Building a SFF system, what is the quietest shuttle barebone

xcgames · Post by **xcgames** » Tue May 03, 2005 11:15 am

I'm looking to build a shuttle SFF PC as my server, which means it would be on 24/7, and a noisy computer would be a headache. I've build computers before, but never with silence as the top priority. Performance is not that big of an issue, anything decent will get by. Can u guys suggest what barebone i should get, and components such as CPU sinks, case fans and such, to achieve lowest noise? thanks.

Ackelind · Post by **Ackelind** » Tue May 03, 2005 11:42 am

No barebone will be even close to as quiet as a standard PC. They all seem to contain their own solutions which make them hard to modify.

One example, the klossPC which i have. The CPU-cooling is dead silent. But that doesn't matter very much since it has a 40mm PSU fan, no way of isolating the hard drives, and no cooling for the hard drives which makes my maxtor disk operate at nearly 60 degrees celsius.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Tue May 03, 2005 11:52 am

Shuttle recently released a Socket 478 barebone that uses an external power brick to convert AC current into DC. Because there is no power supply inside, then entire PC itself is smaller, cooler, and quieter.

I would definitely recommend looking into it. Currently I think the only available model is P4/Celeron based, but I think Shuttle would be retarted not to bring out Socket 462, 754, and 939 versions.

xcgames · Post by **xcgames** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:00 pm

external power like those on the laptops? that's like dead quiet ! i'll look into that.

xcgames · Post by **xcgames** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:09 pm

anyone know the model # for it?

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:15 pm

I was trying to remember where I had read about that Shuttle, and then it came to me; it was right here at good ol' SPCR.

Shuttle Zen XPC ST62K review:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article139-page1.html

one80 · Post by **one80** » Sat May 07, 2005 7:23 pm

With a little mucking around I thin you can get Shuttles pretty quiet, maybe not as quiet as a standard PC but still quiet.

I've got a Shuttle SN95G5 and I've got it down to a fairly respectable noise. I replaced the 40mm northbridge fan with a Zalman ZM-NB47J heatsink, and put a Zalman ZM50-HP heatpipe cooler on my graphics card (ATI 9600XT). Just replacing those two fans made a huge difference as the graphics card was probably the noisiest thing in my whole system. I've also just replaced my WD hard drive with a Maxtor DM10 (AAM turned on) too.

I'll probably look at replacing the ICE cooler with a Nexus 72mm soon, and the PSU fan with an ADDA one when I can find someone who'll post to Australia, but neither of these are hugely noisy, it's just easy to get carried away finding anything that makes noise i your coputer and replacing it

wim · Post by **wim** » Sat May 07, 2005 10:11 pm

i built a zen system for my sis, and it's a good little thing except i don't think it would be the right choice for a server. more like a bedroom pc. agree that barebones is probably not the way to go here.. too restrictive

merlyn · Post by **merlyn** » Sun May 08, 2005 1:28 am

My main system is a SB61G2, 3GHz P4, 1Gb RAM. northbridge fan replaced with zalman. ICE fan replaced by nexus 80mm switchable between 7V and 12V (only needed at high ambient). graphics provided by 9600xt ultimate from sapphire. HD is a samsung MP0402H 2.5" with AAM resting on foam. 40mm PSU fan replaced by side mounting a nexus 80mm at 7V. The whole lot rests on foam. it's very near silent, i can only hear it when ambient drops very low during the early hours of the morning, even then it's unobtrusive. It is nearly finished so i'll be doing a write up soonish.

depends what u want your server to do really. i started with a SB61G2 because a friend was selling it so i got it cheap but if i'd been building from scratch i'd have started with a zen. there are some compromises to be made when using such a small case, for example my system temp idles around 41°C!

slam · Post by **slam** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:46 pm

post the write-up, merlyn, we're interested!

slam