Need advise on extremely quiet solutions

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Kazper
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 6:13 pm

Need advise on extremely quiet solutions

Post by Kazper » Wed Mar 30, 2005 6:35 pm

Hiya everyone. Been lurking here for a while, but decided to register and post my questions now =)

I need a silent "server" that I can buy without bankrupting myself.

What I need is a computer that will be on 24/7 and be in my livingroom. It will be a small-scale "server" running (probably linux) with a few services I need running around the clock like MRTG, a small private mail- and webserver for testing purposes, a small fileserver for my music to my other computers and probably a few other things I think of once I actually have it running. But nothing really intensive like video-encoding, gaming or even office work. Once it's set up I'll remote adminster it from my main computer when needed.

This results in a few considerations.

1) Noise. It must obviously not be louder than ambient noise at worst - ie ideally fanless so the HDD is the only source of noise.
2) Size. It will need to be relatively small formfaktor - or look so good it can be displayed with pride ;)
3) Power usage. Since it will be on 24/7 power usage is important - my power company currently loves me since my big ole Pentium system is doing this right now so I'm lining their pockets with money ;)
4) Systemspecs needed. I'm thinking 512Mb RAM at least, but I'm unsure of the CPU speed the system will need to support the roles outlined above. A fairly silent 80 or 120Gb HDD like a Samsung should more than suffice. A wireless network card would be nice so I don't have to worry about cabling, but it's not all that important.
5) Price. I look at prebuilt systems like the Hush and I almost have a heart attack looking at the amount of money they cost compared to the power they give ;)
6) Ease of construction. I can put parts together easily enough, and set up most things, but I don't like taking a welder to my MoBo or similar risky procedures. Similarly I've had rather... bad... experiences tampering with the clockfrequencies in my systems, so I'd rather not go there.

My own feeling is that any solution involving P4 or Athlons are way overkill for the needs I have for this computer, and would involve a massive amount of work/money to silence anyway. So I've been looking at VIA's various mini-ITX solutions, but are unsure both about whether they can even pull off such a job and how quiet each model are. As I mentioned before I'm ideally out to build a fanless system. The only other possibilities I see are Pentium M's or a low-key Celeron system, but both will probably cause me a lot of trouble constructing.

So what I'm asking is really any kind of experience/advise/suggestions/thoughts you have on my options and thoughts above. What do you think will work, or won't work, and why?

Shadowknight
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Post by Shadowknight » Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:22 pm

Sincec you seem to be really concerned with price, you might look into getting a Dell computer instead. They're usually pretty quiet out of the box, andyou can usually get a decent pricec when they have one of their deals going on, and sometimes the "returned/efurbished" section has some better deals.

And it won't be SFF, but it's probably about the best price/performance ratio you can get, given your needs.

yeha
Posts: 292
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 7:54 pm

Post by yeha » Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:57 pm

just thought i'd throw this out there - what about the mac mini? very small, stylish, seems pretty quiet (might want to isolate the hard drive somehow), and comes with some great software.

apart from that your requirements could be filled by a p3-500 or even lower, you just need to find the right case for it. personally i'd find the smallest case i could, get an fanless external brick power supply, cut a 92mm hole in the case and stick a single very slow fan in there. or go with a stock mini-itx system with any via cpu above say 600 mhz. if you get one second-hand or pre-built, you might have to replace the hard drive or fan.

IsaacKuo
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Post by IsaacKuo » Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:26 pm

I'm putting together a Linux workstation which is similar to your needs, and a lot cheaper than a Dell or a Mac Mini.

First off, I'm starting with an 800mhz Via micro-ATX mobo/CPU combo from NewEgg ($48 ). I'm putting a 512meg DDR stick in it (~$50), but that's overkill for your server application--128 will be plenty if you don't need a heavyweight GUI; 256 is plenty even if you use a heavyweight GUI like KDE or GNOME. I'm using a heavyweight GUI as well as running some seriously RAM hungry applications (photo/scan editing), so I'm using 512megs.

Second, I'm putting it up against a Fortron 120mm power supply. However, that's just because I have one of them lying around. You can do quieter with a Seasonic 120mm power supply. I'm flipping the fan (very very easy mod), so that it blows air onto the mobo.

Fourth, I'm putting the two together using a cheap cheap cheap and easy scratchbuilt case. It's just a 5 sided box, open in the rear. The PSU sits on the floor on the left, while the mobo is attached to the right side (upside-down from the normal tower configuration). The PSU fan blows onto the mobo, cooling the CPU (I'm removing the CPU fan for quietness).

Fifth, I'm using a Western Digital Scorpio notebook drive for the hard drive. You'll want to use a bigger 3.5" drive instead. It will fit resting on top of the PSU (with a $2 Walmart Pharmacy hot-cold pack for an easy and cheap suspension).

Your total system should cost comfortably less than $200, depending on the size of the hard drive. It'll be compact, cool, quiet, and stylish (depending on how you decorate the box's exterior--I go for the black marble look of self adhesive vinyl floor tiles).

Oh--you'll notice there's no CD-ROM drive in this mix. I'll connect up the CD-ROM drive with the components just lying around in open air, just to install Linux.

MonsterMac
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Post by MonsterMac » Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:15 pm

could you post the newegg link for the VIA mobo/cpu combo please? Thanks in advance.

IsaacKuo
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Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Post by IsaacKuo » Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:28 pm

PCChips VIA mobo/CPU combo

In terms of performance, this is truly bottom-end equipment, but most of my systems are so old that even this is an upgrade for me.

I don't know yet whether there will be any issues with getting Linux to run well on this equipment. In particular, I'm curious about the onboard video's capabilities will be like. It might not be able to handle 2048x1536, in which case I'm sticking with my old PIII with 256megs of RAM.

I should be getting in the equipment soon--hopefully in time for me to put it together this weekend. I'll report on how it goes, and if I have any Linux issues.

niels007
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Post by niels007 » Wed Mar 30, 2005 11:56 pm

You could also go for a cheap Asrock K7s41G board, cheap but solid and stable. Couple that to a Sempron 2200+ (I *think* they run at 1.5v) with an above average heatsink and any 5v 80mm fan will cool it enough. If you get a slightly better board you can undervolt and run at 100 / 133mhz instead of 166 and could almost passively cool the chip just over a ghz and probably 1.1 / 1.2v. Seriously outperforms the Via cpu.

Tibors
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Post by Tibors » Thu Mar 31, 2005 2:24 am

Systems base on VIA C3 800MHz chips have plenty power for simple home servers. They are very easy to build with only one fan or no fan at all. If a system gets the work doen with no visible delay, then another system that performs better in some benchmark doesn't out perform it. The other system will just have some unused power.
IsaacKuo wrote:It might not be able to handle 2048x1536,
The chipset on the mobo is the same as used in the M-series Mini-ITX boards from VIA. Max resolution is 1600x1200 (at least in Win2k, but I don't expect linux to differ).

Since the M-series is the most popular mini-ITX board it should be no problem getting Linux working, with the exception of the hardware MPEG accelleration.

Kazper
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Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 6:13 pm

Post by Kazper » Thu Mar 31, 2005 4:07 am

Thanks for all the ideas so far. I'll look at them all, but it sounds like the system IsaacKuo is building is pretty darn close to what I need.
IsaacKuo wrote:Second, I'm putting it up against a Fortron 120mm power supply. However, that's just because I have one of them lying around. You can do quieter with a Seasonic 120mm power supply. I'm flipping the fan (very very easy mod), so that it blows air onto the mobo.
Just wondering but would a small external power brick with no fans at all, be able to do the job? Or is that much more expensive?
IsaacKuo wrote:Your total system should cost comfortably less than $200, depending on the size of the hard drive. It'll be compact, cool, quiet, and stylish (depending on how you decorate the box's exterior--I go for the black marble look of self adhesive vinyl floor tiles).
This was some great ideas. And at a perfect price :D
IsaacKuo wrote:Oh--you'll notice there's no CD-ROM drive in this mix. I'll connect up the CD-ROM drive with the components just lying around in open air, just to install Linux.
Yeah that was my plan as well since I will have absolutely no use for an optical drive beyond installation.
IsaacKuo wrote:I should be getting in the equipment soon--hopefully in time for me to put it together this weekend. I'll report on how it goes, and if I have any Linux issues.
I'd be very happy to see that report - it sounds like a perfect fit for my needs =)

IsaacKuo
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Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Post by IsaacKuo » Wed Apr 06, 2005 5:48 am

Yesterday, my shipment from NewEgg came in. Yippee!

I didn't have much time to do much with the system yet, but here's what I have to report so far:

1. I booted up and installed Mepis 3.3. Video and ethernet worked fine out-of-box, but sound did not. I didn't have time to troubleshoot the sound much.

2. The tiny little CPU fan has got to go! That was my plan all along, of course, but I haven't had the time yet to work on it.

3. The CPU simply isn't fast enough to play back videos smoothly. I'm a bit disappointed in this. It's similar in choppiness to my 400mhz PIII laptop. Whether playing at 100% or full screen had no effect, so the hardware overlay worked fine.

4. No OpenGL 3d graphics acceleration out-of-box. No surprise here.

5. The 20-pin mobo Power connector just slightly overlaps the profile of the PSU. That is the only thing which physically interferes with the plan of placing the PSU directly "over" the mobo. It's not a significant interference, though, since the cable is flexible enough to be bent slightly out of the way.

For your intended use as a file server, the sound and performance issues won't be a problem.

I actually spent most of my time last night struggling getting the new Western Digital notebook drive to be recognized by the bios. I have no idea what was wrong. After I connected an old 3.5" drive I had lying around and having no problems with it, the Western Digital notebook drive worked also. Before that, I did a ton of things like swapping IDE cables.

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