- wanted to be able to play music from the media server;
- wanted to have another Biostar A760G board as a spare;
- wanted Internet access in the basement;
- I haven't built a PC in a while
- Motherboard: Biostar A760G
- CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 250
- CPU Cooler: Scythe SCKBT-1000 Kabuto 6
- Video: onboard HD 3000
- Case: HEC 6K28BBX585
- PSU: Seasonic SS-300ES
- Disk: Western Digital WD2500BEKT Scorpio Black 2.5" 250 GB 7200 RPM (suspended)
- Case Fan: Scythe S-FLEX SFF92B
- Dampening: McMaster part 9709T39, adhesive backed EVA
- RAM: G.Skill 2x1 GB (left over from previous build)
- And a DVD drive leftover from a previous build
I'd like to use more RAM, and possibly even ECC RAM, but prices right now are about 2x what they were last time I bought memory. I've actually got a defective 2x2GB kit that needs to be RMA'ed, so this machine will be upgraded to 4GB of RAM before too long.
The case I used just went up in price by $10 from when I bought it. The case I bought came with a power supply (X-Power 585); they sell the same case without a power supply (6K28BB8F). But at the time I bought, the one with the PSU had free shipping, and the other (without PSU) did not have free shipping. The net price difference ended up being $4, and I figure I can sell the power supply on ebay for at least that much.
That case comes with an 80mm case fan, but has holes for a 92mm fan. I didn't even try the included fan, and replaced it with the Scythe S-FLEX.
And now the obligatory pics (click on an image for a larger version). First is the standard "profile" shot:
A closeup of the motherboard:
A "three quarter" view:
A closeup of the suspended hard drive:
I installed Arch Linux on this box. According to lm_sensors, the CPU idles around 22 degrees Celsius. With both CPU cores fully loaded, the CPU seems to max out around 37 degrees C.
I haven't had a chance yet to check the power usage with the Kill-a-Watt.
Anyway, I believe this is the quietest machine I've ever built. Granted, it's a fairly trivial rig to make quiet. Sadly, I can't always appreciate its quietness, as it's in the basement where the furnace is running constantly. One more thing to appreciate about spring I guess.