Case: Antec ISK 300
mobo: ZOTAC GF9300-D-E
CPU: C2D E8400 (underclocked & undervolted, already own)
CPU cooler: Thermalright AXP-140 (passive)
MEM: 2x2GB Super Talent DDR2-800 (underclocked & undervolted)
SSD: MTRON Pro 7000 16GB (already own)
DVD: Samsung slot-load DVD

So that is the upcoming build. I thought about the ION platform, but I have been pretty disapointed by the performance of the Atom, even just surfing the web is pathetic on my netbook...so a E8400 which is running in my existing HTPC is just the ticket. Of course power is an issue with only 65W on tap, and I don't need 3GHz for HTPC duties...plus I want this build to be fanless, so undervolting is going to be called for. I think I'd be happy with 2GHz or more and the lowest VID the mobo can provide Hopefully I can scale back the FSB & GPU a bit and undervolt to match...we'll see what the mobo will allow for. Would anybody who has messed with it care to comment:?:

The memory will have to be run at the lowest vMEM the mobo will support, and the speed will have to be adjusted accordingly.

The SSD will be recycled from my existing HTPC, and I store all my media files in another room on a Drobo...so 16GB is plenty. I'll be doing a fresh install of Win7 for this build, and I'm hoping to be as impressed with the new Media Center as many reviewers have been. I've been pretty impressed with Win7 on my main rig.

The only mechanical parts in this build will be in the DVD drive, but it will not be used 99% of the time, so I'm not too worried about that.

All the parts are on the way except the AXP-140...I'm wondering if it will even fit...I've looked at all the pictures/dimensions I can find, and I think I'll be able to squeeze it in if it's passive. If anyone can assist me in finding out for sure, that would be very helpful. If anybody has a suggestion for a different cooler that would be better for passive use...please let me know. But keep in mind, I think I only have about 70mm of height above the CPU.

My other question is: do you think this setup will be sufficiently cooled completely passive? Or am I going to NEED a fan? I'm hoping I won't and time will tell for sure, but I'm curious to other's opinions.

I'm expecting the parts within the next week or so, so I will report back my results! Thanks for reading and for any comments

Wow good luck on running fanless lol. I had to take some care to stop a fanless via epia board overheating in a small case like that! Anyway, good luck!

I'm sure it's possible, but you'll have to design the whole system with some care for it to work well.

What CPU heat-sink do you propose to use?

I have not seen any thermal resistance figures for PC type coolers without fans (although you may be able to extrapolate some data from the SPCR tests) but generally, they are not designed for fan-less use. I don't think that AX-140 will be up to the job

If you decide to use a industrial type heat-sink, your main problem is moving the heat to the heat-sink. If you can find some off-the-shelf heat pipes this maybe your best bet. Although, I found solid copper blocks to be very effective in my three fanless machines.

Your E8400 has a Thermal Design Power of 65W (under-volting and under-clocking will reduce that but you should still aim to move the 65W IMHO) The P4 I used in my SilentP4project has a TDP of 59.3 so a fan-less E8400 is certainly do-able.

[edit]

That case is tiny! You're going to need to replace one whole side with a heat-sink to make that work. On the plus side; At least the power supply is external

Good luck and don't forget to post the pictures here

Is the mini itx form factor a big priority for you? Because I don`t think it`s safe to passively cool a core 2 duo system in such a small case. If I wanted to run such a system fanless I would go for a case with enough room for a big tower heatsink and a heatpipe northbridge cooler. The orientation of the heatsink is also important since convection is the only source of aiflow. You would also need some unrestrictive vents at the top and idealy also at the bottom.
Look at Billtodds link and also at his older build:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article682-page1.html

As for the heatsink, I think a ninja would be much better suited for this job. A thermaright hr01/noctua might be okay but I think that for completely passive operation the ninja has the edge. Anything else is way too restrictive for the weak airflow generated by convection.

Another reason to choose uatx is that you could go for a gigabyte gf9300 (or is it 9400?) motherboard. When it comes to undervolting options gigabyte is unmatched, even my humble ep43 has options to undervolt pretty much every thing on it bar the lan, ide and audio chips.

It has been very well documented that:
-The Zotac 9300-D-E does not allow for undervolting and that
-It will be almost impossible to run it fanless due to the GPU's heat output

...research is a builder's friend.

I have made a htpc of similar dimensions (2.5 disk instead of a ssd). Case was custom built, and I used one of the sides as heat sink. Cpu was an undervolted 65 W AMD. This system works, with decent temperatures, but I would GUESS that it would be a lot more difficult (impossible?) with a case of the dimensions you are going to use and at the same time use an internal cpu cooler.

Why not just go for inaudible?

If you have just ONE fan, soft-mounted, at ~600 RPM, you won't be able to hear it - no chance - and you'll have no cooling issues what so ever. My workstation build is in my sig, and I literally can't hear it from under my desk.

I wouldn't use a small case like that. And in a small "standard" µATX case, it is way easier to manage the airflow. You will definitely get a hard time running a cramped case like that without any fans and only room for small heatsinks. And any small fan that fits in that top vent there, is bound to be either borderline useless or plain loud.

Either go with a small case with very low power specs or a regular sized case, with large heatsinks and "normal" power components.

Perhaps go with a PicoPSU while you're at it! They rock and the heat from the PSU is generated outside the case. Mine doubles as a 220W foot warmer in the winter.

Apart from that, just undervolt the hell out of everything. Should be plenty of horsepower for a HTPC.

Thanks for all the input you guys! The mini-itx form factor is a priority in this case...I plan to hang it on the wall above the TV

If you want to run a decent cpu in a fanless mini-itx case, you really need a specially designed case with fins that acts as a heatsink. I would check out some of Serener's and HFX's fanless cases.

I personally own one of Serener's cases and my Core 2 Duo (mobile) runs fairly cool at full load with no underclocking. I have no fans, a SSD, and no LEDs, so I can't even tell whether or not it's on!

Serener is a German company, so if you're in the US, I recommend checking out idotpc_dot_com.

I also own an e8400. It is (as I think you know) an extremely versital cpu..and I think you'l do just fine running that fanless if you undervolt/bring down the multiplier. If you experiance some stuttering in video..first try bring up ur FSB before u step up ur cpu. I haven't done alot of under clocking/volting, but it's my understanding that when you do that, often times the fsb can become the bottleneck, not the cpu.

just somethign to keep in mind..

-rogue

Unfortunately, you're right...no undervolting
Passive isn't looking so good...I wonder if ZOTAC plans to fix this in the future?

Funny, my fanless is more or less designed for that purpose (placed on the wall). With a 45 W cpu dimensions are about 10x30x28 (thickness x height x width).

I have ordered the same heatsink AXP-140 hope to get him by next week it will be used passively to cool my quad core a Q8400s (65W TDP) original is 2.66Ghz but if I undervolt and and underclock to 2Ghz (6x333) and 0.925V it will only take less than 24W under load using prime 95.
[img]http://www.greensask.com/pc/CPUpower.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.greensask.com/pc/100_0995-1.9A.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.greensask.com/pc/screenQ8400s2G.jpg[/img]

That is a good sized heatsink you were considering putting in the case. From reviews it might do the job and keep things cool but some kind of breeze would be needed. I am preparing for a mini itx build right now and even though some here don't like the lian li case.. by using standard components and being able to draw heat out through a standard power supply... with 70 mm clearance about equal to the height of your thermalright cooler... the cpu might be better cooled in that case. I really look forward to learning how things turn out for you. I hope somehow things fit... if the thermalright is able to clear the optical drive... that would be great, but that is one wide and deep heatsink. I think your set up is cutting it pretty close for the tiny amount of power you have available. Do you plan to increase available power by going the pico route? You will need to run that 1 side 80mm TriCool 3-speed exhaust fan at least on low imo and better yet per review by Mike Chin, how about replacing the stock fan with two Noctua fans on low? Source Page 7 of his review - E. With Two Noctua 80mm fan: Stock Intel Heatsink, fan at very low speed. I don't think you can go fanless.

From what has been posted around the web, it doesn't seem like Zotac will be "fixing" the problem (lack of undervolting), as they don't see it as one.

Again, the limiting factor for fanless isn't going to be your CPU temp, it will be your GPU temp. You won't be able to keep the GPU cool enough without active cooling unless you build a customized GPU HS or find one that is massive enough to cool it passively.

Alternatively, A-Tech Fabrication has created a fanless design for this mobo. You can see it here. I'm not suggesting you shell out the $$ to go this route, I'm only showing the size of HS necessary to keep the GPU sufficiently cool for passive.

On the bright side, there are several builds out there already that are completely silent even while using a fan (mine being one of them). At 1.5 feet (1/2 meter), I can not hear it at all.

Now, if I were able to silence my fridge (12 ft away) or the vent in my bathroom (18 ft away), I might have a problem with the noise coming from the PC, but until then, I deem it silent enough.

They're really very nice cases Pity about the price!

OK I received the heatsink today an I already installed and tested the bad news is that even with 25Watt it will not be able to run passive.
Is better than the intel heatsink I have the 360g version with copper core but not good enough to run passive.
I guess that the only solution is to use a big solid heat sink as the one in the link of cman00 but the price for that one is unbelievable
I guess that AXP-140 can be run passive with a max of 12 Watt maybe a 45nm dual core underclocked and undervolted.
I used a Q8400S underclocked at 2GHz and undervolted at 0.925V and this takes about 25 Watt. I tested with this settings I have some screen shots an some photo with the setup if you are interested.

I forgot to mention that the north bridge a G31 with x3100 integrated video is really hot even if the max TDP is 15.5 Watt for that one it will need a much bigger heatsink to be run passive.

Height

A photo with the size difference between intel copper (360g) core and AXP-140 (550g)

That heat-sink is designed to have forced airflow (i.e. in close proximity to a fan). The close fins cause too much drag for efficient convection cooling.

This is true but even if I remove half ore more of the fins I will have the same result for passive cooling you really need a massive piece of metal.
The lowest stable undervolt underclock is 1.8GHz at 0.88V BIOS setting and with this settings I will be able to run passive max temp for first core 63C the other cores are under 60C running prime 95 for more than 25 min.
Now I found a fanless power supply hope to get this soon.
The biggest problem now is the north bridge G31 with integrated video I will try to glue some additional heatsink on top of the existing one it will not look nice but I hope it will work.

I wasn't actually suggesting that.

If you go for a large flat heat-sink like this:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bill_todd/ ... 0a9ece.png


The problem will then be how to get the heat from the cpu to the heat-sink; I wonder if you could use the core from the Intel cooler (or perhaps the whole heat-sink) bonded to the under side??? - Just a thought




I very much doubt that will work. It's best to remove the existing and replace with a slightly larger one - have a look around for an old square P4 sink, you may have to chop it about a bit but it'll do a better job than the standard little thing.

The biggest problem now will be the north bridge maybe a P4 heat sink will work I just ordered a SSD SAMSUNG MCBQE32G5MPP It seams to have a max power of 0.48W and idle 0.2W so it will not produce any heat I have now a 60GB 2.5" SATA HDD but it takes at load about 2.5W an is getting hot.
I hope to recive by next week my power supply is a small 120W fanless ATX DD-24AX and I got a 24V 7.5A 180W power adapter that will be outside the case.
With all this I will have a zero moving parts. I use now a 4GB CF 266x about 47MB/s read with IDE adapter used with a custom image of Ubuntu. I only use Linux so SSD will be fine.

One photo with the case it will be more space when I will remove the old power supply.

why do you insist on zero moving parts?

a couple of 80mm fans at 5v should be completely silent.

The only problem with completely passive systems is the south bridge tends to overheat without any air flowing over it. When that happens, data corruption soon follows. Try copying 20gb of data on a completely passive PC without adequate SB cooling.

The stock SB heatsink on the Gigabyte boards is weak. I would recommend at least a tiny bit of air flow over it.

You can get around this with a Thermalright hr-05 or equivalent passive heatsink. For the DIYers, a spare heatsink, a hacksaw, metal file, power drill, a couple machine screws/nuts, and some spare time.

Yes you are right the south bridge is hot need to find a better cooling for that one.

Yes they will be almost silent but for me the dust that this are moving around is also a problem and also the additional power requirement at 5V is not much but if you have 2 or 3 then they can add over one Watt.

Today the power supply arrived I have more so if you are interested please let me know.
It seems to be very good quality it needs 24V (still need to get the brick 24V at 7.5A )
I tested to see how it works doesn't need any load and is not working with 15V IN it needs minimum 16.5V I tested with a 18V charger only 500mA and with no load is 25V and with about 500mA load the voltage is about 17V.
I will do much more tests when I will get the brick.
I do not have ATX cables all I have is included in last photo

Some photo with the power supply.

Thanks for taking the time to help, I really apprciate it.

I am building almost the same system but i am onley gona use the fan on the big shuriken.

Still missing my case and blu-ray but here you can se some pics about mounting the Big Shuriken on the Zotac board.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=55204

The fan is spining at 720rpm and it is realy inaudible.