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help needed to decide, please

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 12:41 pm
by ajagodnik
Hi,
first of all, great site!

I am planning to buy a new computer and my primary goal is to make it as silent as possible

with some modding if needed (replacing fans...) and of course small. Performance is not that

much important (web + image creation, text processing), therefore I can change processor

type to achieve quiter performance.

Currently I have a PII 266, 196RAM.

I have a few prebuild computers in mind and some questions regarding each.

1) Elite EZ-Buddie (Celeron 2500 or athlon barton 2500)
http://www.ecs.com.tw/products/pd_list_ ... tion_id=21

+ I guess 80mm fans on cpu and back work silently enough?
Or is the changing sound annoying?
+ It looks neat and nicely built, plus good air flow
-Any ideas how to silence that fan in external PSU? Rubber mounted fan in PSU?!?
Is this fan as loud as those small fans in notebooks (compaq P4)?

2) Asus terminator P4 with celeron 2500
http://uk.asus.com/products/desktop/ter ... erview.htm

+ one plus is option of two 5.25 units plus floppy

- Well, internal PSU, don't know which type + looks like it doesn't have a lot of

room inside?!?

3) Asus Pundit
+ small
- just two PCI
- I don't know how loud fans are.

4) VIA EDEN
+ fanless, + low rpm PSU = very quiet
- motherboard + CP2699 or cp1800 costs a little bit more
- just one PCI slot!
- not much of a computer power upgrade

Which of the above do you think is the most silent and most easily modified for further

noise reduction?

Graphic card:
It needs to have DVI output (agp card?). + TV tuner
What do you think about Matrox G550 without fan? Or should I just buy some silent vga cooler

/remove fan of a radeon 9000 I already have?

Acoustic "pads":
Is it possible to mount them on such small systems' inner sides?

Turning PSU fan off!:
Any opinions?

All systems: 512 mb ram + 20gb 5400rpm or 80gb 7200 drive.


Thank you in advance for your answers.

Ales

Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:05 pm
by AZBrandon
I realize this thread is about 2 weeks old now, but since you specifically asked about the Asus Pundit and mine just arrived today, I figured I may as well reply. My only other computers to compare it to are a Dell P-II 366 laptop and a Dell P3-1Ghz Dimension 4100. The Pundit is FAR quieter than the 4100 and even quieter than the laptop, although nearly all of the laptop noise is from the hard drive. I'm using a Samsung SP0802N 80GB drive in my Pundit based on the fact it was one of the quietest HD's reviewed on this site. You basically cannot hear it, even during seek.

The main noise from the Pundit case seems to come from the heatsink fan, which is externally vented. That's great for keeping case temps low, but it also means that fan noise isn't physically blocked. With the dynamic fan control enabled in BIOS, it idles the fan around 1800rpm, and it does look like it's very likely you could replace the stock fan with a Panaflo as well. For me, the stock one is probably quiet enough for now anyway though, especially since I still have my Dell running most all of the time and it easily drowns out all sound from the Pundit when it's on.

Probably the only other thing worth mentioning is that the Pundit looks to have a fair amount of overclocking and over/undervolting abilities as well if you enjoy playing around with that sort of stuff.

Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 10:02 pm
by MikeC
ajagodnik -- your thread headline didn't help at all. It's why your post was ignored. Everyone, please note: BE SPECIFIC & POINTED with your subject line!!