Zalman HD160 advice (1 Viewer)

[elconejito]

I have a P5B mobo in my desktop. The sound was horrible and it only outputs to a pair of generic PC speakers.

If you read alot of user reviews at shopping sites you'll notice that there are many complaints of the sound chip actually failing. So if you're looking at this mobo I would go with the assumption that you are going to eventualy buy a sound card for it.

 

[pannivas]

I have a P5B mobo in my desktop. The sound was horrible and it only outputs to a pair of generic PC speakers.

If you read alot of user reviews at shopping sites you'll notice that there are many complaints of the sound chip actually failing. So if you're looking at this mobo I would go with the assumption that you are going to eventualy buy a sound card for it.

I though I was the only one that found the soundmax chip horrible, but obviously I was wrong.

I love my P5B Deluxe and all the extras that come with all new deluxe or high end Asus motherboards, but their onboard sound sucks big time.
If i knew this before I would have probably gone for an Intel G965 motherboard for my HTPC and save a lot of money. Anyway is not that i will be updating my soundcard anytime soon and I think it’s a good future proof solution.

 

[elconejito]

Yeah, I knew going in that I *may* have to replace the audio with my previous card (Creative Audigy), so I wasn't heartbroken when I had to it.

But anyone looking at this board (and its a great board btw...) should keep in mind they need to reserve a PCI slot for audio. This may affect people who for one reason or another have a lot of cards in their system.

 

[pannivas]

i took 3 pictures of my HD135 internals but something went wrong with 2 of them. I will take those pictures again. Anyway here is the first one.

You can clearly see how my Nexus 120mm fan is mounted.
http://www.esnips.com/doc/7fdf3fba-...6cfae4/Zalman-HD135-Inside1---Nexus-120mm-Fan

I have configured both fans from my ASUS bios to work with Q-Fan control enabled and set their mode to performance. The fans are spinning at 790rpm and creating good airflow and both are totally inaudible. When the CPU or the whole system gets hotter the fans speed up to 900rpm creating much more airflow and still both are inaudible.

Same setup goes for my CoolerMaste Hyper L3 CPU cooler.