DVD drives that don't open

[PeterBJ]

What did you use as a lubricant?
Just for completeness... what drive make and model is yours? I have a lovely Lite-On iHAS524 with a sticky tray.

I think a good lubricant would be the Molykote EM-30L, which is safe for plastics. I found no EU distributors, who offered it in small quantities, so I bought the 4 oz quantity from an American Ebay seller. I recommend the use of a 5 ml Luer-lock syringe with an 18g blunt needle, as a miniature grease gun for use with the product. I bought the product for printer lubrication.

The drive I scanned is a Lite-On IDE DVD-RW model SHW-160P6S, manufactured December 2005. Probably Emulator's drive is also a Lite-On.

As far as GPUs are concerned I am thinking of the Nvidia GTX660, which should do the job well enough.

I think that would be an excellent choice. My new Medion computer has the smaller GTX650, which is a decent intermediate level card. I think the GTX660 is gamer class. Do you know the freeware program GPU-Z, that gives the specs and monitors sensors of graphic cards?

Another question on a different subject, has anyone experience of the Corsair Hydro H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler? Are there reliability or maintenance problems with liquid coolers?

I have no experience with liquid cooling systems. Are you going to overclock your new system to the limit to speed up the enormous amount of calculations that seems to be involved in profiling? There is also a freeware program to give the specs of a CPU and monitor sensors and performance. It is the CPU-Z.

 

[stratman]

Another question on a different subject, has anyone experience of the Corsair Hydro H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler? Are there reliability or maintenance problems with liquid coolers?

I have the Corsair Hydro H110. It is very quiet and does it's job as expected. The only thing to mind is the size of the fans/radiator require a big enough case for install. I have a Corsair Carbide 500r case. Corsair has a compatibility list on their site.

Any liquid cooling device can fail. The H60 appears to have a good record from my quick search. A leak or decrease in cooling will be signs of failure. There is a copper block that is used to interface with the CPU and the radiator is made from aluminum. These metals can produce galvanic corrosion and lead to failure. I have read that that the fluids used in the sealed system are propylene glycol and distilled water which should retard the galvanic process.

There is supposedly zero maintenance of the closed loop for the user. Plug and play, as they say. But... I recommend installing the fan/radiator in a "pull" orientation for ease of cleaning to maintain good air flow and optimal cooling. For more info see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyC3lZ5WFMk.