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A Truly Silent Home Theater PC Built for Linux
slimrabbit writes "LinuxDevices is reporting on a truly silent home theater PC that comes with its own Fedora 5 based quick install Linux DVD capable of installing a fully-configured FC5 system
with LIRC, KDETV, TV-Time and Kradio in about 15 minutes. The most notable features are its "church mouse quiet" 14dba power supply, TV-Out (SVideo and composite), component video, DVI and VGA out, and hardware MPEG support(XvMC). The company also supports and engages the Linux community through its sponsorship program. It is sponsoring knoppmyth and the Debian User Project and makes the mechanical drawings of its face plates available under the
GPL."
Finally I will be able to replace my XBOX, which is used solely for home theater purposes, with this HD-DVD capable system.
There is no HDMI, but component and DVI should suffice for most.
there is no issue with my network
A truly silent home theatre system? Hope it comes with closed captioning...
for watching silent movies
...and makes the mechanical drawings of its face plates available under the GPL.
Whoo hoo! Striking a blow for freedom! Telling those evil user-subjugating anti-freedom proprietary face plate manufacturers where to stuff it! I want one of these, because I'm sick to death of this nasty Antec case that won't let me distribute its modified face plate...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
This is interesting - for $300 they've created something that beats me spending my own time and money on building myself. Previously when I've seen "silent" under-the-tv boxes, they've been closer to $800. This is enough to make the average geek think "I'll just build one myself". That, however, takes time and effort, and there's no guarantee that it'll work properly at the end of it.
To get a barebones, including a nice case and decent psu for this price makes it worthwhile getting over a diy system. Only question is, does it suck because it's cheap?
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
The submitter seems to have confused quiet with "truly silent." In addition to the power supply's 14db fan, there are two more case fans. The CPU lacks a fan, relying on nearby vent holes on the top of the case for air intake - don't set anything on top! It also uses a hard drive, apparently not in an acoustic enclosure, and lacks any noticable means of acoustically muffling the DVD-ROM drive. And in general, fan quietness often comes at a cost of unsufficient cooling. If it's reliable, at $550 for the loaded system, I could still see it being kinda cool. But not silent, and maybe not even all that quiet when the DVD fires up.
1. The power supply is 14dbA? Yea right. The reviewers didn't even test it. That number is highly unlikely, especially from an unbranded PSU.
2. What about case fans? What's the dBA on those? What about the CPU fan, which isn't even included? Both of these will have a big impact on the total overall noise of the system.
3. Not to mention the hard drive! But enough.
This is not a "silent" HTPC. It's a quickstart HTPC. It should be judged on those grounds. Calling it truly silent is just going to confuse people.
See http://www.silentpcreview.com/ for real silent computing.
w00t
I've been battling my MythTV install for the past couple days, and am working on it as we speak, so this article is perfect timing.
This device appears to be little more than a barebones PC and a lot of marketing induced FUD. Others have already touched on the lack of HDD, CPU and RAM, so I won't bring those back up. What I will bring up is my suspicion of the true reason why it doesn't have MythTV - Because MythTV under FC5 is a serious pain in the arse. To quote Axel Thimm from this posting on the Atrpms-users mailing list:
"Anyway, all in all currently mythtv on FC5 isn't an easy ride. If you
don't want to get in adventures, don't upgrade yet. Wait at least
until the fixed kernel makes it into updates proper."
I had originally loaded FC5 on my MythTV candidate, only to run into whacky issue after whacky issue. I formatted and reloaded to FC4, following the holy grail of MythTV install guides, and the install has been much smoother. (I'm just trying to nail down the audio / video sync issues - I gotta get my line out to stop playing 'live' audio, dammit!)
I think you'd be better off speccing out a PC from NewEgg or something, rather than purchasing one of these boxes.
By following this guide, http://www.silentpcreview.com/article16-page1.html , I have built two machines identical to their setup and modded my power supply cpu with a low rpm fan. These machines have run solid for almost 4 years, until one of my motherboards crapped out. They are quietest piece of hardware I have owned since I sleep right next to them.
The main reason I am not engaging in any PC-based home theatre appliance is the 350-500 Watt power consumption.
I am always looking for energy saving, and I think it's insane to use that much power for playing/recording DVDs, music, compared to CD or DVD players/recorders, which consume much less energy.
Fe, Fi, Force, Fum, I smell the blood of a spilling nazi...
The Farewell Tour II
The PSU looks quiet, but it's not fanless.
There are two case fans - I couldn't see how loud they are, they say "Case fans as low as 1200rpm", but they look pretty small and small fans are usually pretty whiney.
The model that comes with a CPU seems to use a stock heatsink/fan and there doesn't look like there's a lot of room in there for a quieter solution. Also there are air holes straight above the CPU which are going to let the noise straight out.
I didn't find anywhere where they quoted a sound level for the whole system - maybe I missed it?
I have no idea how this compares to other HTPC form factor solution, but it sure isn't "truely silent".
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.