you do, you may short out the northbridge when you re-attach it. If you accidently scraped it off, you may be able to make a new surround out of electrical tape.

remove the old thermal pad - you can use rubbing alcohol or gently scrape with your fingernail

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Step 4: Apply a small amount of (preferably non-electrically-conductive) thermal paste to the center die of the northbridge, and to the southbridge.

Non-electrically-conductive paste is very very highly recommended. We’re well past the days where metallic pastes were better, so you should be using non-electrically-conductive pastes already. There are 2 methods you can use to apply it. The first is the “drop/line” method where you put a small drop (or line) of paste across the center and simply let the heatsink spread it out. The 2nd method is the “credit card” method, where you apply some paste and use a credit card to apply it uniformly and evenly across the contact point of the chip, thin as can be. Both methods have merit, and various tests have shown that the end result is almost exactly the same.

Note that if the paste you’re using is electrically-conductive, you have to be extremely careful about applying it and ensuring that it doesn’t end up somewhere it’s not supposed to go. You have to be very clean and precise.

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Step 5: Test the contact area before reattaching the heatsinks. Then, attach the heatsinks.

Because the paste is thinner than the old material, you want to make sure that the paste is indeed making contact with the heatsink. Simply grab the heatsink, put it in place on the motherboard by hand and use finger pressure to hold it on for a few seconds. Then take the heatsink off and take a look – if it’s still clean, you may need to apply the paste a little thicker. If it looks like it’s got good coverage, then you should be fine.

Once you’re sure you’re getting good coverage, put the heatsinks on and hold them in place while you flip the motherboard and attach the screws. Don’t forget the black washers and the springs!

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Step 6: Optional (I recommend you skip this): Replace the thermal pad on the mosfet heatsink with thermal paste.

The mosfet’s don’t really need much at all in the way of cooling. The only reason I removed the pad on the DrMOS heatsink and switched to thermal paste is because I didn’t realize the amount of time, work, and modification it would involve. You could very easily damage something by removing the thermal pad, and thus I highly recommend you do not do this!  That said, if you choose not to heed this warning and are determined to do it anyway, I’ll try to help you out here regardless.

The big issue is that the mosfets are actually slightly below other components. Normally, the heatsink would touch these components, probably shorting them out – however, the pad that MSI uses is so thick that it elevates the heatsink enough that it doesn’t touch. If you’ve taken off the heatsink and pad already, put the heatsink in place and rock it a little – you’ll notice it doesn’t sit flat on the mosfets – one edge is held up by the components on the CPU-side, and the other edge barely touches the mosfets.

To get around the contact issue, you have to grind down the edges of the heatsink. To determine where to grind, you’ll have to put a thick layer of paste on the mosfets, place the heatsink, take it back off, and look to see where the 5 squares are. You then have to mark where you’re grinding, and pull out the bench-grinder or dremel to remove as much material as you can from the edges you marked. If you grind too little, you’ll have contact issues. If you grind too much, you’ll take off some heatsink fins. Finding the happy-medium isn’t fun.

Next, just to make absolutely sure you’re going to short anything when the heatsink is installed, you’ll have to cut a lot of pieces of electrical tape and use a tweezers to get them in place completely covering all the tiny components around the mosfets. You could probably use a tiny brush along with form of non-conductive paint instead, but electrical tape is likely safer. Once you’ve taped off everything but the mosfet’s themselves, put the heatsink on and double/triple-check that you’ve got everything covered that it could touch.

If everything looks good to go, you can install the heatsink…. except that you’re also going to want to cut a tiny spring to use with the screw (to make it similar to the screws/springs for the north/southbridge). The heatsink didn’t need the springs before because the pad was so thick – now that you’re not using a pad, the screws are holding the heatsink in place, but not holding it tight. The springs you use have to be about the same diameter as the northbridge/southbridge springs so that they don’t slip and short something. They also shouldn’t be too long, or you’ll keep the screws from going in all the way. Finding the perfect balance is very difficult – both springs I used were cut to between 1-2 coils in length. Since your springs will undoubtedly be different, you’ll have to find your own “best fit”.

Finally, you want to make sure the thermal paste is contacting the heatsink. Depending on how much the components between the mosfets are sticking up (and depending on how much height the tape adds), you may not be able to get the heatsink close enough for a really snug fit. You could do some further grinding to the heatsink (between the mosfet locations this time) to alleviate this, but by the time you’ve come this far you’ll probably be content to just layer on the paste a little thicker.

Again, it’s not worth the work/hassle/risk, but that’s how you do it if you’re so inclined.

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You should be done! Reinstall the motherboard and hopefully your temps should now be lower than they were before!

The Sonata III was bought as a replacement for the Sonata Piano Finish case. It’s actually very similar, although it doesn’t have quite the same piano-finish look to it. There have been improvements in other areas though, and they’ll be mentioned below (you can check out the video or scroll down to read the written review).

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Front view of the Antec Sonata III

Starting at the front, you’ll notice the ports are flush with the case. The older version had the ports hidden away under a silver “door”. While I suppose the old version probably blended in better if you actually had it sitting beside your grand piano, it’s wasn’t the best in terms of functionality. Even when open, the door made it impossible to see the ports from above resulting in a lot of fumbling around if you were trying to plug something in. When the door was open, that section also became an “intake” resulting in a lot of dust getting sucked in as well. Having a flush mount with the Sonata 3 should definitely help to alleviate both these issues. Another change that should serve to help is that the lower intake’s on the left and right are a little larger. Offering less constriction there should help ensure that most of the intake air is pulled from the bottom and passes the filter.

The front panel remains similar, although the Sonata 3 has been double-hinged, making it open a little wider, and keeping it from bouncing back when flung open. A couple issues still exist with this design – first of all, I guarantee that at some point or another (this will happen to you!), a CD burning program’s going to pop the drive open when the door’s closed – probably not the greatest thing for the tray motor, but it happens. The other thing is that when the front panel is open, it becomes an unfiltered intake. Arguably, this is something that would be tough to design around without sacrificing the asthetics the front panel offers. The final addition is a front E-SATA port instead of the firewire port in the previous model.

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Antec Sonata 3 rear view

The rear of the case is virtually identical to the previous model, with a long rectangular fan vent in the lower right as opposed to the tiny square that previously existed. The biggest downside here is that you’ll be hard-pressed to actually find the exhaust fan that fits this non-standard size. Assuming you don’t find/use one, you may want to tape over this section with some masking or duct tape. Yes, it’s an ugly way to do things (marginally less ugly if you tape from the inside), but if you don’t you’ll have warm exhaust air being sucked back in.

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Antec Sonata 3 interior

The interior is virtually the same as before. The side panel has a handle that you pull to unlatch/remove it – really easy, and if you open your case often you’ll come to love the simplicity. A couple thumb-screws are included surprisingly enough, you may as well toss em (unless you’ve got a toddler in the house in which case you should probably use the thumbscrews as extra insurance that they won’t get the panel off and get hurt on the interior/fans). The included power supply bumps up to the Antec Earthwatts 500W PSU, and the 12cm fan now has a 3-speed switch. The 3.5″ hard drive bays are a little tougher to push/snap into place than before (I have no idea why), and the silicon hard drive mounts are now a little thicker and should do an even better job of reducing vibration. Where the internal fan mounts, small non-standard long screws are now used. If you used to use silicon fan grommets instead of metal screws, you can’t use them on the interior anymore. That said, the long screws make it very easy to mount/replace an internal fan even with the motherboard, hard drives, and everything else installed – though you might want to use a small thin screwdriver to do so. The 5.25″ drive bay covers still contain/store the sliders. Really, not much changed with the interior, just a few tweaks here and there.

One thing to note for those who haven’t owned a similar Antec case before is that buying/installing an internal 12cm fan is a *very* good idea. It pulls air over the hard drives (and installing it with hard drives already in is now easier). It’s an even better idea if you have more than 1 hard drive – these things can get very hot, and the fan reduces those temperatures dramatically. The other side-benefit is that the position tends to blow air over the bottom 1/2 of the RAM in most motherboard layouts. You may even get some residual air going over the northbridge (and possibly southbridge), helping airflow/cooling in those areas. The one hiccup it can present though is that it may interfere with long video or add-in cards. If you don’t have a full-size card, or have other PCI/PCI-E ports lower down on the motherboard you can use, this shouldn’t be a major issue though. Unfortunately, there’s nothing Antec can really do to improve this without either increasing the case size, or sacrificing cooling to the hard drives, neither of which is a good option.

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Antec Sonata III filter (bottom view)

The bottom of the case includes the best feature – the plastic filter. Assuming you haven’t left any gaping “holes” in the system (remember my tape idea!), 90% of the air should be coming in from the lower front intake, and this little plastic filter will catch the majority of the dust. To clean it, just tip the case on it’s side, pop it out, wash it off, and put it back in. If you’re used to opening a side panel only to find dust in every crevice of the system just waiting to give someone an asthma attack, this is the feature for you. Very rarely will you have to use an air compressor to clean out the system with this thing installed – it’s so simple, but it works so well. You’d be surprised.

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All-in-all, Antec’s done a very good job with the Sonata III. There certainly aren’t enough changes to warrant upgrading your old piano-finish case, but if you’re replacing it anyway, you’re bound to appreciate some of the minor improvements. For anyone using a generic $40 case, if you’re looking to upgrade to something that’s quieter, looks nice, is easier to use, doesn’t fill with dust, and has some pretty decent air-flow characteristics, Antec’s Sonata 3 is definitely worth a look.

If you’re a bit new to this as well, keep reading. If you just want to see what I have to say about the D-Link DWA-160 Dual Band Wireless N USB adapter, skip down a bit.

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2.4Ghz vs 5Ghz

Did some research. Here’s the best breakdown I found for 2.4Ghz vs 5Ghz (lifted from http://www.xirrus.com/bestpractices/spectrum.php):

Really, 5Ghz really has a lot going for it. The biggest downside is that the routers and network adapters that use it are a fair bit more pricey.

You don’t lose anything by getting “dual-band” equipment, and the plus-side (in the case of D-Link’s dual-band router anyway) is that you basically have 2 wireless networks going at the same time – one on 2.4 and one on 5Ghz. If anyone in your household is having issues on 1 band, they can simply try the other. I could see it being particularly great for those who throw a LAN-party and have some friends with finicky wireless on their laptops.

If you’re building (or replacing) a home network, it’s certainly something to consider.

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D-Link DWA-160 Xtreme N Dual-Band USB Adapter Review (short)

The DWA-160 comes with an extender (cable’s about 4 ft long) and a driver CD. It’s got drivers for XP and Vista (32 and 64-bit).

Yes, unlike some USB stuff (keyboards, mice, storage devices, etc) you will need to install the drivers for this thing.

After installing and connecting to the network, I popped onto the D-Link forums and came across a thread with 300Mbps Connection Requirements. The short version is that you have to use these:
1) WPA2 and AES (not TKIP)
2) 24/40Auto as the Channel Width (set up in the router)
I set those up, and also chose “N-only” for the 5Ghz band. All of a sudden I couldn’t connect on that band anymore. I connected on 2.4Ghz, and ended up having to manually set a channel (5.745 Ghz although I’m sure you can try others and they’ll work – the “Auto Channel Scan” just wasn’t doing it for some reason). I was  then able to get back onto the 5Ghz channel.

I checked out the network “Status” from within Vista. For reference, the router and the USB adapter are 6 feet apart, separated by a wall. Here’s what initially showed:
Signal Quality: 5 bars
Speed: 162.0 Mbps

I was pretty pleased with the signal, but was really hoping for 300Mbps for the speed. I disabled/enabled a few times but no luck – 162.0 every time…

I decided it might be a good idea to get the latest drivers from the website, which I did. After installing, I was now at 300 Mbps!

After about 20 minutes, it dropped back down to 162.0 again, so I tried disconnecting/reconnecting and it went back to 300. I then tried the 2.4Ghz channel which also connected at 300. So far looking good!

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In any case, I’m quite pleased. USB adapters are inherantly poor when it comes to reception (the internal cards with the external antenna are much better) and I’ve heard of people being next to the router and getting poor signal with USB adapters. This wasn’t the case with me.

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If you’ve got (or are looking to buy the DWA-160), here are a few notes to keep in mind:

1. Get the latest drivers from D-Link’s website (here).
2. If you’re using authentication to connect to the router (name/password), use WPA2/AES if you’re hoping for 300Mbps.
3. Make sure 20/40Auto is set in the router settings (for D-Link routers anyway).
4. Check the network status from within Windows periodically. If you’re always getting exactly 130.0Mbps, read this thread. If you’re getting something else (but not 300Mbps), make sure you try both 2.4Ghz and 5.0Ghz – see which works best.

I grabbed some pics of the process with my new Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W35 (if the blurry pics from my previous posts made your eyes bleed, these should help alleviate the pain). I also got idle/load temperatures both before & after.

Part 1: Lapping

1A: The Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (lapped using sandpaper against an already-lapped waterblock small enough to fit between the mounting pegs)

Here are a few pics of what this thing looks like when you pull it out of the box (click the thumbnail to open a larger image):

You can see they include thermal interface material on the heatsink, which I’ve read is MX-1 – apparantly it’s pretty decent stuff. Naturally, i took it off (rubbing alcohol worked well enough). Pay close attention to the 4th picture. You can see the heatsink surface is pretty rough – it’s much rougher than the Intel Stock Cooler. You can notice it in the 3rd as well. Not that it’s necessarily a *huge* deal. Smooth would be preferable, but the more important question is “is the heatsink FLAT?”. We’ll find out soon enough, time to start lapping the heatsink….

And a few minutes into lapping, we have:

Picture 1: Nope, wasn’t flat. It’s concave. The bad news: that means it makes poor contact with the center of the CPU which is the hottest section where the cores are located. The good news: since I’m lapping it, I should be able to get this thing flat yet.

Picture 2: Coming along a bit. It’s not quite in the center, it’s about 1/3 away from the edge.

I used 600 grit paper for about 45 minutes, and really wasn’t making progress. I went out and got a sheet of 320 grit which sped things along, but I ate through that sheet fast and it *still* wasn’t flat all around. You could still see the deep scratches/cuts. It was close enough though, so I finished it off with some 600 grit, then some 1500 grit.

As you can see, there are still some deep scratches in there, but it’s *flat* aside from the actual scratches themselves (so the whole zone isn’t indented at least). I was really getting to the point where I’d first of all used a *lot* of sandpaper, and second was pretty sure I’d sanded off a lot of copper. Less copper means a little less pressure when it’s clamped down later, and I didn’t want to remove even more copper from that thing because well, there’s got to be a reason it’s not paper-thin, so I was content to leave it here. At the very least it was a hundred times better than it was originally, and I doubt that working it any further would have resulted in a bit of difference (unless I were planning on going metal-to-metal using *no* thermal paste, in which case I would have worked those scratches off AND been sanding all the way up to 3000 grit).

So now I’ve got a heatsink, lapped flat, reflected, a bit scratchy, but in pretty good shape overall. On to the processor.

1B: The Intel Q6600 (lapped using a mirror. and sandpaper of course)

Here it is. This was the last time I’d see that printing on the chip, so I snagged a pic. Nothing less fulfilling by the way then taking a $300 processor, getting it wet, and then scrubbing it against a piece of sandpaper hoping that you don’t accidently pick up some static or get a drop of water in there and kill the thing. Time to start lapping:

As you can see, this thing wasn’t perfectly flat either, although I’ve seen much much worse (both my E2140 and pics that others have had). I do think this chip was probably flat enough that a normal flatish heatsink would have probably made pretty good contact with this mostly flatish CPU. Had I left the CPU alone, temp tested it, then lapped it and tested again I suspect I would have only seen a difference of less than a degree if anything. Had I had some way of knowing how flat it was, I may not have bothered to lap it. Unfortunately there’s really no way for a home user to check and see how “flat” a processor is or isn’t. You’ve just gotta start lapping and find out after you’ve voided that warranty :p .

And the end result:

It’s pretty reflective. Had I waited for the 2500 grit sandpaper I ordered to arrive I could’ve got the mirror finish, but it’s really just cosmetic. Again, I’m planning to use some thermal goop – I’m not going metal-to-metal here.

Next, just because I was curious, I put the Q6600 against the Freezer 7 Pro, just to see how much wider the heatsink was than the processor’s heatspreader.

Part 2: Assembly

First, I put a dab of Arctic Silver 5 on the heatsink, grabbed a coffee filter to put over my finger, and spread it around. The main point here was to get it *just* in the microscopic scratches, as well as the not-so-microscopic-scratches you saw in the earlier picture. Next, I put a little Arctic Silver 5 on the CPU’s heatspreader, and used the “credit card trick” to spread it around. Basically, you use a plastic debit/credit/airmiles/etc card, and spread the paste as *thin* as you can across the entire heatspreader. There’s a point where any thinner would mean there’s no Arctic Silver left, and that’s about where you want to get it. You just want enough to cover the heatspreader. Less is more.

Next up, CPU in the socket. I recently read a couple horror stories with the words “crunch” and “bent” in them. For those who don’t know, there are little “grooves” cut out of the CPU. In the pics I have above, you can see them on the top-left and bottom-left. These grooves *line up* with notches in the cpu’s socket. Line them up before you clamp that thing down or you’re probably going to get to hear that “crunch” as you bend all the pins in the motherboard’s socket. Really. It’s not tough. Spend the extra second to double check and make sure you’re lining it up properly.

After that was just a matter of getting the Freezer 7 Pro in. First I removed the fan. It’s not really that tough – there are “barbed” rubber standoffs that connect to the fan. You just have to “squeeze” them while pulling the fan off and they’ll eventually squeeze through the holes (just don’t pull hard enough to rip them off the rest of the rubber). A set of tweezers made this easier – the part you squeeze goes into the hole as long as you’re pulling, and by rotating the tweezers and squeezing, you get it all in – just do it for all 4 holes.

Then it was time to put the fan-less heatsink on.

Maybe it’s not assembled perfectly, or maybe I whacked it with my waterblock too many times while lapping the heatsink, but the pegs didn’t fall exactly in line with the holes. 2 reasons I checked for this – 1 because I somehow misaligned a peg from a stock intel hsf and heard a crunch as some of the white plastic bent/crushed (but somehow survived and was still usable once bent back). 2 because I read about someone else’s experience with a different aftermarket HSF that didn’t line up right and they thought they almost broke the motherboard. In any case, it just took a slight bit of coaxing to line them all up and get them all sticking in the holes before pressing down and snapping them all into place.

Here’s how it looked.

You can see the standoffs/nipples where the fan will remount to. I spend a lot of time talking about it because some people *don’t* know how to get the fan off. You can also see the motherboard’s mosfet heatsink. Yes, it’s close to the heatsink, but no it doesn’t quite touch. There’s enough room but oh-so-barely.

Next I just had to pop the fan on. Put the standoff/nipples in the holes on the fan’s apparatus, and pull them through. Surprisingly I had to pull hard enough that I half expected the tips to rip.

And this is the final result. I *believe* it can be mounted in any direction. Most people will probably actually mount it so that the fan is on the right side, blowing towards the back of the case. I chose to have it at the bottom blowing up, because I’ve 1) taped off the back “vent” spot, and 2) my power supply sucks in air from the bottom, so this lines up pretty well to blow the heat right into the power supply where it’ll then get blown out of the case.

Part 3: Testing and results

Spending $30 on a heatsink, $5 on sandpaper, and voiding the warranty on a $300 CPU isn’t worth it without some results now, right?!

Idle and Load temps were taken before and after the change. The processor was overclocked in both cases to 3Ghz (9×333Mhz) with a Core Voltage of 1.3 volts. Speedstep was enabled which dropped the multiplier to 6x during idle.  Hardware Monitor was running to record the lowest temps reached on each core at idle, and the highest temps reached at load.

First the difference at idle:

Next, the difference at load, running Prime 95’s torture test.

As you can see, there was an 8-10 degree difference at idle and 15-18 degree difference at load. Keep in mind that this is from a combination of lapping the CPU’s IHS, lapping the heatsink, and upgrading to the Freezer 7 Pro.

Part 4: Final thoughts

I’m a bit disappointed in the Freezer 7 Pro’s heatsink. It was *really* concave, and those scratches were deep. I understand it’s a < $30 heatsink, but I was quite surprised nonetheless. On a positive note, I’ve read about others having issues with the soldering job, but my Freezer 7 Pro looked to be done quite well in that respect. The only other issue I forsee will be when the heatsink is removed. The fan is really in the way of 2 of the mounting pegs, and while removing the fan to get at the pegs is quite possible *outside* of the case, *inside* the case is a whole other story with all the other components around. That said, there’s not a lot that Arctic Cooling could have done about that. Installation/removal seems to be a common issue with most aftermarket LGA 775 heatsinks, simply because there’s so little space to work around. It’s either “bury the pegs under the heatsink” or “take out the motherboard to install/uninstall”.

As far as the processor goes, this one was quite flat already, especially in comparison to the E2140 I previously did. I’d say kudos to Intel, except that I’m pretty sure whether you get a flat IHS on your CPU or not is fairly random.

In regards to the results, they were pretty decent, and I was quite pleased. A lack of air conditioning here usually results in ambient temps of up to 10 degrees higher in the summer which means the CPU’s going to get warmer as well. Worst case scenerio is that my idle temps in the summer with the Freezer 7 Pro = my winter temps with the stock heatsink. Load temps will still be better than they were at stock unless we get a *really* hot day.

But what about the IHS (integrated heat spreader) on a CPU?

I recently read about a few experiences that others have had where they’ve lapped the heatspreader on the processor itself to make *it* flat as well. After all, what point is there in having a perfectly flat heatsink if the CPU it presses against isn’t flat too? From the sounds of it, people were seeing positive results. It usually takes a little more than a few success stories to convince me though, so I decided to test this out myself.

I decided to lap both the heatsink and the heatspreader on an overclocked Intel Dual Core E2140. While not known for high temperatures, this one was overclocked from 1.6Ghz to 2.67Ghz which resulted in it running a little warmer than stock. Another plus is that it’s a pretty low-cost processor. If I killed it during the lapping, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

I did some temp testing over the course of a couple days before the lapping was done, getting temps at idle, while encoding, and during runs of Prime95 at various times during the day. The room temperature stayed fairly constant, but I took multiple readings over the couple of days just to be sure. Eventually, I pulled the heatsink and processor out, and cleaned the OCZ Ultra 5+ off of them. Here’s what they looked like (click the thumbnail for a full size image):

I used 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper. I had a bit of 1500 grit but there wasn’t enough to make a difference.

I started with the heatsink. Because there’s not a lot of space between the plastic pegs/feet of the heatsink, I needed a small flat surface to use as a sanding block. I had a copper waterblock from an old watercooling setup, so I first sanded that against a glass mirror to get the waterblock perfectly flat, and then used the waterblock as a sanding block. It was a tight fit, but it worked. The aluminum from the stock heatsink sanded away very easily. It sanded very evenly, and I suspect is was very flat to begin with.

On to the IHS of the processor. I wet the sandpaper, put it down on the mirror, and ran the CPU heatspreader-side-down against the sandpaper. It took a *really* long time. I went through a total of 3 sheets of sandpaper. About 1/4 of a sheet was used on the heatsink, with the other 2.75 sheets being used on the CPU heatspreader. I varied the sanding “technique”. I tried sanding in a straight line and rotating 90 degrees, and also tried sanding in circles. I honestly don’t believe there’s a difference. The nickel plating wore off at the same rate and in the same places each way. I’ve heard people say that one way is better than the other, but until someone comes up with actual proof, do whatever you feel like doing. As long as you don’t apply uneven pressure somewhere, there shouldn’t be one bit of difference.

This is how it looked about a sheet into the process:

The digital camera’s image quality is terrible. However, you can see copper around the edges where the nickel’s been sanded away. Obviously the IHS was *not* even to begin with. If you look towards the center (this is where the actual CPU core touches the heatspreader), you can see that the nickel hasn’t even started to wear off here yet – it’s the lowest point. Had the processor/heatsink been reassembled dry (without thermal compound), there would probably be a large pocket of air here, and temperatures would have likely been extremely high.

I kept going until it was perfectly flat. This is what the results looked like (click the thumbnail for a full size image):

The heatsink’s contact point actually looks pretty dull. It’s smooth and flat, but the 600 grit sandpaper just rips through that aluminum too easily. To get a shiny look, I would probably have needed to use some very fine grit sandpaper. As for the CPU, all the nickel’s gone from the heatspreader, and you’re left seeing the copper. As you might guess, the warranty’s totally void on the processor now, but at least the IHS is flat!

I reassembled the CPU and heatsink. I actually did this twice, once using a dot of thermal compound in the middle (letting the pressure from the heatsink spread it out), and the 2nd time using a credit card to spread the thermal compound in a thin flat layer across the CPU (which is the pre-lapping method that had been used). Both methods gave the same temperatures.

So how did it do? Did my temps drop dramatically?

Well… not really. At idle, each core dropped 2 degrees Celcius. At load (Prime 95), it was 1-2 degrees Celcius. Granted, it’s cooler, but there are almost certainly easier ways to get a 2 degree decrease in temperatures. Remember, I went through a few dollars in sandpaper and spent a good bit of time sanding. I also voided my warranty in the process, not to mention risked killing it with either static or water over a 1 hour period of sanding. It might be a bit tougher to sell the CPU in the future (though it’ll depend on the purchaser).

Would I recommend it to others? Probably not. I’ll be getting a Quad Core processor soon – if I lap it and get better results, maybe I’ll change my mind. Buying a high(er) performance heatsink or adding case fans are probably smarter options though and will probably give you better temps than lapping would. If you’ve “already done all that” though and are looking for that extra bit more, or if you’re convinced your heatsink and IHS are not flat (and therefore not matching up), then give lapping a try. Just be careful and make sure you have the money for a new CPU if yours dies in the process!

In closing, I’ll give 3 reasons why my results may vary from the results that others have claimed (I’ve seen claims of over 10 degrees difference):

• Their testing may have been flawed (ie it was new thermal goop that caused the change, the heatsink just needed reseating, they cleaned out dust at the same time, the ambient temperature changed, etc)
• I may not have done a “good enough job” during my test (not perfectly flat, made an error elsewhere, etc).
• Their heatsink and/or heatspreader was in worse shape than mine. Remember, my heatsink was pretty flat to begin with. It was just the heatspreader that wasn’t. If another tester’s heatsink/spreaders were bulged in or out, they would have had a really poor contact patch and really high temperatures to start with.