Kinda boring basement PC

[matt_garman]

My wife and I recently moved out of an apartment and into a house. This gave me an excuse to build a new computer, as we now have a basement, and:

• 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

Anyway, all that was required was a basic Internet-capable machine, so I tried to build as cheaply as possible:

• 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 originally tried to use a Xigmatek HDT-S1283 heatsink, but it was too tall for the case. Both that heatsink and the Kabuto 6 are probably overkill for this CPU, but that's my style.

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.

[tay]

Do you mind checking the power usage? How is the stability of the AMD chipset & Biostar board in Linux? I need a new board for my linux file server that is stable & low power. Atom won't do.
Thanks

[matt_garman]

Do you mind checking the power usage?

The Kill-A-Watt says 42/43 Watts at idle. Not bad, but it looks like the CPU's voltage only goes down to 1.1 Volts at idle (800 MHz). I might try tweaking that to see if I can get it lower.

For comparison, the 5050e I have in my other Biostar A760G drops down to 0.88 Volts at idle.

How is the stability of the AMD chipset & Biostar board in Linux? I need a new board for my linux file server that is stable & low power. Atom won't do.

See the thread I started on this board. I've been running a Linux fileserver on the Biostar A760G for over half a year now, with zero issues.

Note that AMD/ATI video on Linux is a mixed bag. On the server, I don't care, as I only used the video to do the install, and since then I use the machine exclusively through ssh.

But my take on ATI video for desktop Linux use is that you have a few choices: one of two open source drivers, or the closed-source Catalyst drivers. The "Internet wisdom" suggests that the open source drivers are generally considered more stable, and overall better supported. But the Catalyst drivers provide better 3D performance.

For this build (i.e. using this as a desktop computer), I don't need 3D performance. I went with the open source radeon driver (not to be confused with radeonhd, the other open source driver), and have not had any issues. In fact, I've been pleasantly surprised at how well everything works (including suspend).

So, I'd say, unless you have very specific video performance needs, this hardware should be great for a Linux server.

[Jay_S]

wanted to be able to play music from the media server

My music server is an ancient P3 Dell Optiplex running ubuntu 9.10 server and squeezecenter. I just finished the laundry area of our basement, which is also where my network gear and servers live. I've always wanted music playback down there (foosball table lives there too ), but without a GUI I didn't have a good solution. I recently discovered MOC (Music On Console). This + cheap PC speakers = music during foosball marathons. Even if you're using a window manager, this may be of use to you because it's so light on resources.

[andymcca]

matt_garman, have you played around with undervolting for additional power savings? Is there really that many watts difference between your LE-1250 and the X2 250?

[HammerSandwich]

I originally tried to use a Xigmatek HDT-S1283 heatsink, but it was too tall for the case. Both that heatsink and the Kabuto 6 are probably overkill for this CPU, but that's my style.

They are. I have an Athlon II 245 under the OEM heatsink. I'd planned to use something beefier, but that proved completely unnecessary for an office PC. Vcore drops to 0.94V at idle, and Speedfan runs the CPU fan at 600rpm. Not only is it quieter than my monitors, I cannot hear a difference when I stop & start the fan (via Speedfan, not with my head in the case).

[andymcca]

I originally tried to use a Xigmatek HDT-S1283 heatsink, but it was too tall for the case. Both that heatsink and the Kabuto 6 are probably overkill for this CPU, but that's my style.

They are. I have an Athlon II 245 under the OEM heatsink. I'd planned to use something beefier, but that proved completely unnecessary for an office PC. Vcore drops to 0.94V at idle, and Speedfan runs the CPU fan at 600rpm. Not only is it quieter than my monitors, I cannot hear a difference when I stop & start the fan (via Speedfan, not with my head in the case).

Yeah, I believe I have the same HSF from my semron 140, and it is great!

[matt_garman]

matt_garman, have you played around with undervolting for additional power savings? Is there really that many watts difference between your LE-1250 and the X2 250?

I did a little bit of playing with undervolting, but not much. Basically, it looked like I'd have to underclock considerably if I wanted to undervolt in any significant way.

For me, the ideal is to get a CPU that naturally has a very low VCore when idle. Unfortunately, this looks like a "luck of the draw" situation. Looking at my AMD processors, here are the VCore values for the idle state:

- Athlon II X2 250: 1.10 V @ 800 MHz
- Athlon 4850e: 1.04 V @ 1000 MHz
- Athlon 5050e: 0.88 V @ 1000 MHz

I can't remember what the Sempron LE-1250 idled at, but in my initial testing of the Biostar A760G, I remember being pleasantly surprised that the 5050e was very close in idle power consumption to the LE-1250. And note that HammerSandwich said his Athlon II 245 drops to 0.94V at idle.

[Jay_S]

Bringing this one back from the dead....

@ matt_garman - How's the SS-300ES holding up? I'm looking at the 400W version, and am interested in your opinion - any insight is appreciated.

[matt_garman]

Bringing this one back from the dead....

@ matt_garman - How's the SS-300ES holding up? I'm looking at the 400W version, and am interested in your opinion - any insight is appreciated.

So far so good. In fact, all the hardware has been completely problem-free.

Note that Seasonic makes ES and ET models. The former have 80mm fans, the latter, 120mm fans.

To be fair, I'm not sure this system is the best benchmark of the PSU---it is by design not a very power-hungry machine. But I still wouldn't use a super-cheap or no-name PSU.

Perhaps the only caveat with this PSU is that it (according to newegg) has a three year warranty, whereas their more expensive units (e.g. S12II) have five year warranties.

I think my overall conclusion is that I would use this PSU again for similar budget builds. But for a higher-end machine, I'd probably spring for the S12II or comparable. Other than the warranty issue, that judgment is based on gut feel, not any quantifiable measure.

[Jay_S]

Thanks for the quick reply. I want the ES specifically for its straight-through fan arrangement. Decent & inexpensive 80mm straight-through PSUs are getting hard to find, and it would be nice to know that the SS-XXXES series lives up to SPCR standards for noise. The 3-year warranty doesn't bother me too much, as I almost never keep hardware for that long.

If you had to guess, between your CPU fan, case fan, notebook HDD and the PSU fan, which would you say is the loudest?

[matt_garman]

Thanks for the quick reply. I want the ES specifically for its straight-through fan arrangement. Decent & inexpensive 80mm straight-through PSUs are getting hard to find, and it would be nice to know that the SS-XXXES series lives up to SPCR standards for noise. The 3-year warranty doesn't bother me too much, as I almost never keep hardware for that long.

I agree, the PSUs with 80mm fans still have their place, but are becoming a rare beast. In my build, it really didn't matter either way. But remember that SPCR article from a while back where Mike built a PC for his friend in a super hot climate (Thailand I think?)... the 80mm fan-based PSU w/duct was a crucial component of his design.

If you had to guess, between your CPU fan, case fan, notebook HDD and the PSU fan, which would you say is the loudest?

I tried listening last night, but it's hard to tell with the furnace running. But going from memory, I know if it's perfectly quiet, and I'm thrashing the hard drive, I can hear the typical sounds of a hard drive clicking. But that's just the read/write operations, I definitely can't hear any idle noise or vibration from the drive.

I think I might be able to hear the CPU fan when it ramps up, but I'm not 100% sure on this.

Now that it's getting warmer, I should have a chance to do a detailed listen when the furnace is not running.

Hope that helps!