First try quiet HTPC vol1 - Apex MI-008, 21-08-2011update
Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 4:08 pm
Hi everyone!
I'm glad to present you my first attempt to build a quiet HTPC & Pc for everything except gaming. Sorry if my English is not very accurate . One thing previous to the sauce: I know very little about AMD, so any feedback about the doubts of AMD around this and the following posts will be very highly appreciated (thus, my build is an Intel one)
In this first post I will talk about my build, my dreamed build and then, an aproach to my dreamed build. Hope you enjoy the consecutive article-posts
I have already some components, so let's see my actual build:
Case: Apex Mi-008
Edit at 21 August 2011: consider another better case for the same price and measurements: Kassia 400W from B-Move. If anyone is interested, I'll translate the specs to English asap. The price I've done on a quick search over the web is ~40€.
If you look close to it, image1, image2 and image3, it is very similar to the case Apex-MI008. Furthermore, it has some very nice features and improvements:
- cage for 2 3,5" HDDs
- front panel with e-Sata + x4 USB connectors
- a fan holder to blow air direct/serve as an exhaust to the heatsink of your motherboard
Also, for the hdds probably you can mount an 80mm fan at the panel in order to keep your hdds cool. I've done several experiments with airflow and CFM (MikeC/any moderator, if you are interested in add that content to the existing one, please PM me, thanks!) to cool several hard drives and the optimal and effortless solution is to blow air horizontally to the hdd, holding the hdd by its side panels. The hdd has a critical spot point to cool its heat: its bottom, so by directing the airflow through its bottom its a quite well solution.
In a restrictive tunnel made by some case-cds and some wood lying around the house I've observed at 33ºC (ambient, yes pretty hoy withoy any air conditioner turned on at my room in order to do the test -worst case scenario), my WD5002ABYS with a 120mm fan (low rpms antec tricool, if anyone is interested. The purpose was testing with an entry-level fan) in an horizontal way reach ~37ºC playing hd for 30min. The same test with the hd lying on the table 43ºC. The same test but with the zotac 9300 in the top of the hdd and a 120mm fan at the bottom, ~40ºC. The same test but without any fan, 45-46ºC. Low quality pic over here to see the 'sandwiched' configuration.
So, maybe a fan with low speed (in the road seeking for noise) will maintain your hdds with a delta over the ambient of ~5-7ºC (take in mind as an imperative evacuate the heat of the cpu/integrated gpu). Also I've repeated testing another hdds lying on the table (no airflow, no air conditioner at room) reach a delta of ~10-12ºC (also at 33ºC ambient temperature): 2 WD Caviar Green (1 and 2 TB) and a 150GB Velocirraptor.
Note: on my previous configuration (which you can see at the end of the topic) the hdds with only the fan of the big shuriken at low rpms (quiet mode on the motherboard) the hdds last summer (30-33ºC in my room with no air conditioner -remember testing parameters) reached 48-50ºC because of the heat produced by the heatsink of the gpu (reaching ~65-70CºC at ~30ºC ambient) of the zotac 9300. Take in mind that if you use a discrete gpu instead of the integrated one, many users have reported that the iGPU temps go low (over 40ºC) as far as I can remember.
PSU: picoPSU 150W + 150W power brick
+ extra cable for the PSU + power connector molex to SATA adapter
Why an extra cable? You can put another rail but, as one dealer said me, the same power will be drawed from the 2 'rails' (cables) than having only one 'rail'. I'm not very sure about this, but just in case, I've ordered one extra cable -apar from cable routing issues- to power for example:
- 'line1': DVD-RW + HDD
- 'line2': HDD + 7V/5V fan (for example)
Is it neccesary to buy an extra molex to SATA power adapter? No, the cable isn't needed because the motherboard has one, so you don't really have to. Notice that the cable supplied with the motherboard is a little bit long, so maybe you will be happy with it, maybe not, depending on the 'cable routing' you will do around the case.
Motherboard: Zotac Geforce 9300-itx wifi, version I-E
Note: they have released K-E version... damn it! . It has DDR3 1066/1333, so if you have an e6xx+e7xxx / e8xxx it would be perfect (synchronice 1:2), but the design was a try to build an affordable, low consumption&noise HTPC. I'll discuss this later.
Note2: it has Wifi b/g also as the K-E, but zotac's 1156 socket model it has Wifi N with two antennas. Please visit this link for some discussion about it.
CPU: Intel e5300
CPU Heatsink: Scythe Big Shuriken. Very difficult to mount with standard LGA 775 mounting (from 0 to 10, 8 ). I will discuss it later.
Edited: I've finally mounted Big Shuriken with CPU Cooler Stabilizer, instead of buying screws and so on. The package is fine for my purposes and I don't have to bother so much about finding the accurate screws. Also, it is about ~7€.
RAM: 2x2GB = total of 4GB DDR2 @800MHz 5-5-15 @1,8V. I will discuss this later.
Total cost of new componentes including taxes, transport, etc: ~430€ (DDR2 since September to present days have raised so much. If 4GB @800 of RAM were buyed on summer, it would have been ~50 € instead of ~80€; so then the total cost would be ~400€)
HDDs: 3.5" x1 Western Digital 500Gb 24/7 Caviar Black & 3.5" 1TB EACS, which both I already have
Edited: I've mounted only 1TB, so the 500GB HDD is my back up HDD. In the near future I'll buy 3,5" 1,5-2TB HDD
DVD-RW: 5 1/2" DVD-RW from Sony
Now, my dreamed HTPC/PC general purposes build (probably the less consumption/noise build) would be this one:
Case: with enough room to contain these components, maybe Aopen S-150). Maybe Antec ISK 300-65 would be a better choice (as reviewed by SPCR)
Edit at 21 August 2011: consider another better case for the same price and measurements: Kassia 400W from B-Move. If anyone is interested, I'll translate the specs to English asap. The price I've done on a quick search over the web is ~40€.
If you look close to it, image1, image2 and image3, it is very similar to the case Apex-MI008. Furthermore, it has some very nice features and improvements:
- cage for 2 3,5" HDDs
- front panel with e-Sata + x4 USB connectors
- a fan holder to blow air direct/serve as an exhaust to the heatsink of your motherboard
Also, for the hdds probably you can mount an 80mm fan at the panel in order to keep your hdds cool. I've done several experiments with airflow and CFMs to cool several hard drives and the optimal and effortless solution is to blow air horizontally to the hdd, holding the hdd by its side panels. The hdd has a critical spot point to cool its heat: its bottom, so by directing the airflow through its bottom its a quite well solution.
In a restrictive tunnel made by some case-cds and some wood lying around the house I've observed at 33ºC (ambient, yes pretty hoy withoy any air conditioner turned on at my room in order to do the test -worst case scenario), my WD5002ABYS with a 120mm fan (low rpms) in an horizontal way reach ~37ºC playing hd for 30min. The same test with the hd lying on the table 43ºC. The same test but with the zotac 9300 in the top of the hdd and a 120mm fan at the bottom, ~40ºC. The same test but without any fan, 45-46ºC. Low quality pic over here to see the 'sandwiched' configuration.
PSU: picoPSU 150W + 100-120W power brick
Mobo: Zotac 9300 with e5xxx, probably a better choice than e3xxx in cost/efficiency or the J&W 785G with underclocked&volted AMD CPU
CPU Heatsink: same/I don't know for AMD
RAM: probably with 2gb we may get enough (DDR2 SDRAM / DDR2 SO-DIMM -the small one)
HDD SO: x1 SSD ~30-40 GB (2.5")
HDD Storage: x2 Western Digital 1 TB Scorpio Blue (2.5")
External DVD-RW by USB (may it exist on e-sata? I don't know)
And now, probably the best quality/price/noise:
Case: Apex Mi-008
PSU: 150W picoPSU + 100-120W power brick
Motherboard & CPU & Heastink the same as previous build
RAM: 2x1GB = 2gb total will be more than enough
HDDs: x2 Western Digital 1,5Tb EADS. Small partition in one for the SO like 30~40gb (3,5")
DVD-RW: 5 1/2" DVD-RW /external, whichever cost less
The differences between these 3 builds I'll try to explain them on the next post.
Hope you have enjoyed
Regards,
Javier
PS: the only component that I have not recieved yet is de picoPSU, so when I have it, I'll complete the build and hopefully, make updates over this thread with the last pics of the build.
I'm glad to present you my first attempt to build a quiet HTPC & Pc for everything except gaming. Sorry if my English is not very accurate . One thing previous to the sauce: I know very little about AMD, so any feedback about the doubts of AMD around this and the following posts will be very highly appreciated (thus, my build is an Intel one)
In this first post I will talk about my build, my dreamed build and then, an aproach to my dreamed build. Hope you enjoy the consecutive article-posts
I have already some components, so let's see my actual build:
Case: Apex Mi-008
Edit at 21 August 2011: consider another better case for the same price and measurements: Kassia 400W from B-Move. If anyone is interested, I'll translate the specs to English asap. The price I've done on a quick search over the web is ~40€.
If you look close to it, image1, image2 and image3, it is very similar to the case Apex-MI008. Furthermore, it has some very nice features and improvements:
- cage for 2 3,5" HDDs
- front panel with e-Sata + x4 USB connectors
- a fan holder to blow air direct/serve as an exhaust to the heatsink of your motherboard
Also, for the hdds probably you can mount an 80mm fan at the panel in order to keep your hdds cool. I've done several experiments with airflow and CFM (MikeC/any moderator, if you are interested in add that content to the existing one, please PM me, thanks!) to cool several hard drives and the optimal and effortless solution is to blow air horizontally to the hdd, holding the hdd by its side panels. The hdd has a critical spot point to cool its heat: its bottom, so by directing the airflow through its bottom its a quite well solution.
In a restrictive tunnel made by some case-cds and some wood lying around the house I've observed at 33ºC (ambient, yes pretty hoy withoy any air conditioner turned on at my room in order to do the test -worst case scenario), my WD5002ABYS with a 120mm fan (low rpms antec tricool, if anyone is interested. The purpose was testing with an entry-level fan) in an horizontal way reach ~37ºC playing hd for 30min. The same test with the hd lying on the table 43ºC. The same test but with the zotac 9300 in the top of the hdd and a 120mm fan at the bottom, ~40ºC. The same test but without any fan, 45-46ºC. Low quality pic over here to see the 'sandwiched' configuration.
So, maybe a fan with low speed (in the road seeking for noise) will maintain your hdds with a delta over the ambient of ~5-7ºC (take in mind as an imperative evacuate the heat of the cpu/integrated gpu). Also I've repeated testing another hdds lying on the table (no airflow, no air conditioner at room) reach a delta of ~10-12ºC (also at 33ºC ambient temperature): 2 WD Caviar Green (1 and 2 TB) and a 150GB Velocirraptor.
Note: on my previous configuration (which you can see at the end of the topic) the hdds with only the fan of the big shuriken at low rpms (quiet mode on the motherboard) the hdds last summer (30-33ºC in my room with no air conditioner -remember testing parameters) reached 48-50ºC because of the heat produced by the heatsink of the gpu (reaching ~65-70CºC at ~30ºC ambient) of the zotac 9300. Take in mind that if you use a discrete gpu instead of the integrated one, many users have reported that the iGPU temps go low (over 40ºC) as far as I can remember.
PSU: picoPSU 150W + 150W power brick
+ extra cable for the PSU + power connector molex to SATA adapter
Why an extra cable? You can put another rail but, as one dealer said me, the same power will be drawed from the 2 'rails' (cables) than having only one 'rail'. I'm not very sure about this, but just in case, I've ordered one extra cable -apar from cable routing issues- to power for example:
- 'line1': DVD-RW + HDD
- 'line2': HDD + 7V/5V fan (for example)
Is it neccesary to buy an extra molex to SATA power adapter? No, the cable isn't needed because the motherboard has one, so you don't really have to. Notice that the cable supplied with the motherboard is a little bit long, so maybe you will be happy with it, maybe not, depending on the 'cable routing' you will do around the case.
Motherboard: Zotac Geforce 9300-itx wifi, version I-E
Note: they have released K-E version... damn it! . It has DDR3 1066/1333, so if you have an e6xx+e7xxx / e8xxx it would be perfect (synchronice 1:2), but the design was a try to build an affordable, low consumption&noise HTPC. I'll discuss this later.
Note2: it has Wifi b/g also as the K-E, but zotac's 1156 socket model it has Wifi N with two antennas. Please visit this link for some discussion about it.
CPU: Intel e5300
CPU Heatsink: Scythe Big Shuriken. Very difficult to mount with standard LGA 775 mounting (from 0 to 10, 8 ). I will discuss it later.
Edited: I've finally mounted Big Shuriken with CPU Cooler Stabilizer, instead of buying screws and so on. The package is fine for my purposes and I don't have to bother so much about finding the accurate screws. Also, it is about ~7€.
RAM: 2x2GB = total of 4GB DDR2 @800MHz 5-5-15 @1,8V. I will discuss this later.
Total cost of new componentes including taxes, transport, etc: ~430€ (DDR2 since September to present days have raised so much. If 4GB @800 of RAM were buyed on summer, it would have been ~50 € instead of ~80€; so then the total cost would be ~400€)
HDDs: 3.5" x1 Western Digital 500Gb 24/7 Caviar Black & 3.5" 1TB EACS, which both I already have
Edited: I've mounted only 1TB, so the 500GB HDD is my back up HDD. In the near future I'll buy 3,5" 1,5-2TB HDD
DVD-RW: 5 1/2" DVD-RW from Sony
Now, my dreamed HTPC/PC general purposes build (probably the less consumption/noise build) would be this one:
Case: with enough room to contain these components, maybe Aopen S-150). Maybe Antec ISK 300-65 would be a better choice (as reviewed by SPCR)
Edit at 21 August 2011: consider another better case for the same price and measurements: Kassia 400W from B-Move. If anyone is interested, I'll translate the specs to English asap. The price I've done on a quick search over the web is ~40€.
If you look close to it, image1, image2 and image3, it is very similar to the case Apex-MI008. Furthermore, it has some very nice features and improvements:
- cage for 2 3,5" HDDs
- front panel with e-Sata + x4 USB connectors
- a fan holder to blow air direct/serve as an exhaust to the heatsink of your motherboard
Also, for the hdds probably you can mount an 80mm fan at the panel in order to keep your hdds cool. I've done several experiments with airflow and CFMs to cool several hard drives and the optimal and effortless solution is to blow air horizontally to the hdd, holding the hdd by its side panels. The hdd has a critical spot point to cool its heat: its bottom, so by directing the airflow through its bottom its a quite well solution.
In a restrictive tunnel made by some case-cds and some wood lying around the house I've observed at 33ºC (ambient, yes pretty hoy withoy any air conditioner turned on at my room in order to do the test -worst case scenario), my WD5002ABYS with a 120mm fan (low rpms) in an horizontal way reach ~37ºC playing hd for 30min. The same test with the hd lying on the table 43ºC. The same test but with the zotac 9300 in the top of the hdd and a 120mm fan at the bottom, ~40ºC. The same test but without any fan, 45-46ºC. Low quality pic over here to see the 'sandwiched' configuration.
PSU: picoPSU 150W + 100-120W power brick
Mobo: Zotac 9300 with e5xxx, probably a better choice than e3xxx in cost/efficiency or the J&W 785G with underclocked&volted AMD CPU
CPU Heatsink: same/I don't know for AMD
RAM: probably with 2gb we may get enough (DDR2 SDRAM / DDR2 SO-DIMM -the small one)
HDD SO: x1 SSD ~30-40 GB (2.5")
HDD Storage: x2 Western Digital 1 TB Scorpio Blue (2.5")
External DVD-RW by USB (may it exist on e-sata? I don't know)
And now, probably the best quality/price/noise:
Case: Apex Mi-008
PSU: 150W picoPSU + 100-120W power brick
Motherboard & CPU & Heastink the same as previous build
RAM: 2x1GB = 2gb total will be more than enough
HDDs: x2 Western Digital 1,5Tb EADS. Small partition in one for the SO like 30~40gb (3,5")
DVD-RW: 5 1/2" DVD-RW /external, whichever cost less
The differences between these 3 builds I'll try to explain them on the next post.
Hope you have enjoyed
Regards,
Javier
PS: the only component that I have not recieved yet is de picoPSU, so when I have it, I'll complete the build and hopefully, make updates over this thread with the last pics of the build.