I think I can run this fanless

bLUEbYTE · Post by **bLUEbYTE** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 9:31 am

Hello,
I'm currently aiming to build a COMPLETELY FANLESS system. Parts will be:
- A MicroATX MB
- One stick of 128 MB SDRam
- Celeron 600 1.5 Volts SL3W8 CPU (Thermal Pwr: 12,6 W!)
- Memory stick as a HDD
- And an old 235 Watts PSU

As you see, this is a low-end, low-power system. This PSU will surely be sufficient.

My question is about running the PSU with the fan simply unplugged. Here are two pictures of this 235-Watt (or, actually 125 W) PSU:

http://www.geocities.com/ytsejammer333/PHTO0065.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/ytsejammer333/PHTO0066.JPG

There are two transistors attached to the first heatsink, and two to the other. The sinks are ordinary size, I think.

In past, I ran an MMX233 system with very similar(235 W) PSU with fan unplugged without problems, for 1 year. Using the same PSU, then I ran a Tualatin Celeron 1.4 GHZ with gigabyte ple-133 socket 370 mainboard, a 40 GB Maxtor HDD, 128x2 mem sticks, two PCI cards, and a cd-rom, for again 1 year or so. In both cases, the upper-back portion of the case was getting warm,however not too much. I guess ~50 C. Third time, when I tried this with an Athlon XP 1700+ the PSU fried

Now I have this PSU, nearly identical to the old one and I will unplug this guy's fan and will install into my yet-to-complete fanless system. I am confident thanks to my first two past experiences. This fanless system will not run 24/7, and I will use CPUIDLE on Win98se. What do you think? Have you had a similar experience? Also, don't recommend me commercial fanless PSUs, since I don't want to give them that much money (they are expensive for me).

Also, I think I will drill some holes on the upper-back portion of the case for some ventilation, and I will use the PSU with the PSU cover detached.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 3:29 pm

that hd, im guessing, is creaky and noisy.

go for a notebook drive, I say, and then put it on a block of foam.

tay · Post by **tay** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 4:42 pm

Yeah fanless should be fine. The foam reccomendation will probably help a lot too.

bLUEbYTE · Post by **bLUEbYTE** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 1:59 am

What type of interface those notebook HDDs use? Plain IDE? foam stuff seems sensible. Also, I am considering to use a usb memory stick instead of a HDD if I manage to boot from it. I won't need much capacity. Then my system won't have ANY MOVING PARTS

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 4:23 am

bLUEbYTE wrote:usb memory stick instead of a HDD

Go for the Compaq Flash (CF) route instead of USB. Though some of the multi-flash-format comatible readers don't take to booting, a reader with solely support for CF should be bootable no problem.

Good luck!

DrCR

_________

bLUEbYTE · Post by **bLUEbYTE** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:17 am

DrCR,
Thanks for the info. However, I am not sure what "compact flash" term corresponds to. Does it include SD and MMC memory readers?

Do you think the following product will do the trick?
http://www.hepsiburada.com/productdetai ... tid=bd7371

Oh, I also found "compact flash" media:
http://www.hepsiburada.com/department.a ... ryID=82005
&
http://www.hepsiburada.com/department.a ... goryID=947

I think that SD-MMC media may also do, as long as the card reader supports, am I right? Also, this card reader has USB interface, I hope my bios will recognize it.

Thanks

edit: oh that's cool, this guy made it:
http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/425/h ... ot_windows

Using a CF IDE adapter. Damn, How shall I find such an adapter here in Turkey?

Viperoni · Post by **Viperoni** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:37 am

I was unable to run my 300w FSP fanless, I needed to give it a 80mm Panaflo L @ 5v. Made the difference between the sinks getting really warm... and staying very very cool. Plus it helps move some air away from my passively cooled CPU

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:44 am

Compact Flash is just one of many types of flash memory. It's one of the largest types, but it is also the cheapest per capacity (at least, here in the US it is).

There are a lot of manufactors of flash memory. Lexar is one of larger ones. I actually don't know any from this company, but here is their product page: http://www.lexar.com/products/index.html

The different types of flash memory (or at least, those formats the Lexar makes):

CompactFlash®
SD™ Card
miniSD™ Card
Memory Stick™
xD-Picture Card™
MultiMediaCard
RS-MMC
Smartmedia™ Card

Sure, SD-MMC should work too (provided you can get a bootable reader). But it will be a more expensive (sometimes twice as expensive) choice than Compact Flash (again, based on prices in the US). 80USD for that 1GB/1024MB CF (Compact Flash) is a pretty good price. I just got a SimpleTech 512MB for ~$30USD, but that was after rebates.

The 6-in-1 will probably not let you boot from it. I heard some exceptions to the rule, but most multi readers won't.

Another thing to look at is transfer rates. You don't want to be using a 1.5MBs flash as your hard drive! And faster flash means more expensive. Perhaps you should consider a 2.5" Laptop hard drive?

Hope this helps!

bLUEbYTE · Post by **bLUEbYTE** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 6:02 am

Thanks for the info
My have one last idea, rather than a laptop disk:
USB-to-IDE adapter

I saw such a device(more like just a cable). What do you think? However, it might be IDE-to-USB (maybe I don't remember).

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:54 am

Yeah Viper. Most PSUs are going to need at lease some airflow. Still though, a single Japanaflo @ 5v of your entire machine isn’t too bad.

Blue, I think technically it's IDE to USB, though it really doesn't matter. Really all it does is allow you to use an internal HD as an external HD. They can actually be louder than an internal because they're not buried in the computer. Some, esp. the cheap ones, don’t dissipate the heat very well either, cooking the hard drive with its own heat. If you got a good enclosure and stuck it down and away in the recesses of your desk or something, it could work I guess. I know of someone who buried his harddrives in sandbags lol (external, of course). Maybe he was watercooling, as sand isn’t exactly the worlds best thermal conductor.

Perhaps you are looking at this to keep the HS's heat out of the case? Of so, I would scratch it and go with an internal notebook drive. They're quiet, runner cooler (I believe), and can withstand higher ambient temps than a standard 3.5" hard drive.

DrCR

_________

bLUEbYTE · Post by **bLUEbYTE** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 10:49 am

Dr, you misunderstood me; I was thinking to use this USB-to-IDE thingy for the card reader

By the way; I think I will buy an USB stick, I found this:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?sho ... 6612&st=10

There is a list of working pen drivers in the middle of the thread.

ps. You might wonder, why I don't want to use a HDD, but prefer a slow memory stick. First, for absolute silence. Second, because this box will be an "emulation box" that I'll use to play old Arcade games and all the games will be in DVD-Roms, so memory will be only used for booting and loading the emulators.

I'm planning to purchase a Lexar Jumpdrive Secure 256 MB.

tay · Post by **tay** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:37 am

So you will connect the Lexar to the IDE controller somehow? I didnt know these adapters existed.

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 12:06 pm

tay wrote:So you will connect the Lexar to the IDE controller somehow? I didnt know these adapters existed.

The IDE to USB topic is seperate from the CF to USB topic. AFAIK there is indeed no CF to IDE. Sorry to get you confused. I'm actually starting to get confused now too lol. I guess would could say we got off on a little bit of a rabbit trail, and then go back on track.

Blue, OK, my bad. You could certainly use that 6in1 as a reader. What are you going to boot from then? Use Lexar a USB "stick" as the boot "HD" with OS as well as the device to run your legacy games from? You going to put a Linux distro on there? I'm starting to get confused lol. I'm pretty tired right now.

FYI, I've only seen Linux bootable from a CF card. No clue if you could get NTFS on there or a modded WinOS.

DrCR

________

bLUEbYTE · Post by **bLUEbYTE** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 1:07 pm

Sorry, my mind changed a bit so some contradictions occured with my first post. I thoght about installing Puppy Linux on the usb memory. It is built and optimized for this purpose. But I found that it would bring so much complexity, I would lose Win98's advantages, so I decided to stick with Windows, and therefore will use a HDD

Found some notebook HDD, I will try to get my hand on one of these, but if I can't, I'll go for an ordinary IDE HDD + low suspend timer. Thanks you. Sorry to confuse your mind

It is all solved now

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:33 pm

lol Glad you got a solution together.

Yeah, I'm somewhat familiar with Puppy. D*mn Small Linux (DSL) would have been another USB option. Check out www.distrowatch.com (if you're not familiar with it already) to get an idea of what distros are out there, and what each distro has to offer.

I'm a Slackware fan myself. It was my first distro and after trying many others, I really like it the best. Though Ubuntu is a really nice one IMHO as well. I have yet to try the new version of SuSE though. It looks really nice from what I've seen, but then again, I've heard it all before lol.

Later,
DrCR

________

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 5:36 am

bLUEbYTE wrote:edit: oh that's cool, this guy made it:
http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/425/h ... ot_windows

Using a CF IDE adapter. Damn, How shall I find such an adapter here in Turkey?

Different stuff for CF and IDE @ mini-itx.com, with worldwide shipping.

PeacefullPC used to make system with Win98lite on CF, so it is possible.

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 9:20 am

Tibors wrote:Different stuff for CF and IDE @ mini-itx.com, with worldwide shipping.

Awesome find. Thanks for posting!

bLUEbYTE · Post by **bLUEbYTE** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 3:46 pm

Hello,
Lol, I glued a CPU fan on top of these heatsinks using Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive, it fitted nicely. However, now I can't attach the PSU cover; but who need that anyway (since it will stay vertically in my case). I can post a photo for those curious.

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 6:46 pm

Photos are always cool.

Mar. · Post by **Mar.** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 8:22 pm

What kind of life do those USB drives have? I'm sure it would be cut a lot shorter if you're running an OS off of one, accessing it constantly.

bLUEbYTE · Post by **bLUEbYTE** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 11:41 pm

True, installing windows wil surely kill it very fast. However, as I said above "pupply linux is optimized for this purpose". It greatly minimizes number of writes. If you have enough (256 mb) ram, I think it will only write once per boot (when shutting down). Everything is buffered and then being written at once at startup.

bLUEbYTE · Post by **bLUEbYTE** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 11:51 pm

Here are the photos of the PSU. Notice also that the fan was removed

original state:
http://www.geocities.com/ytsejammer333/PHTO0065.JPG

right now:
http://www.geocities.com/ytsejammer333/PHTO0070.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/ytsejammer333/PHTO0071.JPG

I think I can run this fanless

I think I can run this fanless

HDD

Re: HDD

Compact Flash

Re: Compact Flash

Re: Compact Flash

simple PSU mod

Photos