With the replacement PSU arriving on Monday I've finally been able to test out all the new modifications to my PC. Here's to hoping I don't have to RMA anything for another year. :P Going down the list of upgrades, here is what I've noticed in terms of improvements.

Pulled the 1.5 GB/s limiting jumper off the Seagate 7200.10 HDD - I can chalk this one up to being a PC building newbie and not reading the directions completely. :oops: I noticed this jumper while cleaning off the 120mm fan that sits in front of the HDD, actually read the instructions regarding its use and promptly popped it off to allow for a proper 3.0 GB/s SATA connection. The Vista score for hard drives went from 5.6 to 5.7 so the connection appears to be running better now. Further speed tests to follow when time allows.

Installed a 5.25" fan bay with three 40mm fans - What seemed like a good idea to increase air flow over the RAM and CPU appears to have worked out well. There is now a nice constant air stream moving over these components. The only noticeable drawback I've found is that these fans are noisy! I'm not sure how well they would run off the fan controller, but if I get annoyed with the noise I may just have to try it out to ease my nerves.

Installed some DEMCiflex filters - I don't know if slapping on magnetized filters is considered a true installation, but they're on there now. :P As the manufacturer stated, I did have to raise my fan speeds from low to medium to get my desired airflow. The case temperatures also seemed to go up from 22 to 24 C (running in a summer ambient temperature of 24.4 C). The GPU temperature went from 46 to 50 C (running 300 MHz core at idle) which has me puzzled. This card has always run hot, and has a track record from other users of such, so I may just have to push more air from the side and core/tunnel fans onto it during the summer. My next GPU upgrade will definitely be a dual-slot card that vents the air out the back and offers a stock cooling solution proven to be reliable. Back to the filters, they do seem to be filtering out dust, but time will have to show me if the heat build up is worth the trade off.

Installed a Zalman CNPS 9500AT heatsink - Here is the shining star of all the upgrades. Check out the temperature comparisons: refer to previous section for case and ambient temperatures.

Stock Intel E8400 heatsink with Arctic Silver 5 applied (300 hour burn-in achieved) -

Idle: 29 to 31 C

Full Load: 45 to 53 C

Zalman CNPS 9500AT heatsink with Artic Silver 5 applied (300 hour burn-in not achieved) -

Idle: 27 to 29 C

Full Load: 36 to 43 C

In summary, a ten degree drop at full load in summer ambient temperature and 300 hour burn-in not achieved. I'd say this after market heatsink was well worth the investment. ;) While I'm curious to find out just how far I can overclock this E8400 chip with this heatsink, I'm determined to wait until winter when the ambient temperature drops to 20 C and the 300 hour burn-in may have been achieved. More to follow on that topic as I continue to learn on just how a Biostar TPower I45 reacts to various RAM, FSB and voltage changes.