How Neuros Built Their Nearly Silent HTPC

JoeBorn writes "Neuros has a blog posting discussing how they created their latest 'thin' HTPC to be nearly silent. Instead of using a net-top architecture (Atom or the like) they used a full 2.7GHz CPU and put their effort into making that nearly silent. The article talks about their efforts on fan selection, placement, control, and vibration dampening. This route was chosen to 'give more headroom' for CPU-hungry apps (web and otherwise) including Adobe Flash. Their solution costs $279; is this an appropriate trade-off for a device powering your TV?"

Comments

Re:What about power?

[hairyfeet]

Wow, never actually built ANYTHING before, have you? To quote Mel brooks "bullshit bullshit...aaaaannnd bullshit". 1.-You just gave credence to EXACTLY what I was talking about when you said 3-5 years for consumer electronics, because in other words you are ALREADY planning on throwing it away. stupid and wasteful and pointless, with many of my decade old builds being passed down to relatives and STILL working. My personal record is a 100MHz P1 that is STILL working 5 days a week as a C&C controller on a lathe. like I said, I build to last.

2.-You can buy an OEM quad for $99, and for an HTPC a sub $100 card works fine. Lets say they get two years before upgrading the GPU, and another year they decide to upgrade the CPU. With the two upgrades they can easily go another 5-7 years VS you tossing yours every 3 if it lasts that long. Again wasteful AND stupid. As for what happens to those parts? I actually give a discount to get those parts back, which I then use to fix/upgrade other machines or frankenstein with other traded in parts to make another PC which I turn around and sell. The customer gets a price break, I get the parts. win/win.

Finally your own remarks just points out the lameness of going with that particular pre built. You are comparing it mainline PC? WTF would you want to shell out $200+ for a weak ass box that is little better than a box from 7 years ago? Haven't messed much with the Atom have you? A 900Mhz Celeron will give you better performance than that in order crap. And thinking I'm "milking the customer for hourly wages" just shows you don't know dick. You don't know a thing about me, and FYI I charge a flat rate for new builds, typically $100 because I have it down cold and can have it built, fully installed, and ready to go in a few hours. So for an average of around $500 (which the highest price is usually Windows) my customer gets a quality machine which lasts them at LEAST 7 years on average, with many of my machines still running and simply passed down to a different role, such as office machine.

So please, turn in your geek card and don't let the door hit you on the way out. I pointed out why for many a custom solution is a better buy, with more performance, longer life, and a MUCH nicer user experience, and all you could think in retort was to get snarky and go grammar Nazi. It is pretty obvious you take NO pride in your work, or care about treating anyone right, and I'm simply glad I'm not your employer. Go back to your iPod and other plastic throwaway crap and leave the HTPC to the big boys, okay kid?