Going to one HD 4541

CWO4 Dave Mann

Good to do every few years, at least. Mouse droppings, taco chips, and dead bugs have no significant effect on the computer (although you may not like the smell). Dust, OTOH, can build up and block airflow--particularly underneath CPU fans--and cause overheating.

IMHO, not worth the effort, unless it is part of a particular airflow strategy. If you are trying to put together a quiet PC, then careful airflow design can eliminate some fans and reduce noise. If you are not trying to put together a quiet PC, then this sort of thing is IMHO a waste of effort.

If your concern is accumulated dust then the best solution is to design for positive pressure and to filter the intake fan(s)...

If you are truly concerned about dust, then positive pressure plus intake fan filters is the way to go. You don't need to block every possible opening, since positive pressure will turn every little opening into an exhaust.

Personally, I don't use filters on any of my computers, and my environment is fairly dirty (3 cats and a dog). OTOH, I'm also a quiet computing enthusiast, so my computers run at lower airflow rates (reducing the speed of dust buildup).

Let me put it to you this way: If you don't use air filters, then you MIGHT have to deal with dust after a few years. If you do use air filters, then you WILL have to deal with replacing air filters every few months (or more frequently).

Exactly why are you doing this? Unless your CPU is overheating now, there's no need to invest in a better heat sink. You'd be better off saving the money for a future upgrade to a faster and cooler running processor (like an Athlon 64).

If you want to get into quiet computing, then a CPU heatsink change or mod may be called for. For an old 750Mhz Duron, I'd personally go with modding the existing hardware. (My favored technique is removing the CPU fan, flipping-undervolting the PSU fan, and ducting the PSU exhaust at the CPU.)

IMHO a complete waste of money. 350 watts should already be mbuttive overkill for your system. However, most advertised CPU ratings are greatly overstated, so in fact a 350 watt PSU is merely significant overkill for your system.

Ah, now THIS is a good move! The best one listed so far! Having just one hard drive per computer is helpful for reducing heat and power, noise and vibration, and boosting reliability. In your case, it also boosts performance (due to the way IDE channels work, among other things).

WARNING WARNING WARNING - ACTUAL USEFUL ADVICE FOLLOWS:

Before you chuck the 20gig drive and move the 200gig drive (surely not 200 megs), boot into Linux and modify youretc-fstab file. You want to replace all references to "hdb" with "hda". Then you can move the drive and fix up GRUB and such.

Isaac Kuo