Smallest PC with PCI slot

Info & chat about quiet prebuilt, small form factor and barebones systems, people's experiences with vendors thereof, etc.

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sketch
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Smallest PC with PCI slot

Post by sketch » Sun Nov 23, 2008 10:55 pm

What is the smallest silent PC with an empty PCI slot?

Note: silent meaning silent like a SPCR designed system, not silent as in marketing a quieter system

KlaymenDK
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Post by KlaymenDK » Mon Nov 24, 2008 4:39 am

Okay so you've defined "silent" to mean "rather quiet". Now please define "pc". :lol:

The smallest motherboard would be something in the mini-ATX (mATX) class, a VIA EPIA M10000 for instance, which I've used for a while (but is now no longer modern). There are smaller boards, but then you don't get a PCI slot anymore.

The smallest enclosures are more varied, and thus more difficult to suggest. The mini-itx.com site offers a lot of inspiration. Look past the case mods and there are also tons of stock cases (also in their store).

Edit: Also, check out Looking for small, high-quality case and Smallest mini-ITX case?

Aris
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Post by Aris » Tue Dec 02, 2008 6:49 pm

Morex 3777 is the smallest mini-itx case i know of with a full size expansion slot. Weither its PCI or something else will depend on what motherboard you put in it.

The 60mm fans can be replace with 80mm fans with a bit of modification. Get some nexus 80mm fans and undervolt them and cut out the case fan grills and it should be very quiet.

I have one of these cases, though its an older version without the stock fans. I ended up cutting a hole in the front of the case below the slim optical bay and put an 80mm fan there as an intake that blew cold air directly over the passive CPU and passive GPU heatsinks. I had a C2D processor with a stock passive single slot 7600GS. It actually did fairly well with gamming. Only really hard part was finding a PCI-e 16x riser card, ended up having to use a flexible riser cable. Though if your using a PCI expansion slot, the case comes with a PCI riser card that fits the case perfectly.

I used a pico-psu for DC/DC conversion inside the case, and a 220w external passive AC/DC adapter. I also modded 2x wifi antenna to the back of the case, one on each end, that connected to a PCMCIA intel 802.11a/b/g wifi card.

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