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A Truly Silent Desktop PC
boris writes "The first in a series of turnkey systems seem to be coming through the fence from Hush Technologies. The systems weigh in a little expensive but look to be incredible quality. This is according to the review over at HEXUS.net who have a heap of photos up of the unit as well as an article. Is this finally the step to having a true PC in every living room? HTPC here we come!" These EPIAs are everywhere now; we mentioned the M-100 the other day; less-expensive ready-built systems (in various configurations) are available from SolarPC, too.
Looking over the specs this would be really quite however apart from the hard disk/CD Rom access. As such me being a geek would like to see a versions that could boot over the network and run everything from Ram. OK prehaps its over kill but if you remove all the mechanical bits then your should have somethnig truly quite and very reliable.
I know for a fact that the Via MB are good. I bought one from Mini-ITX and have had it running solidly for about 2 months. No crashes. Nothing. Very Impressed
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
If you're going to have no drive, the best solution is probably something like the NCD thin clients.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I host hexus's webservers :-)
- now I'm starting to get worried
www.tetracite.com
The machine looks great and the hardware seems to be extremely well put together but the review misses out on a few key areas.
It's acknowledged that the unit would look great in a lounge or on a hi-fi rack. But nowhere is the video output from the composite and S-Video outputs mentioned.
How easy would it be to get a remote control up and running with the unit? What's the sound quality like? Can the unit drive a high end sound card with the power supply that's supplied?
These are the questions I want answered.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
We are having major server problems at the moment. Something is up - we will fix this ;)
from heux's site
;)
;P
We are having major server problems at the moment. Something is up - we will fix this
yup. it's called a damn good slashdotting buddy. you better have some fire extinguishers ready to fix your "server problems"
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
Actually it'd be something like...
In Soviet Russia...the PC silences YOU
You can hear a faint whir from the fans if you place your ear next to the system, but otherwise they are completely silent.
Furthermore, they are extremely inexpensive. The latest deal on slickdeals.net was a $340 Pentium 4 2.53GHz system with 256MB PC2700 RAM, a 16X DVD-ROM or a 48X CD-RW, 30GB hard drive and 32MB Rage (in an AGP slot so it's upgradable) Slickdeals went so far as to say "You cannot build your own system for less then this."
I see no reason to spend more money on an underpowered EPIA silent system when a Dell can be had for significantly cheaper.
Managed to get this before the site disspeared
ntroduction
Possibly the area of greatest interest in the Computing world at present is the Small Form Factor (SFF) PC. They are perfect for a multitude of uses from a replacement for your main pc all the way to a Home Theater PC (HTPC). They have great flexibility due to their size, allowing many new designs to be considered. New to this market are Hush Technologies and they have approached the SFF with one thing in mind, total silence.
They have created a completely passively cooled MiniITX based PC which does away with most of the sources of noise in a normal system and encloses it in a beautifullooking aluminium case. Let's have a look at how good it is in the flesh.
What are the specifications of this PC?
* Via Epia-M 9000: Featuring a 933Mhz VIA C3 CPU
* 256MB of Crucial PC2100 DDR RAM
* 80Gb Seagate Barracuda Hard Disk
* TEAC DVD/CDRW Combo drive
* Morex 55w Power Supply (PSU)
* Dimensions: 37 x36 x 6cm (w,d,h)
* Case material: Aluminium
* Form Factor: MiniITX
The specifications of the system are interesting, the inclusion of the TEAC combo drive is great and the large hard disk allows plenty of storage. I'd prefer 512MB of RAM but 256MB is adequate for the majority of its intended uses. The hard disc itself is renowned for its low noise. It's not totally silent but a lot better than many fixed disks out there. It sacrifices some performance for this but is generally no slouch. Hush provides plenty of options so you can specify the right system for your needs.
I think I should start this review by explaining just what MiniITX form factor motherboards are. The form factor was originally proposed by VIA to be an ultra small form factor, smaller than the FlexATX and MicroATX form factors that were the smallest at the time. The original MiniITX boards were feature rich boards with a CPU soldered onto the board. This was cheap to produce as there was no discrete packaging cost for the integrated processor.
The specifications of the MiniITX form factor state that the board may not be bigger than 170mm x 170mm. As you can see this is tiny when compared to the normal ATX standard.
VIA also aimed to have very low heat output from the MiniITX so it would be more suitable in systems like the Hush. Some of the VIA EPIA series models are passively cooled but unfortunately these are the less powerful models. The higher powered boards require a small heatsink with a 40mm fan and these fans can often be quite noisy so Hush set out to combine the faster EPIA models with a passive cooling system.
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Most often you don't get good-looking !and! silent at the same time.
;)
same goes for women...
No, the Dell Precision workstations are not "completely silent." They may be stunningly quiet; I don't know, I've never heard one. But "completely silent" is different. It doesn't mean that there's minimal sound, or that the sound is well muffled. It means that no sound is being generated. I have a stack of computers sitting around... the only two that approach "completely silent" are an iBook (using ramdisk, fan off, optical drive not in use) and epia (solid state hard disk, but the damn switching power supply makes an almost-audible noise).
I appreciate that for most people "damn quiet" is good enough. Heck, even for me it is. But "completely silent" is an absolute, and it should be used that way.
I've had this sig for three days.
You'd think that creatives would be the ones Apple would identify as wanting the quiet to think and contemplate.
However buying a PC feels like a real step backwards for me. I am totally socialised to using Mac's in music and now that Logic is no longer supported on the PC it is even harder to consider the switch.
The sooner PCs get silent (like the blessed iMacs) the better...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
I've been watching computers waiting for a combination of:
- Small form factor
- Very Low Power consumption
- Low Price
Much of this has been driven based on the realization that, with the exception of gaming, there is really no practicaly need for the incredible power consumption and heat dissapation of the high end COTS systems. When you consider it, the COTS systems today are very poorly designed because they are entirely dependant upon high speed fans to keep themselves from self distruction. This makes for an a-stable product which happens to be horribly loud and in a social sense, isn't scalable (you can't have 4 of these sitting in a room).Following this new realization that no one really needs a multi GHz processor for surfing, email, servers, and most all of their coding then the idea of a 30 Watt silent processor has some real appeal.
VIA, with thei EPIA and the Mini-ITX motherboards are poised for some real advances on the user community. While not as power independent as a notebook PC, they can be arguable as portable and certainly more convenient for the desktop cube-ville environment.
The other avenue for computer users to move in is the LSTP thin-client workstations like the jammin products. These are small devices with USB, PS/2 ports on the front. This is a new direction
Not intending to get prophetic here, but I really believe that there is need for a product which has a thin-client architecture with the goal of providing only interfaces:
- USB ports, 2-4
- Firewire
With the possibility of providing a single floppy drive or CD-RW and S-Video ports as well. But nothing more is really needed at the user desktop interface anymore. Unfortunately I haven't really seen anything like this at a sane price. I did see a few products which are mini-ITX motherboards installed at the back of flat panels for a single unit. Very wonderful, but not for $1500!!! Everything else would be retained at a single point of access at the server or at a "super station" which might have additional devicees (like CD-RW, S-Video)These are all really excellent devices. Now if someone would please sent me the $300 necessary to buy one I would be very happy! I have a lot of noise in my office.
First Impressions
First impressions count for a lot and with the Hush I wasn't disappointed, the system came in a well packaged and protected box. Opening up the box for the first time I was very surprised when I took the Hush out, it was a very solid piece of metal giving an impression of excellent build quality. The cooling fins on the sides are especially sturdy chunks of aluminium.
I've seen some of the nicest and well built cases in my time but this was something else. This PC would would look perfect next to a video or DVD player. The colour of this particular example wasn't something to write home about, but it was bearable and seeing as you get a choice of colours it's not really an issue. Overall I was very impressed by the system and had good hopes for the performance of it.
The Case
People who know me know will know I'm a case person, that I'm a sucker for a nice looking aluminium case and with the Hush I'm blown away. The pictures of the case really don't do it justice, it's the highest quality case I've yet come across and that includes all the Coolermasters. The fins at the side are very solid and they make a very entertaining noise when you run your hands across them that can get addictive. At the front it's very clean looking, nothing destroys the clean lines unless it's essential to the function. In terms of switch gear and LED's there is only the bare minimum. The power switch is a Bulgin vandal resistant number with blue lighting and those of you in the Modding community will know that these are some of the best looking switches out there. The button action requires a firm push and the switch feedback isn't the greatest but the blue glow the switch makes up for it in spades. The switch means that no power LED is required as the blue glow shows instantly that it's on. This is quite important as the case is so silent, you cant tell its on by listening. Above the switch is a tiny hole for the hard disk LED which is red in colour, I'd have preferred a blue LED but that's just me being fussy.
From the pictures you can see that the optical drive at the front is not your normal 5.25 drive, rather it's a laptop style one taking up a lot less room, thus allowing the case to be lower in profile. The drive is painted to make the drive fit in perfectly with the case and it's very good to see that Hush have thought of these little details, many manufacturers would just throw a beige or black drive in without thinking.
In terms of case access on this system, things are different to nearly all cases. The top panel is held in by 6 bolts. These aren't normal bolts but have two small holes on the head. They require a special tool to loosen them but that said, it's very easy to loosen them and Hush provides the correct tool with retail versions of the system for those needing/wanting to tinker or just look at the insides of the system.
On the bottom of the case there are four very sturdy looking feet with small circular rubber pads on the base. This means you can put the case anywhere without fear of marking the surface. If you have multiple Hush PC's you could even stack them on top of each other.
The Back of the Case
Turning the case round to look at the back you can see the ports are located in a nice ATX blanking plate, there is also a PCI slot (Note there is an option to have two), an extra 2 USB Ports and an extra 2 firewire ports. At the right of these is the input port for the Power Supply. Again, as with the rest of the case, it's very neatly laid out and well built. You can see that this is also Hush Serial Number S001 its always nice to see you have the first of something.
Power Supply
Again as with other parts of this system the Power supply isn't your normal type. In keeping with the passive cooling ethos Hush have used a Morex 55 watt power supply. This consists of an internal circuit board with no cooling and an external laptop style brick which connects to the case via a small connector and then to the plu
It's just a shame the EPIA-M's onboard mpeg 2 decoder still has no linux.support. It's not at all obvious that this is the case looking at VIA's website. And there are a lot of people upset about this on the VIA forums.
Remember the PowerMac G4 Cube? Aside from all of its brouhaha on price, lack of expansions, etc., it was 8 inches square and was a fanless convection cooled machine (and still is, for those of us who still use them!), and 1-2 years before any of these fanless mini-itx form factor machines.
It really is perfect as an iTunes console/DVR at the side of the TV, but priced well above using one for that purpose at the time.
As evidence of a near-identical form factor, folks have managed to cram mini-itx motherboards inside its case.
Similar to these mini-itx style boxes, the G4 Cube had internal hard drive and CD-ROM noise, but with NetBoot (or some optical FireWire repeaters and a hard drive in another room) you could run the sucker completely silent.
The only fan that was in Apple original designs was the video card fan for the ATI Radeon graphics cards (Rage 128s were fanless). Unsupported Radeon upgrades were fanless. Most upgrades these days to honk up the processor to a 1GHz+G4 single or dualie add in an 80cm fan at the base of the unit to push air through. Similarly with GF3s or other video cards put inside this case...convection alone isn't enough to cool the chips. Fans and noise will probably be the price of powerful machines in small form factors for some time to come given that minimal heat dissipation is not a primary design goal of high-end CPUs and GPUs.
Another review can be found on the this website (bear in mind that they sell the Hush though). A comparison of the M and V series boards, including comparative benchmarks for video playback, can be found here.
Personally I intend to wait until Hush produce a new model based on the M series.
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
For those that like numbers, the Hexus server is a dual xeon with a few Gb RAM and SCSI disks. Or at least it was, you heartless people have killed it. Dave won't be happy.
"Dre don't get as high as me.... I'm Cheech and Chong" - Snoop Dogg
That's got to be the noisiest component left in it then surely? Unless it's not a 60mm..
A couple of months ago I decided to silence my machine. I nipped to QuietPC.comand got a Zalman silent heatsink for my GPU, 2 quiet case fans and a SilentDrive(tm) to enclose (and silence) my hard-disk. I already had a quiet enough PSU and a Zalman Flower on my 1800+.
The result is that I can sleep in the same room as the box (my goal), but it isn't silent. When I lay my head down to rest and the house is quiet the hum from the remaining fans is very audible. However if you come into my room in the day, you can't tell its on unless you stop still and actively listen for it.
I've found that low frequency sounds are quite soporiferous. However the SilentDrive doesn't entirely mask the high pitched whine of my Maxtor 740DX (also the SilentDrive's build quality is absolute poo) and it is that sound that I hear quite clearly on those nights that I just can't quite get to sleep. Interestingly too, the resistor slowed Zalman casefans are far louder than the Enermax PSU fans. Does anyone know if I dare reduce the voltage on the case fans even more?
I have a coolermaster case, so I figured the sound gets transfered easily through the entire metal body. I was right; I made myself some rubber washers and isolated all the fans from the case and the difference in noise was very noticeable. So I figure I shouldn't have fallen in love with the sexy metallic sheen of the Coolermaster and bought the budget Dabs.com like I had originally planned ;)
All in all the Athlon idles at 38C and at 100% load it gets to about 51C, so I might deactivate the case fans and see how that goes.
Basically I was disapointed with the QuietPC products, they work ok, but they rip you off - the case fans were standard Zalmans, but on their site no brand is mentioned and all the products listed are overpriced. Also the results were not as good as I hoped.
But anyway back to the Radeon stock fan. Removing my NVidia 440MX stock fan was the most noticeable change I made! Zalman GPU passive coolers are pretty cheap. It may be worth checking them out if you want that little bit more silence for your dad's box.
I just built a system very similar to these, and it's a blast, but there are some problems. One is that the Morex 55W power supply seems to have some issues, particularly at boot-up, that can result in a hung system. Another is heat. The EPIA boards don't generate a lot, but they do generate some, and other components (e.g. hard disk) do too. VIA does not recommend running the M-9000 fanless; that's precisely why I bought an ME-6000, and the case does have two (very quiet) case fans, and I've still had a couple of lockups that might be attributable to heat. Other users at VIA Arena using the same mobo/case combination have reported very similar problems. Overall, there seems to be a growing feeling among the community of people who've actually bought them that systems built around these components might not be silent and stable at the same time. Pick one. :-( Maybe the next generation will be capable of running silently without these stability problems, and it's fine for a hobby project, but I couldn't really recommend this type of system for regular use.
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And that is exactly why Apple should re-release the G4 cube. If they keep the specs where they were when they canceled it with the possible exception of adding Bluetooth and other more modern options, they would have a pretty good media hub that doesn't cost too much and runs with no fans.
As long as they only use lower end G4s or the PPC 970 clocked pretty low, they should be able to get away with convection. As long as they don't use too many newer parts, the price should be low enough to rival iMac sales.