New Acer SFF HTPC's

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 8:02 pm

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/07/08/ac ... ut-loaded/

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 11:35 pm

They look rather similar to an Asus barebones I have a number of (though with more up-to-date specs). I've found cooling and the hard-drive to be the main out-of-the-box problems on the noise front.

I know someone who uses one as an HTPC, I wouldn't myself. It'll be interesting to see whether Acer has done a better job.

iatacs19 · Post by **iatacs19** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 6:34 am

I purchased an Acer X-1200 to use with my Plasma TV.

Initial impressions:

I have an X-1200 with the 4850e CPU, I bought it from Circuit City, my first one was defective, it would not boot, the CPU fan would just spin like a jet engine.
I exchanged it for a new one, it works normally.

I have mine connected to a Panasonic TH-50PZ85U via HDMI cable. First thing I did was uninstall all the Acer supplied bloatware. It went down from 58 running processes to 44.

I didn't install anything for now except FFDShow and Media Player Classic. I tested 720p and 1080p MKV videos and every single one ran without a problem. I streamed the videos via GigE from my main PC and they all ran smoothly.

The machine is really quiet and Vista x64 seems no different from Vista 32-bit. I like the fact that I only have to use 3 cables: power, ethernet and HDMI.

I do find the blue LED lights annoying at night, the power light illuminates the whole room when it flashes on standby mode.

I will update once I get more time messing with this little PC.

Layla · Post by **Layla** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:33 pm

This looks interesting!

4GB/320GB memory... WOW... & the price is awesome for these kind of specs...

I thought AMD processors were loud as opposed to Intel/...?

Can you tell us more about this?

would love to see a more detailed review...

Audiophiliac · Post by **Audiophiliac** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 10:50 am

I am actually looking at this now. Seems like a good price/performance package. If its stable and quiet, it might be perfect. You could replace the PSU with a Pico, add a larger HDD....or an external eSATA, and replace the CPU cooler/fan, and have a pretty dang nice little box.

Any other reviews from SPCR members?

iatacs19 · Post by **iatacs19** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 6:50 am

Here is a running discussion:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1046863

Personally, the computer performs well. No problems playing 1080p MKVs. I do have an issue with the noise, the power supply has a tiny fan which is annoying. It's not super loud, but it has that droning noise and it falls in the frequency where it's annoying enough. The heatsink and fan are actually silent, it uses an 80mm fan with a radial fin heatsink. Depending on your environment, it may be quiet enough to use. I have begun looking for an alternative already. I am eyeing the ION platform from nVidia.

mediafuze · Post by **mediafuze** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 6:12 pm

I have the X3200-3630U (from Fry's) and I love it. It has played back everything I've thrown at it so far including blu-ray 1080p's. I also have it recording 4 channels at the same time via an HD Homerun and a dual internal tuner - and it handles that no problem. The only complaint I really have about the unit is that it can get somewhat noisy when the fan kicks in which it sometimes does during blu-ray playback or strangely enough when watching Netflix's "watch now" service.

One question I have for anybody else who has this unit - I want to replace the stock cooler/fan with something better/quieter but I'm really not an expert on hardware. Do you know of a good cooler/fan that will fit in this unit, keep it cool and be less noisy then the stock cooler?