Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
Cheap UK and US VPS
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.