I'm also looking at a new quiet PC and Anitec is only a few blocks away from me. I'd like to hear some reviews.

you're the one a few blocks away you should walk in and ask to see a demo model.

Sounds like you haven't pulled the trigger yet. I am not likely to make a move until W7 comes, but I'll be keeping an eye on Anitec and will probably go have a look soon.

i just ordered.

Congratulations. Are you planning on writing up a full review after you have had a chance to play around with it?

And: What configuration did you order?

base. going to replace the 9400gt with the sapphire ddr4 radeon 4670.

I have an old ass Soltek (Shuttle-sized) system that's driving me batty. I can hear it throughout the whole house.

Found this site and discovered the Anitech SilenT3. With the no-OS option, it seems like a great choice! However, I'm not in Canada right now (in the US), and they don't ship to the States.

The US affliate EndPCNoise has a couple silent options, but they are fairly big. I'm looking for a small simple, quiet system to do video classes on.

Anyone have suggestions?

--alz

video classes?

Like Rosetta Stone or any of the Lynda or VTC courses. Even with headphones on, it's this humming fuzz in the background because of the system.

might be cheaper if you get better headphones?

Did you check these out:

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std ... ed_pc.html

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std ... media.html

whoa, those are really overpriced. 2-3x more than the t3.

oh wow, my t3 came today. i had a shit eating grin seeing the big letters of spcr logo on the front of it below where it says asus.

now that's classy!

the zotac passive 9400gt almost touches the scythe cpu heatsink. the sapphire 4670 actually takes up less volume and is farther away from the cpu heatsink.

320GB seagate it came with was DOA.



uninterrupted/constant loud grinding sound on post for a few minutes

confirmed with a spare (from my original macbook unibody) 160gb which lets it boot up fine.

find a canadian friend to buy you a t3 and visit them to pick it up?

no 'accoustipack' padding on the bottom of the hd...just a piece of the gray foam that hds come with, folded. unless that IS accoustipak? it's the same gray stuff in mikec's review pic.

things anitec needs to do before they ship one of these out the door:

usb 2.0 doesn't work (the high speed options don't even appear in bios) until they go 'reset to setup defaults' first.

otherwise the usb ports all act as usb 1.1

still haven't heard back from anitec support re: my dead 320gb seagate momentus it came with. in the mean time, i swapped in a new 500gb wd scorpio blue and the whole system is nigh inaudible from 2 ft away except for when the asus optical drive is used.

asus burner is REALLY loud burning at max speed.

my pioneer was quieter.

Overall satisfied with the system once I replaced the:

-HDD
-video card
-DVD burner

but cheesed off at not having an advanced RMA option at purchase/checkout for the system or having them cover shipping back a DOA defective HDD. As it stands, I'm out another $20 or so to courier out their defective HDD for RMA through no fault of my own.

I'll stop spamming this thread with my off-the-cuff impressions.

Rei, just wondering what ram configuration you ordered. Are you able to say anything about strongbad's question on whether or not the Silent3 can accept 4GB?

it takes and works with 4gb though you will get only 3.x gb usable just like every other 32-bit system due to memory being reserved for i/o for video cards.

i ordered the base station w/o vista (i have vista ultimate) with 4gb ram. so e7300.

i wish i didn't have to pay for the privilege of sending back their non working hard drive it shipped with though

Thanks. I forgot about the 32 bit thing.

Yeah, that's harsh. Makes me think twice about getting Anitec to put anything together for me.

To be fair, parcel shipping back to them (1-4 days) was ~$10 and they sent back the drive immediately upon receiving my return (2 days) to Edmonton so it should be in the same ballpark for Calgary. I shipped it on Monday, they sent one out on Wednesday so it should arrive on Mon-Wed.

Caveats aside, I still highly recommend the machine--I just wish they'd offer the Sapphire DDR4 HD4670 as an option instead of having an underpowered 9400GT since it's proven to be a power-sipper and the Arctic Cooling fan on it super-quiet.

Onboard sound sucks ass though with the tight confines leading to so much interference/hissing through both front and back jacks. As a result, I am glad I have an X-Fi XtremeGamer to use. I can't vouch for whatever USB NICs they provide if you opt for an Asus sound card but I can say avoid the Linksys USB->Ethernet (USB200M) one since it BSODs on heavy network use (BitTorrent) and their drivers aren't signed.

The USB Wifi dongle I got from Newegg.ca is rock-solid though and comes with a high-gain antenna.

From research, it looks like for USB to Ethernet, a Cables-to-Go Fast Ethernet adapter has the most well-supported chipset (where the chipset maker provides updated drivers for ALL OSes, even 64-bit) compared to the shit support from major brands D-Link and Linksys.

After 6 years on SPCR and dicking around with my own DIY, I'm finally happy with a (mostly) off-the-shelf build.

I replaced what I thought was a noisy Asus with a proven quiet Pioneer DVR-216 but that one too has a loud sound when burning at max (20x) speed--must be due to small confines of case--the same model drive was quiet in my much heavier Antec Solo.

Shortcomings: wish it had an onboard NIC, a newer southbridge that supported eSATA, port multiplication, AHCI, hotswap, a card reader that supported SDHC and maybe a PCIE-1x slot. I don't like Seagate Momentus drives and wish they would fit them with WD Scorpio Blues instead. I put a 500GB one in mine.

So you're in Edmonton? That's not a bad shipping cost and turn-around time then.

Thanks for the detailed review. I was very tempted to get this, but from what you've written and the limited options to customize, I think I'll pass, and maybe consider getting an on-line custom desktop system instead. There's a lot more options available. But not sure how well (i.e. quiet) they can put it together. I noticed they don't list the Antec Solo on the customizer menu anymore, and that would be the case I'd want I think (not sure how quiet the newer NSK4480 is).

Did you ask about the WD Scorpios? When I talked to Anitec they sounded open to changing the hard drive; at least they offered to swap the Momentus for an Intel SSD for me.

I'll be in Vancouver at the end of June. so I may just swing by Anitec to talk with them some more.

It's no longer offered for some reason.

You're right, I just checked the website. Strange.

MikeC: Do you think the Shuriken could run fanless?

yippee. my Anitec Silent T3 died for some reason.

screen just fades out/turns off, even before going into windows. now it bsods on windows startup assuming the picture stays on.

i suspect it is my sapphire ddr4 radeon hd4670. i'll have to try the passive 4670 this weekend. :/

the fan has always been set to auto or 100% when i go into games.

I've been a reader of SPCR off and on for a few years now, but didn't realize there was a program for system builders to engage SPCR and collaborate on quiet computer designs. I'm from a system builder in the Seattle area, and would be very interested in more information on this if someone wants to post back here or email me.