Some add-on to my PC - The Scythe Kaze Master

I purchased the Scythe Kaze Master 4 Channel Multi-Functional Fan Controller last week and its finally arrived to my door step couple of days ago.

The fan controller are meant for 12v fans usage with 12watt per channel.

The Kaze master bundled with plenty of wires and thermal sensors.

A zoom-in view for the Kaze Master.

Excellent built quality and good PCB design.

Finished install onto my i7 system, the Kaze Master serve its purpose to control fan speed (provide a much more silent system and yet flexibility of providing high air flow when its needed) and also provide cool lookings for the system.

Pros:

12Watt Per Channel

Excellent built quality

Can turn off the fan if turned the knob to minimum(full counter clockwise)

Cool looking

Temperature Monitoring

Cons:

Come in expensive price tag

Simple ATi 4850 Overclocking Guide using ATI Overdrive

Its been a while since my last post, well in this post, I am going to share some easy way to overclock your graphics card using ATI Overdrive. This is guide mean for newbies and not for extreme overclock.

*This guide are mainly for ATI Graphics Card, as I have no nVidia graphics card around, but the methods are almost identical.

*Warning: This guide is just for your reference and knowledges, I have no responsible for any damages caused by this Overclocking guide. Be Cautious !!!

Graphics Card that we are going to overclock today:

GeCube ATi 4850 Reference Model.

Specifications:

HD4850 (RV770PRO) (55nm)
Core/Memory Frequency: 625Mhz/993Mhz
Memory Size: 512MB
Memory Type: GDDR3
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Interface: PCI-Express® 2.0

Tools Required:
ATI Catalyst Control Center
Furmark (for Stress Testing purpose)
3D Mark Vantage or 3D Mark 06

Changed the HSF to Scythe Musashi due to poor cooling capabilities of the reference heatsink.

First of all, run your Catalyst Control Center by right-clicking on the desktop, and select Catalyst Control Center.

Select ATI Overdrive and click enable ATI Overdrive box, it will prompt a warning message, proceed by selecting "Yes".

Adjust the slider of the GPU Clock and MEM clock to overclock, it is adviced not to increase the clock too much, adjust accordingly try 5-15Mhz increment each time before performing Furmark and 3D Mark test for stability. Observe for any artifacts when running the test. Try to find your maximum core clock by keeping your mem clock at stock and increase the GPU clock only until you notice artifacts during the furmark test or 3D Mark test. Back down a little, to obtain stability. Same goes to your memory clock, try to keep the GPU clock at stock while finding the max mem clock.

I obtained maximum of 700Mhz for my core clock and 1100mhz for my mem clock, no artifacts noticed or crash occured, back down to around 675mhz / 1050Mhz for long term run.

*Do remember to keep an eye on your graphic card temperature. If its too hot, lower your OC, heat will kill the graphic card in long term run. 3rd Party better cooling capabilities HSF are recommended before OC your graphic card.

Well, after clocked the card we enjoyed some bonus speed from the reference card through overclocking.

There are pre-overclocked non-reference cards available nowadays with better HSF and OC capabilities, that come with slightly higher price tag. In my opinion its worth go get since these cards came with better heatsinks and were able to clock even higher due to better HSF and also better power circuitry. (Eg. 2 phase power circuitry for reference card, 3 phase for Palit's non-reference card)

How To Jump Start an ATX Power Supply Unit

To jump start an ATX Power Supply is an easy process, before proceed with this guide, please remember safety first, I will not responsible for any damage or injuries as a result of this jump start mod, please make sure you have proper tools as well.

Why we need to start an ATX PSU without motherboard ?

Well doing so gives us a test base to test new hardwares, without fear of damaging our system or frying our CPU(mainly benefits those with water cooling system when doing leak test or bleeding the system). It makes testing and swapping around devices much more easier. You could even use a second PSU to power devices in your main rig, should you run out of molex's (which is probably not needed these days as ATX PSU tends to come with more molex nowadays).

Other than that, we also can use it as a 12v,7v and 5v DC Power Supply just in case we need to power up some 12v,7v,5v DC devices instead of buying an Standard Switching Power Supply or 12v adapter. We can get a regular ATX Power Supply (ayam brand ) for around RM30-50 which is way more cheaper then Standard Switching Power Supply and yet much more useful than a Power Adapter which deliver fairly low wattage.

Tools needed:

Plier, Jumper Wire, Cutters.

Picture above shows part of the tools that we need for this guide. A plier, and jumper wire, cutter missing when this picture was taken.

First of all, we cut out a jumper wire using cutter and strip of the protection layer on both end. Twist and make it like the picture above.

After done with the wire, take out the PSU that wanted to be start without the motherboard, short circuit the green and any of the black wires. Picture above shows that I short-circuited the green wire with the nearest black wire.

To determine whether the PSU being started or not, I connect a fan to the PSU to verify it.

After turn on the power on the wall socket, the PSU successfully started, the trick successfully workout.

For long term usage, we can custom made an ATX power on connector as shown by picture above from electronics store.

The custom made ATX Power On Connector in action. The connector come with some price, the mod guide above are much more economies way.