I purchased one of these from Canada Computers in Toronto. In spite of the lack of eSATA and built-in Wifi, I wanted one because of the built-in DVD player and the dual-core Atom. The upcoming Acer Ion system is the reverse: it has eSATA and Wi-Fi but no DVD and only a single core initially. In the ...

(this is meant as a response to Edward Ng's post) I thought that the OP (original poster) made his intentions clear: He is looking for the quietest drive within the 3.5" desktop PATA/SATA harddrive category. This seems like a reasonable question to me and it is one that many who come to this forum m...

JVM wrote:The WD Caviar SE JB drives do have FDB according to their website.

Hum, I was talking about 'JD' and you are talking about 'JB'. What's the difference? Can you give me a link to what you are referring to?

A 120GB WD JD is available here for CDN$115 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=10005&vpn=WD1200JD&manufacture=Western%20Digital Their specifications say it idles at 35dBA. It sounds to me like users are reporting that the WD's with the FDB are very quiet. But maybe I have the wrong drive? Do th...

For the Samsung drives one has to get the Nidec motors, and this can be difficult to determine. So, for me, this makes the WD*JD drives seem like a better option.

A 120GB WD JD is available here for CDN$115
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku= ... %20Digital

I too am interested in the answer to your question.

Like you, I don't do any gaming, but I would like DVI, and I might want to add a TV tuner card later.

I see that some people recommend this card:
SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 128MB AGP8X VGA DVI TV OUT OEM VIDEO CARD
It is CDN$125 at NCIX.CA.

Thanks.

From AnandTech http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2353&p=4 From the Tech Report http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2005q1/pentium4-600/index.x?pg=16 These reports don't change my opinion that the AMD64 socket 939 cpu's are currently the best cpu's for desktop systems. Some conclusion...

'uATX' is really micro-ATX (the u looks a bit like the micro symbol). mATX is another short form for micro-ATX. So they are the same thing. Buy this system, pulling out the MB, and replacing it with another sounds unnecessarily expensive. What about the Antec Aria instead? Isn't it supposed to be qu...

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm seeing indications that - for those concerned about heat and noise - the socket 939 is preferable to the 754. Apparently the 939 processors use a smaller manufacturing process so they generate less heat, and they seem to be the same price around here. On the downside, ...

Thanks for the info, but I'm a little confused. At the beginning you say that 'apart from that [rattling] it's fairly silent.' Towards the end you talk about a noisy northbridge. Do you mean that it is fairly silent, other than the rattling AND the northbridge? And what is the northbridge anyway? Pu...

Hi. I need a new system, and I'd like to get a small, quiet, AMD64 system. When I say 'small', I mean like a micro-ATX or a shuttle, and when I say 'quiet' I don't mean silent. Graphics are not important so I want integrated graphics. I don't want to get into over or under clocking. SATA would be ni...

A few weeks ago I was looking for something like this. The 80G that you are talking about sounded ideal, but it wasn't yet available here in CAnada (so far as I can tell).

I just bought a Ximeta NetDisk 160GB external drive for CDN$200 (after $50 rebate) at FutureShop in Toronto. http://ximeta.com/products/network_drives/netdisk/index.php This drive could be of interest to SilentPC folks because it has no fan. I found it to be very quite - at work and at home I can't ...

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnf ... _db016.htm

So what is the solution for us consumers? AMD mobile chips?

Thanks for the responses.

Here's the review on Tom's Hardware site:
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Reviews-5 ... ETDISK.php

The 120GB version is available near me for CAD$ 250 (~US$ 175), which seems reasonable. Think I'll get one.

I'd like to get the mini, but it is fairly expensive.

Tom.

http://www.ximeta.com/products/index.php

I'm considering buying a NetDisk or NetDisk mini. I saw a review on Tom's Hardware site that said that these were quiet. Can anyone verify that?

I suppose it would depend on the HD used. Can the case be opened and the HD replaced?

Thanks,
Tom.

flyingsherpa wrote:the XC Cube comes in an AMD model as well, the EZ18

Ah, good to know, thanks.

Here are the spec's for the two XC Cubes:
http://solution.aopen.com.tw/products/XC/EZ65/en/specs/

I see that the chipset is the nForce2-GT.

Tom.

Here is the one i was thinking of getting http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=56-101-428&depa=0 ... If I go for a shuttle I think I'll stick to the Zen. If I buy a non-Zen and then mod it to be quiet, it will end up being too much work and money. I am not sure what shuttles ha...

I'd like to buy a SFF PC in Canada that is reasonably quiet, small, light, and cool (as in temperature). I heard that the AMD XP-M 2500+ CPU is cool (35W), not too expensive, and it fits in regular MB's. That sounds great, but the SFF systems that I've heard of seem to be for Intel CPU's. For exampl...

A lot of people here are looking for quiet desktop systems at a reasonable price, and that appears to be what this gives.

- fits in a regular Athlon MB
- price is reasonable
- heat/noise is quite low

Perfect! Forget all this overclocking stuff - this is a great SPCR CPU.

Tom.

I have an AIW 9000 and an AIW 9600.

It was decided above that Rev 2 does NOT work with the AIW 9600 (I'll have to wait for Rev 3 in Feb).

But what about the AIW 9000?

Thanks,
Tom.

Some mentioned the ATI Radeon 7500LE, but that is incorrect. I have one and it has a fan. Maybe some are passive but no mine. It was quiet for about a month and then got real noisy.

Thanks for the info.

Based on the link you mentioned, it appears that one should buy the Athlon 2800+ (Barton) as this gives you more speed than the 2500+ w/o any increase in heat dissapation or temperature.

It also appears to be very important that the MB support the Bus Disconnect feature.

Tom.

No, actually I had somehow missed that article. Thanks. From the article I would say that the Samsung would be best for my needs (cooler than the others), but alas it is not available around here, and neither is the Barracuda. That leaves me with the Hitachi, which is also rather rare, but shows up ...

Good question. The Barracuda's are highly rated for quiet, but I can't get them here (Toronto). They have been replaced in the stores by the 7200.7. I've heard some suggestion that the Spinpoint is good, but they are also hard to get. I guess I could look harder. StorageReview recently gave a positi...

Celeron 1.7 and 1.8 are supposed to be very bad for their performance/heat ratio. Unfortunately, I bought one before I knew this.

Celeron 2.0 and above are better.

The best are supposed to be P4A's, eg. 1.6A, 1.8A, and 2.0A, but these are more expensive than the Celerons.

Tom.

I'm about to buy a couple of quiet systems. I was thinking of getting the Sonata or the 3700BQE, but I really don't need anything that big. I only need a couple of PCI slots, 2 CD/DVD slots, 2 HD slots, a ~ 250W PSU, etc. I could easily get by with a micro-ATX motherboard and a smaller case. Is ther...

What they can't compete with is the fact that Dell gets stuff much cheaper than they do.

There is another caveat I should mention, regarding buying a prebuilt system. Many years ago I bought a Dell OptiPlex GX Pro: a dual PPro machine that came with one CPU. When I went to buy the second cpu I found that I had to buy from Dell because they had left a little piece off the MB that was req...

What I was wondering was how do these compare for speed Celeron 2.x Barton 2.x P4c 2.x For price, I believe the Barton is closer to the Celeron, but still in the middle. For speed, perhaps the Barton is closer to the P4c, but still in the middle? I don't know. Need a benchmark that compares them. I ...