Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

What is with PC users and their fascination with LEDs?

Spare a thought for those of us who were unfortunate enough to get really nice quiet fans for our servers... which feature flashing blue LED lights. (and in fact the server case itself has hidden blue lights on the front, not to mention the UV-reactive PCI slots and HDD cabling)

Blue strobe effect and near-silence, 'whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrr' or an overheating server?

I have sinned. I have a multi-LED machine. Forgive me MacRumors. I will be replacing it with a NAS soon with hopefully no flashing lights.

I do agree it is monumentally tacky. But you have to remember what Jobs said about Microsoft: "They have absolutely no taste". And the same does apply to... oh I'd say 99.98% of the Apple-bashing, overclocking 'my copper flowers are bigger than yours' community.
 
The power light on the front of my new Desktop case is a stong blue, which dosn't alter its strength when on stand by like my sisters eMac.

Love the way it pulses when asleep - looks like its breathing gently.
 
Actually I don't even like that LED on the back of the powerbook that gets brighter and then softer while it's asleep. It's too bright. The first time I shared a room with a sleeping powerbook and I saw that LED pulsing I assumed that I was having a Close Encounter of the Third Kind.
 
macEfan said:
I hate computers with 20+ LED lights. such a waste of money, electricty, and they just don't look that good. I don't like souped up PC's, do you really need that much processing power, and look, or are you just a total dork who sits and admires your computer all day long?
Click to expand...

-macEfan

Agreed. In fact, I remember wistfully before even then when the computer had an LCD display. Found that far more useful than the LED's More info like battery time, etc that wasn't eating up Systray.

Though I think these LEDs have graduated into the 'shiny things' realm. Reminds me of the early 80's when 'boom boxes' were rated on how many buttons they had.
 
Back in my PC days, the only 'extreme' case I ever thought was in any way cool was a completely clear perspex case, illuminated with a soft white neon tube.

It was neat in that you could appreciate the attention to detail. Matching rounded IDE cables, gleaming (dare I say, 'polished' hard drives and optical drives with all the labels delicately removed). No other 'leet LED's' -- just a standard PC whose owner had taken the trouble to de-marque and flawlessly assemble the machine.

But then, it just ignores the practical concerns. I imagined the case after a few months: dirty, dusty and generally manky. I didn't go down that route, purely because the aesthetic got in the way of the practical.

Also, has anyone had a person who's used to a PC start looking around your Mac for the hard disk activity LED? I've had to explain to a few people that Macs just don't have them. The reply is usually "But how do you know when it's doing stuff?" The simple answer is: "Good application design." It isn't the hardware's job to tell the user if an application's working. It's the application's!

(oh, and blue LEDs, or flashing LED's of any variety are pure evil. Blue LEDs are insanely annoying in a dark room when trying to sleep. I don't know why, but it just manages to pierce eyelids. As for flashing LEDs, my Logitech cordless bluetooth mouse has a green 'charging' LED that flashes every second when its on the cradle. GAAAAH! I have a dedicated piece of white-tak stuck on my desk which I use to cover the LED when the mouse is charging. It's evil.)
 
Talking about attention whores :D How about those people with translucent cellphone cases that have a ton of flushing LEDs in them when ever they make or receive a call. :eek:
 
Its mostly the hardcore gamers, not the "pc users" in general. Remember that an extremely large majority of PC users buy brands like Dell and HP, which dont have LED's or plastic windows. Saying most PC users like that is an obvious overstatement.

Apparently a lot of gamers who are also into coding and hacking simply have no sense of taste or design. Just look at their websites, theyre horrendous and perfectly reflect those retarded cases. I remember some moron took a G5 case to put PC parts in it, and what does he do? He "improves" it by putting ridiculous LED's in it, it made even the G5 case look like something from the Insane Clown Posse reject collection. They have a serious ignorance on the "less is more" philosophy.

It sucks for those of us who want nice looking PC's. We dont have any options for cases designed by designers, it seems like theyre all made by some coder/technician who thinks he can design because he likes to draw tattoos, tits, and weed. There are a lot of apple copiers but they do a terrible job and seem unable to copy the things that actually make apple cases good.

Sony is probably the only PC company that has any sort of taste. I think I may try to ebay a vaio case next time I make a pc just to avoid another eyesore under the desk, I just hope theyre ATX cases. I cant imagine why people think having feeding tubes, flames, and green lights on a PC looks better than something like this http://www.mobilewhack.com/images/sony_vaio_rc204_desktop.jpg
 
So you wanna be a player?
But your case aint fly?
You gotta hit us up
To get a pimped out case.

You gotta pimp my caaaaasssssssseeeeeeeeeeeee
(Damn Right)


*Doesn't affect the way your PC runs at all. So if your PC doesn't work it will continue not to work.
 
iGary said:
Or the mufflers....

muffler.JPG
Click to expand...



:eek:
 
my brother is like this ... yea i still dont understand the need of having such "prettified" pc towers. i could never sleep with so many LEDs on.
 
mrblah said:
Sony is probably the only PC company that has any sort of taste. I think I may try to ebay a vaio case next time I make a pc just to avoid another eyesore under the desk, I just hope theyre ATX cases. I cant imagine why people think having feeding tubes, flames, and green lights on a PC looks better than something like this http://www.mobilewhack.com/images/sony_vaio_rc204_desktop.jpg
Click to expand...


Lian-Li make a couple of simple, minimalist PC cases. The last PC I built a few years ago was housed in a Lian-Li PC-60 case (the aluminium model). It's a really nice looking case. I took the trouble of getting the aluminium fasciae for the optical drives to prevent the tacky beige drive fronts from showing.

The case was superbly designed. Drives were easily removable in caddies, the stock fans were quiet, there's an easily-removable dust filter on the front intake fans, and (best of all!) the motherboard was on a slide-out tray.

Of course, the whole thing's stuck up the the loft of the house now, since the MacBook Pro assumed its gaming duties :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back