Is Intel going to be selling the mobo/CPU to consumers? It would be nice to build your own NUC based system, especially if you could do it completely passively with something like a new, smaller HD Plex case or other case that doubles as a HS.

Thanks Lodestar, that is what I will do. In the photos it looks like he is doing the crimping with an exacto knife. Is that how he is doing it? @edh - Maybe I am misinterpreting what you are saying but it is a PWM fan, is it not? It is just that the Yellow RPM wire is made to connect to a different ...

I didn't have a chance to open my case last night and check out the connectors again. Would it be a bad idea to pull the yellow wire off of the 3 pin connector and attach it to the correct spot of the 4 pin connector? That way I would just attach the F12 to the CPU Fan header and it should be able t...

Thanks Lodestar. The OS on this PC is Win7 Home Premium 64 bit. The download page doesn't have Win7 as an option, I am assuming that the Vista 64 bit would be the way to go? I think I tried this in the past but got something like unsupported OS when running the install, but I will try it again. I th...

What about other monitoring software like Speedfan or Core Temp.

No just somewhere, the single yellow (RPM detecting) wire needs to be plugged into the extension socket on the F12 motherboard connector. In your graphic that is the connector on the right. Not doing this will generate a BIOS error because the motherboard will detect that a PWM fan is present but a...

I am wondering if that 3 pin single wire connector give the RPM reading to the mobo? But if so I wonder where I would connect the main 4 pin connector? To another fan header or maybe (via an adapter) to a molex connector. Replacing the fan is a bit of a PITA so I don't know that I want to do that ag...

After taking it out I relaized that I must have the Zalman 7700 as the fan was 120mm. I ended up changing the fan. I had a Arctic PWM12 fan that fit. The only problem was that the fan base wasn't quite thick enough. I secured the fan with double-sided foam tape. Since the fan base for this fan wasn'...

I just relaced the fan on a Zalman 7700 CPU cooler that is on a LGA775 CPU. The mobo is an Asus P5B-E. The new fan that I used was a Arctic 12 PWM with a four pin connector and it had a second single wire that attaches somewhere. The original Zalman fan only had a 3 pin connector. I could not connec...

I actually just moved the mobo and components from an HTPC Silverstone case to the Sonata case so it got a good cleaning at the time and that is when I realized it is such a pain to put in the mobo. Actually it would get a lot easier with a decent magnetized screwdrive!

I have an older system that has an LGA 775 E6600 CPU cooled by a Zalman cooler - I think it is something like the Zalman 7000 or whatever they were making five or so years ago. Here is the SPCR review of this cooler http://www.silentpcreview.com/article209-page1.html I find the CPU fan a little nois...

The article says you may still want to go with a Scythe Kozuti. Are they still available because my normal shops including ncix and newegg.ca don't seem to carry it anymore. Has Scythe replaced it with another model?

Why not also reveiw the other version of the NUC, the DC3217IYE, which makes more sense to me with an ethernet port and two HDMI ports? Both of the NUCs are not widely available. Why is that? Is it because they are so new? How would you hook this up to a computer monitor and still get sound since th...

Please review more smaller capacity PS's. I have several PCs in my house but I am not a gamer. Even my media server doesn't draw more than a few hundred W. My main desktop PCs have integrated GPUs and in the future they will all have SSDs - I doubt that any such PCs will even draw more than 150W.

On page 2 of the review you include the following: TESTING Our samples were tested according to our standard hard drive testing methodology. As of mid-2008, we have been conducting most acoustics tests in our own 10~11 dBA anechoic chamber, which results in more accurate, lower SPL readings than bef...

Has Intel responded at all to these experiments and do they plan to do anything to change their processes with the Ivy Bridge CPUs?

Given all that, I think the focus will be less on super quiet and more on quiet but with high airflow -- ie, something not for the silencers but for the masses. A 120mm fan that does 20 dBA/1m while spinning at maybe 3000rpm (with the resulting high airflow) would be much more sellable than a 12 dB...

This device would be so much better with SPDIF and HDMI to make it useful in a HTPC environment.

Do you even need a fan if the power consumption is that low? These systems should work great with totally passive cases like the HD-Plex or others that use the case as a heat sink.

Why do system builders continue to make these systems with underpowered Atom CPUs when a substantially better CPU, like an i3-2100, is not much more expensive and can still be passively cooled? You don't know what you're talking about. The difference in heat generated is huge. No one makes such sma...

Why do system builders continue to make these systems with underpowered Atom CPUs when a substantially better CPU, like an i3-2100, is not much more expensive and can still be passively cooled?

Other than this card what are the options for a passive card that can drive threee monitors?

Can't you use an Ivy Bridge CPU in a mobo designed for Sandy Bridge?

This article confirms my suspicions that most power supplies sold these days are extreme overkill for most users. Your i5 system would be a typical mid-high range system in today's market and you show that it needs no more than about a 300W PS. Why didn't you run the same test with the i5-2500K syst...

While this may be a very good product I'm sure and SPCR has treated it as so in the review, who needs a killowatt PSU? For 99% of the people that buy one of these an X400 or X460 would be sufficient. Tiny differences in efficiency will be more than compensated for by the greater resources required ...

What will be using the PC for? As long as you aren't gaming there is value in the onboard GPU on Sandy Bridge processors as that should be enough graphics power. And it means no discrete graphics card which means less heat and (perhaps) one less fan assuming that you were considering a graphcs card ...

I think the main message here is Your Mileage May Vary. I have run ethernet to most, but not all of my house. Part of my house was built in the 1950s but there was a 1992 addition and it isn't easy to run ethernet to this part of the house. So I tried two different brands of powerline networking a f...

Zygmunt wrote:What do you think about these designs?
The one on the left it is new design, testing market. No ODD.
On the right - with passive cooling - will be in the USA in the fall.

@Zygmunt - are these cases available?

Did anyone ever figure out if the Kozuti fits inside the M350 case? The question is posed several times in the thread but I never see an answer.

That review is what lead me to HDPlex in the first place. I just wish they made a minimally size version as well.