I think two quad-cores is overkill for what you're doing. You need to spend some more on RAM, and possibly disk access. You might consider separate hard disks for each instance you're running. I'd consider the Q6600, and 8GB of DDR2 [<100$] I don't think there is any reason you need to consider ser...

as it turns out, I can't hear the system at all because of the NAS device I have running nearby, which I formerly thought was extremely quiet :). Once I get the new hard drives in the server and transfer the NAS data to it and then turn off that NAS, we'll see if the video card is worth quieting dow...

Why would you block the upper hole? ISn't it needed for a better cooling? Is the upper fan sucking in or blowing out ? I didn't block a hole with a fan in it...that would be rather dumb. I REMOVED the upper fan, as I said, and blocked the hole to reduce noise bouncing out of that hole...the rear ex...

I built a nearly identical system that is almost inaudible now. P182 + WD 500GB + 8800GTS 640mb + Corsair 520HX PUS + 2GB RAM + 120 Extreme cooler. the main difference is my e6750 vs that q6600 (but I have anothe server running the q6600 that's also nearly silent). I used 2 scythe d-speed fans total...

If you were to replace those TriCools with quieter fans (Nexus, Yate Loon, Scythe, etc) you'd be even happier. On my workstation, I pulled the 3 tricool fans and replaced the rear system fan with a Scythe D. I blocked the upper exhaust fan with some cardboard temporarily (will get a mouse pad in th...

My P182 with 6 hard drives and a Q6600 g0 is only pulling 120w from the wall, 160w at peak load... no video to speak of, but that's heavy disk and cpu activity... I bought a 620HX thinking the drives and quad-core would consume power, but it was amazingly efficient. With 2 more drives going in tomor...

I've got 3TB of drives in my server (in a P182 case) and have no issues with noise. I'm adding another 1TB tomorrow, 8x 500gb drives. It's $1000 just for the drives and case, but that's still a lot cheaper than 4 1TB drives and you get much better performance and available space from the RAID-10 tha...

If you were to replace those TriCools with quieter fans (Nexus, Yate Loon, Scythe, etc) you'd be even happier. I've got the Scythe's (D's) ready to install on my next open of the boxes. That'll be tomorrow night, as I'm adding another 2 500GB hard drives to my server - I have a 1TB NAS box today th...

If you've got good power coming in and good voltages out, then motherboard is the next item that touches everything, and with 3 major issues, you're most likely looking at a single common root cause. Video screaming, video coruption, corrupting drives, and power supply noises...bad mojo. On second t...

Given the range of problems, I suspect either a bad power supply or bad power - you might want a UPS...

I used the hitachi tool on mine without issue. I forget the syntax, but it was a pain in the butt. Anyway, once set it definitely stuck, made a huge different to set it to 128...and performance is still great.

elec999 wrote:Do you think the Scythe S-FLEX SFF21D will offer enough airflow to cool the q6600, and the power supply. It is rated 33cfm and 8.9 dba.
Thanks

Yes. I run one on my e6750 and my q6600. e6750 is overclocked to 3.4ghz, q6600 is stock, but both keep nice and cool. And quiet.

I recently built 2 systems for radically different purposes, and both have been fantastic, so I thought I'd bring it back to the forum. Thanks for everyones help spec'ing them! This got a little wordy, but hopefully it's interesting to people spec'ing new builds. Quiet Gamer and general computing: e...

You're right on that CPU point, and I'm not in a huge rush...a quad core is why I started down the 775 path (for the Q6600), but the RAM support killed me. If I can find a MB that will support 8 DDR2 slots and a single Q6600 or single Barcelona 1.8ghz chip (since those are roughly the same price and...

It has only 4 SATA ports and no PCIe slots at all which might be an issue! This Tyan boad might make more sense in terms of features. Good points! 6 SATA ports is great - can't decide if 4 or 5 drives is right (OS/Paging/VM Source images and other software on RAID-1, active VMs on RAID-5). PCIe vs....

Here's what I came up with: Tyan S3970G2NR-RS Motherboard (with TARO slot for RAID expansion) http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813151057 Single dual-core 2212 HE Opteron (with 1 empty socket for easy expansion) http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819105035 8GB of...

That is a savings of 50W. Plus, you will possibly need a more powerful power supply for the Xeon, pushing up cost, power and thermals. Okay okay :). So AMD for the server platform makes some sense today from a heat/cooling perspective (and therefore from a quiet perspective), in the near future may...

vg30et wrote:A single hdd with multiple virtual machines will be very slow. I'd suggest no more than 3-4 virtual machines on a single hdd, possibly just 1 per hdd if it's r/w intensive.

That's why I had 4 drives in there...

quiet is more important than speed, so I can scale down the lab a little and be good with this (+ some scythe fans I still have lying around): http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=6393286 If anyone has the energy to spec out an AMD system, I'd love to see ...

Can anyone recommend a good MB and CPU combo that will support 16GB of RAM for a reasonable price, and that's QUIET? I have a P182 system that's near silent today, this would sit next to it and should be very quiet as well...ideally in a P182 if I can. More detail: I need to build a home lab, which ...

I built a 182 system recently that I'm THRILLED with (best PC I've ever owned), using the same MB and CPU you have spec'd. http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=4675414 You can cut $50 off my price list by chopping one DVD drive and one extra fan. I already...

Yes, using Virtual Server.
Yes, Virtual Server supports AMD and Intel VM tech.

Looking to build something easily made quiet for use as a home lab in a box - will run Virtual Server and in that, 3 servers or so and 3-4 PC's... So, I've been thinking about a SFF case, Intel Core 2 Duo or AM2 AMD64 cpu (both support Virtualization Tech), and a MB that supports 4 sticks of RAM to ...