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Ask Slashdot: Passively Cooled Hardware For Game Emulation?
akutz writes "I recently sold a 2011 Mac mini on Craigslist because after using it to rip my Blu-ray collection, I tried to use it as an emulation station connected to my TV. However, emulators like Dolphin, BSNES, etc. would cause the Mac mini's fans to spin up like turbine engines — much too loud for my liking. I ask, therefore: What hardware would you recommend for building a passively cooled mini-system that will serve as a media center's emulation station?"
What's wrong with buying an old xbox, and softmodding it with a Linux distro? That'd be the cheapest, most effective option IMO.
I haven't bought anything from them recently, but they were nice to deal with in the past. They have a whole bunch of passively cooled (even sealed) systems that aren't too expensive. I have been considering picking one up for some time to use as a router/firewall.
i've ried to go fully fanless, with very low-power CPUs (atom, E-350) and no graphics card. The T climbs quickly. OTOH, a low-power CPU (i3 2100T with the included 600 RPM fan, a PSU with a quiet FAN and an 80+ gold rating, and probably no graphics card, will make no audible noise, less than the hard disk. silentpcreview.com has lists and reviews of components.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
You can't do Gen6 emulation without real hardware- real hardware is not passively cooled. Liquid cooling mitigates the problem though, I guess.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/
Or a complete solution from Zotac for330 USD:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/21556
Just take your Mac Mini and drop it into a bucket of PFMD (perfluoromethyldecalin, otherwise known as artificial blood plasma). The heat conducts away and even if the fan starts up, you won't hear it. Too bad you sold it already.
Right; the next jump from "the Mac Mini fans are too loud" doesn't have to be fanless, which is particularly troublesome in an emulator situation where the CPU will always be running. The key to low noise fans is to get big ones that move air even at lower speeds, which right now means 120mm. Using fans that are too small, in order to make the case really tiny, is what the Mac Mini does wrong for this application. A case like the Sugo SG05-B will give you those in a reasonable form factor. It won't be tiny, but there's a fundamental trade-off here: you can either make your fans cool well, be small, or be quiet--never all three at once. I have done here on past emulator boxes is to use a case with a larger fan like that, combined with one of the Zotac Mini ITX boards using an Intel Atom processor.
E-350's have decent graphics capabilities and you can pick up CPU+MOBO combo's for a very nice price
and then a CASE+PSU combo's for
The bare-bones system will thus cost as little as $130, and will kick the snot out of Atom solutions.
"His name was James Damore."
All reasonably modern machines, including silent low-end machines (like the passive AMD A-350 setup one person suggested), are well above the requirements of emulating 5th-generation or slower consoles (i.e. up to and including the n64 and original Playstation).
But for newer consoles you have to have a fair amount of speed, and any system with the capacity to run Dolphin at playable framerates is going to need a fan. You can make a fairly quiet system that will do it (look for mid-range low-wattage CPUs and GPUs, and check out silentpcreview), but the combination of CPU and video card requirements for Dolphin mean a totally passive setup is out of the question - even with ridiculously large heatsinks etc.
I think it has something to do with Describe the goal, not the step. The goal is to play video games originally designed for discontinued platforms using a more modern computing platform. The step might involve a Mac mini.
Wow that is a very nice price for a silently cooled cpu+mobo - I might need to order one.
Just wanted to add that for a PSU in this system you would definitely want to go with a picoPSU.
How about the Raspberry Pi? https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Raspberry_Pi
for the same price, you can get an H61 board, and a Pentium or i3 (the 35W versions are nice, and not that muh more expensive) that will "kick the snot out of" the E-350, except for graphics, and even there...
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
However if you insist on fanless, the answer is to go large, not small. A tiny system like a mini has to have fans since there isn't much room for heat sinks. In terms of moving heat you can have surface area or airflow, and tradeoff between the two, but you have to have one or the other.
So you get a large case, for full sized ATX parts. Then look at graphics cards that you can get fanless, or get an aftermarket fanless cooler from someone like Arctic Cooling. It is expensive and you don't get high end, but so long as you get a big ole' block of aluminium, you can have a mid range or lower end GPU with no fans.
For CPUs stick with a dual core Sandy Bridge. Emulators don't tend to use more than 2 cores (many only use 1) and moar cores = moar powers. The Core i3-2100T is what you should look at. Extremely low power dissipation, like 35watts TDP. You probably can't find a fanless processor heatsink, but just buy a really overkill one and take the fan off. Something like an Arctic Cooling Freezer 13, which is stupid massive. It is rated for 200 watts with its fan so 35 watts without should work.
For PSUs you want them efficient. You can find some that are fanless, and also some that have fans, but will turn them off under a light load. The Corsair AX750 is such a PSU. It has a fan but can provide perhaps 20% of its power with the fan off. That would probably do it, given that your system will not need much power.
Stick with non overclocked RAM and don't put too much in the system, it generates heat too. That means 1333MHz standard "value" RAM for Sandy Bridge.
That leaves just the harddrive. These make more noise than you'd think. Getting a 5400rpm drive helps, as slower speed means less noise, and heat. Also getting a case that has silicone isolator pads helps. However the real answer is an SSD. No moving parts, very little noise (all electronics make a tiny bit of noise). Expensive, but if you demand no noise, that is what you need.
Ultimately the GP has the right of it though. For less money you can just get a more powerful system with large, slow fans. Unless you have a really quiet room, you aren't likely to hear it, and you sure won't when you are emulating as the sound from the games will drown it out.
However if you want real fanless, it is a real option. Just remember you have to spend more, and settle for lower end parts. It'll still be powerful, but not as powerful as the amount of money you spend would imply.
Take Mac Mini motherboard out of chassis.
Replace hard disk with SSD
Submerge everything in a mineral oil filled aquarium. Put in fake fish, gravel, a castle, and a bubble pump, for an authentic effect.
??????
Profit!
--
BMO
good remarks, you could go with an external picoPSU and small case. The cheapest I could find is the T-3410 at logicsupply.com: case+ picoPSU (35W cpu max, no room for expansion ie no graphics card) is around $70. That brings you down to a single fan: the Intel stock one, @600RPM, is silent. I've done that exact build for a friend. Tried it for me as a fully passive E350 with Asus's passive board, but lost my nerve seeing the temp was always 60-70 C, and added a small, and noisy, fan. I should have gone with the i3 + big slow fan.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
the more likely problem is that the EMULATORS themselves are not running on the hardware efficiently.
Now consider that most of the emulators are designed to run on Windows. ZSNES started in DOS, SNES9X started in Windows, both of them were ported to MacOS/Linux later.
That shouldn't really matter. As long as multiple platforms can run the same programming language (C++ runs on every 32- or 64-bit platform that runs unmanaged code, and x86 assembly runs in DOS, Windows/x86, Linux/x86, and modern Mac OS X), an emulator can be written with a separation between the platform-specific front-end and the platform-independent emulation engine. Now if the front-end takes up more than half the CPU time, that's a completely different story.
The real problem is that standards for emulator accuracy increase over the years, and for example, bsnes takes a lot more CPU time because it emulates the corner cases of the Super NES chipset more closely. In addition, people expect to be able to emulate fifth- and sixth-generation consoles nowadays (PS1, N64, PS2, and GameCube/Wii).
Up to a Playstation 1 you only need an 800Mz machine with a decent video card. Dreamcast needs a lil bit more for smooth operation but it's fine.
PS2 is where stuff gets tricky, because the devs haven't bothered to support heavy multi-threading or multiple cores to any reasonable degree, but most games can be run at decent speed and compatibility.
You really do not need much hardware-wise until you get to PS2-level stuff.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Link?
If I can get an i3 and H61 board for $89 I'd probably buy that instead.
Silent PC Review's articles, while not always about the latest hardware, are REALLY well written. They do lots of sound related testing (decibels up close, decibels from far away, etc), and often have lots of very detailed pictures. Their article is the primary reason I bought my Antec Mini P180 (which, granted, is likely not at ALL what the original poster wants).
To the original poster: Build a silent PC yourself, with the hardware necessary to meet the performance needs of your emulators. Large fans that spin slowly are your friend, as would be water cooling. Note that frequently the cost of doing this is noticeably more than "Buy a used XBox" or "Buy a Mac Mini", as you will end up buying parts that are of relatively high quality, and perhaps investing in something expensive like water cooling. Emulating things is likely a lot more processor intensive than watching HD movies, these days, as so many chipsets now support the movies in hardware, whereas emulation is often about CPU mojo.
Generally speaking, making sure that your case uses large heat sinks and large-diameter fans (which can throttle their speed) makes for a nearly-silent PC system. My Mini P180 probably meets your sound requirements, though I expect you want something in a smaller form factor.
Looking at their site, you might like some of these articles. For the older ones, which are from nine months ago, you can likely use the same case/fans/PSU and drop in a similarly priced newer-generation motherboard and processor pairing and get similar results.
Fanless i5 (£1223): http://www.silentpcreview.com/aleutia-h3r
- Basically, an i5 system in a small form factor box which is effectively a giant heat sink. They don't recommend it for a media pc but it looks like it'd have plenty of mojo for emulation. (I assume, as I haven't done any emulation of recent systems ever.)
Mid-level gaming build ($1000): http://www.silentpcreview.com/Silent_Mid_Gaming_PC
- Tower form factor. You probably want something smaller.
- Note the Really Large heat sink on the CPU, and the very large fan on that. It's worth it.
Small Form Factor gaming rig ($1000 to $1200): http://www.silentpcreview.com/Silent_Gaming_System_Build_Guide
- Another i5 system, with aftermarket cooling accessories for the video card and so on.
- Stays cool and relatively quiet at a 1 meter distance even under sustained heavy load (Crysis).
- This is probably the one most like what you want.
...fans, of course.
Fanless is a nice thought, but doesn't tend to work out well even when engineered on a whole to shunt heat efficiently. Not really going to find a mini-system that'll be able to be too quiet, but a nice mid-tower hidden in the back with a USB hub taped down by your TV usually works out well. Built mine with four (five, counting the PSU) 120mm fans; one intake/HDD, one exhaust, and two just to move air over the CM Hyper 212 CPU cooler (in/out sandwich).
Running all four at 800rpm makes them whisper-quiet; even with HDD isolation rubbers, the drive read/write is significantly louder than the fans.
Still keeps an Athlon X4 635, three 2TB WD Green drives, and a fanless Zotac GF 460 GTX down below 35C at idle (and that's just the HDDs peaking that, the rest idle about 27C), popping up to just shy of 60C on the video card at full load for an extended period; none of the rest going above 45C.
Tears along in zsnes, MAME, epsxe, pcsx2, mupen64... and can rock along in TF2 at 1920x1080 with no issues if something more modern is wanted.
The AC parent makes a good point, in case it's lost in moderation:
Why do you want to emulate the Wii? It's likely cheaper to just BUY one, and then put some Wii-specific NES/SNES emulators on it. Substantially cheaper than building your own silent gaming(emulation) PC.
I got a whopping great big aluminium heatsink custom made for an old hp ultra small last year took the cover off and stick it directly on the cpu, it wasnt pretty but it worked a treat, stuck it in a cupboard and forgot about it
http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
Small spaces make quiet cooling difficult. Bigger fans are quieter at moving the same amount of air. The more air you move over a given heat sink the better the cooling (with diminishing returns, see various HSF reviews). So go for something larger with good airflow and some very quiet fans.
My HTPC has a PSU with a fan that I've never heard since it's temperature controlled and I'm not abusing it. The HSF is a Scythe Ninja something or other with a Panasonic D12SL 120mm fan, can't hear it. Graphics card is an MSI N460GTZ Cyclone. Sounds like a loud card, right? Well it's dead silent on movies (good for those quiet scenes) and none of the games I play have "quiet" atmosphere so when it does get cranking I still can't hear it over the audio of the game. You can always get aftermarket coolers for real silence if that's where you want to spend your money. All that packed into an Antec Solo with a cheap 64GB SSD, although when I had the 320GB single platter spindle in there you couldn't hear it at all.
If I can get an i3 and H61 board for $89 I'd probably buy that instead.
Very unlikely, as the cheapest H61 board is about $40, and I can't find an i3 that will fit it for less than $110, and both those prices are rock-bottom, include rebates, etc. Real world would be closer to $180 for the combo.
As a long-time hardware silence modifier, I second silentpcreview.com.
Some Rules:
1. Be aware of how much air circulates around the device. Those TV cubby-holes that are built to enclose systems are absolutely terrible for air circulation. Either put the system outside of the TV stand, or add fans there too.
2. BIGGER fans can move the same amount of air while moving more slowly... the smaller the fan, the more it tends to scream. Certain big 'ole desk or table-fans can run slowly enough to be silent, yet move a hell of a lot of air. You get a lot more mileage than you should by pointing a 2' wide desk fan at the back of a computer.
3. Faster components, when run more slowly, need less cooling. If you're getting an i3 processor that goes up to 3 ghz, get the one at 1.5 ghz, or underclock one down further. Don't go for the top-of-the-line graphics card, go for the budget model of the same year, if it is using similar parts.
4. Always go for full sized (3.5") Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) based Hard Drives, spun at 5400 RPM. I believe Seagate (Barracuda) and Maxtor (now part of seagate) made these. HDD's are by far the most difficult component to quiet down without accidentally destroying them.
The ______ Agenda
As the subject says, small, quiet, and performance, choose 2. You can easily make a passive cooled (quiet), high performance system to do emulation, it won't be small. You can build a small, high performance system, it won't be quiet. You can build a small and quiet system, it won't have the performance needed. Pick your poison. Personally I am of the quiet and high performance kind of person. Go get a nice Antec Fusion Remote MAX case, slap together a nice Intel i5 system, put in a big massive Noctua NH-D14 heatsink on it, along with a passive AMD/ATI HD5750, and be done with it. You can try and get by with one of the 35W TDP Intel's in a mATX case, but it might not be enough for you to do some of the trickier emulation. Heck, some SNES stuff still can't be done right on the fastest CPU's under emulation, let alone anything past the 16bit era....
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Simple solution:
Buy several large 4 liter cans of shop grade mineral oil (It doesnt have the "perfume" normally found in baby oil, which is also mineral oil), and a small aquarium. Put some shiny black light aquarium rocks in the bottom.
Put the systemboard, including the heatsink and fan, directly into the aquarium. (I would suggest something in a tiny form factor, like a mini ITX, since you can use a beefy wall wart to power it, rather than a full blown PSU.)
Route cables up and out the top through a repurposed aquarium filter tube. Where the charcoal filter would be in the tank filter, use wireties to control the cabling. You can put a cable switch box in there to serve as the port end connect point, so your normal AV and HID cables arent hanging out of the "water".
Populate the tank with those mechanical bobbing fish, and some bubbler toys.
Fill the tank with the mineral oil, drop in some aquarium bubbler stones for dramatic effect, and place a blacklight in the aquarium tank light of the cover.
VOILA. Something that wont sound like a jet engine, has heavy thermal mass to dissipate the heat of the system, has a continual supply of lubricant for the ball-bearing CPU fan, and makes an interesting accent to the room all in one go.
The fish arent real, and the mineral oil doesnt evaporate, so you never have to clean the tank, assuming you keep ambient dust out.
Why does it have to be emulation? You can pick up most of the systems you'd want to play for cheap, and most of them have Flash Carts or Mod Chips available.
Like many tech-savvy home users I want a file server at home,but the reality is 95% of the time it is doing nothing. Be it noise (fan less), eco-friendly (use less electricity) or room friendly (make less heat) a low powered fan less system seems to be a great idea.
But it's damn hard to find. There seems to be an assumption that low powered and fan less means you want super-small. Pico, or mini-ITX. No one seems to think you would use it for a file server, so > 2 SATA cuts your choices by 50%, and > 4 almost doesn't exist.
I'd be ok with CPU's with speed step that could step _way_ down, like down to 5W, but they don't seem to exist. No one makes motherboards with Intel mobile processors for end users. Repurposing a laptop has other drawbacks.
I think it's an untapped market...perhaps a small one, but big enough more solutions should exist.
I bought an HP "box" about 6 months ago for my TV. It's big and powerful enough that the fans don't go crazy when I run ZSNES. My opinion: go with something about the size of a home theater receiver, because it'll be able to move enough air to cool itself without making lots of noise.
No, I will not work for your startup
Why not just put it into an entertainment center with an open back (for ventilation) and a closed front?
As others have pointed out, the way to get rid of the noise from a small, fast fan is to replace it with a big, slow one. Not exactly easy in a Mac mini, but if you added some big slow fans to the entertainment center to move the air around the Mini (or whatever you get) then the fans inside might not have to work as hard. Another option would be to remove the case from the Mini. I don't know if the new 'unibody' models use the aluminum enclosure to transfer heat but once it's open, you could easily move a LOT of air across it and/or add custom fans and heat sinks.
Since you brought it up, what software did you use for ripping BDs on a Mac?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Try one of the ASRock barebones PCs. I bought one to replace my last home-built silent PC.
i always wanted to try immersion cooling. finding the right non conductive liquid is the trick, as far as i can tell. That, and sealing all your connections. turns out, non conductive liquids seeping into your electrical contacts is not helpful.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
If this is in a rec room or den, just buy a mini-fridge. Cool your CPU and your beer of choice at the same time. You'll have to get creative with the cabling, and your electric bill will suffer, but so long as there's nothing perishable in the fridge you can run it at the lowest setting. And the large thermal mass of all of that beer (you'll have to keep it stocked, of course) housed in aluminum (with its high thermal conductivity) is the perfect heat sink.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
Having a small fan doesn't need to be a hinderance.... I have a mini ITX-based HTPC system with a 1.5" fan on the CPU, and it's still damned near silent, even when watching h.264 full screen 1080p video. If you have sufficient air flow around the CPU, then you don't need the CPU fan to move much air specifically over the CPU. Put it in a case like this one, and minimize the number of moving parts (in my case, no moving parts aside from the CPU fan), and you can do quite nicely with a small fan keeping the CPU cool and still being quiet.
My favorite source for passive-cooled computers is mini-box.com. They have some great mini-itx boards (both integrated cpu and socketed) as well as ideal enclosures and power supplies for fanless operation. I'm using the board with the Atom D510 and M350 enclosure with M3-ATX power supply. The plain pico-PSU power supplies are cheaper, but be aware that they pass the 12v rail from the DC input directly to the motherboard/drives and may not work if your 12v brick cannot deliver stable 12v. I like the M3-ATX because it handles wide input voltage range and I can use it directly with a 12v lead-acid battery system and charger and even hot-swap temporary power sources (like 8-10 alkaline D batteries) in as backup while servicing the main battery system.
Unless you want to play Earthworm Jim 2, or AGTP's translation of Cu-on-pa or Shin Megami Tensei, or SD Gundam GX, or a half-dozen BS-X data packs like BS Konae-chan, or Power Slide FX, or Super Mario Odyssey, or Speedy Gonzales, or...
And even at that, if you want to play Battle Blaze, F1 Grand Prix, SOS, etc then you need to use the newest Snes9X releases that are more accurate and... wait for it... twice as slow as the older ones, and not much faster than BSNES!
But hey, Mario and Zelda work okay, that's close enough to 99.9%, right?
I've been building a lot of mini-itx systems lately and attempting to keep them as quiet as possible. I've built several systems that are near silent and only have one fan in them, yet perform quite well...as long as the motherboard's built in video card is good enough for you. Just get a PICOPSU-160-XT and a (fan-less) power brick from mini-box, and it moves a great deal of the heat outside the case. Get a good, low-noise cpu fan and an SSD hard drive, and it will be whisper quite. Add a water cooled cpu cooler and it would be dead silent. Heck I live in Texas and don't use the AC a lot to save on my electric bill, and all my pico-psu systems have been holding up fine.
If you want a top of the line video card, throw all the above out, because a pico-psu just won't cut it. Outside of that, I love them.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Here's a list of 100 known bugs with ZSNES, from their site: https://zsnes.bountysource.com/development/bug_report
There are hundreds more not on the list. And there are only about 1,200 unique SNES games. But even going off just the official list, your 0.1% was only off by a factor of 80 or so.
low end cpus are not good for EMU uses also for a media center you may want to have to room for a x4 pci-e cable card tuner. A big HDD to hold data. Maybe a SSD for the OS and apps.
Some Emulation setups like visual pinball + pinmame you need a better video card then on board Intel video.
Based on my own experience, reflected in a number of anecdotes in support forums, I believe the Mac Mini (and Macbook Pro) is configured not to run the fan at all until the CPU temp hits 80 C (and thermal shutdown at 90), at which point you go from zero dB fan noise to turbine mode. A frequent mistake when opening up a Mini is to leave the fan control lead unplugged, causing the fan to go max rpm the moment power is reapplied.
A workaround is to have the fan spin at a lower rpm, and ramp up gradually as the temperature climbs, for which I use Fan Control. It allows you to set a number of fan speed profiles, and is free speech/beer. My Mini's fan is usually turning at 1500 rpm in a quiet home office, and is largely inaudible to me until it hits 3000. Using this tool in the tropics, I've never had the Core Solo system go beyond 70 C (and 4000 rpm), even while running Handbrake.
Luke, help me take this mask off
take a look at the HP Microserver. it's a dualcore AMD CPU, supports 8GB RAM, no OS (install what you want), gig ethernet, and you can put up to 4 hard drives in the case, and 2 expansion cards. small, and quiet, and uses very little power (no fan on the CPU, but a large 120MM fan for the case).
>>If you have sufficient air flow around the CPU, then you don't need the CPU fan to move much air specifically over the CPU.
Right, which is something a lot of people ignore. They'll make a silent PC and then stick it into a cramped airless cabinet beneath their TV, and then wonder why their new linux-based DVR keeps skipping as the CPU desperately tries to step down its power use to keep the temps under control.
The problem I've seen from games and emulators is that if your CPU has the horsepower, they will max it even if they don't need it. Why does a 3D game need to render at 160 FPS when my hardware is only capable of displaying 60 FPS? It doesn't, but it's hard-coded to render as many FPS as possible so it does.
The easy fix I've found is to throttle your CPU. For older versions of Windows and Core processors, you could use a utility like RMClock to limit its max GHz. For i3/i5/i7 processors and Windows 7, you can lower the max processor performance under control panel -> power options -> change plan settings -> change advanced power settings -> processor power management -> maximum processor state. My laptop used to run 3D games at 2.4 GHz at a sweltering 88 C and fan spinning like a turbine. I limited it to 1.78 GHz (75%), which dropped the temp to 70 C and the fan noise is bearable without headphones. The drop in framerate is mostly imperceptible.
I don't know what options OS X has for throttling CPU speed, but that's what you should be looking for. Emulating really old games should easily be doable with the CPU throttled to its minimum.
I'd agree to just mod a Wii. It's not going to run bsnes but it's quiet, it's actually easier to mod than an Xbox, it will still emulate just about everything from the 16 bit era and before (unless your game only works on bsnes), and since it is a Wii, it plays Wii and Gamecube games so you won't need Dolphin.
I build this HTPC system last year and loaded it with XBMC Live running on Ubuntu (now 11.04) that can do full 1080p hardware accelerated decoding of complex scenes without dropping a single frame (I do my own encodings). Because the Intel Atom is a dual-core at 1.8 GHz along with nVidia Ion Next Generation which is equivalent to a GT210 video card it can shred on graphics.
HTPC - iAtom 1.8 2C, 2GB DDR3, 40GB SSD, 2TB HDD, Blu-Ray, ATSC+ClearQAM, Mini-ATX, 120mm Fan
Subtotal: $588.91
Shipping: $22.22
Total: $611.13
MOB: ASUS AT5IONT-I Intel Atom D525 (1.8GHz, dual-core) BGA559 Intel NM10 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
MEM: G.SKILL 2GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model F3-10600CL9S-2GBSQ
TVC: AVerMedia AVerTVHD Duet - PCTV Tuner (A188 - White Box) MTVHDDUWB PCI-Express x1 Interface
SSD: Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CT040G310 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
DVD: LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray Disc Reader SATA Model iHOS104-08
CAS: APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 250W Power Supply
FAN: GELID Solutions FN-SX12-10 120mm Silent Case Fan
REM: AVS Gear GP-IR02BK Vista 2 channel IR Remote Control
Temperature Sensors
This thing is completely silent when watching TV and it doesn't overheat or suffer from any thermal problems, even in super hot temps outside and a warm house at 80 F.
user@XBMCLive:~$ sensors
atk0110-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
Vcore Voltage: +1.12 V (min = +0.85 V, max = +1.60 V)
+3.3 Voltage: +3.33 V (min = +2.97 V, max = +3.63 V)
+5 Voltage: +5.05 V (min = +4.50 V, max = +5.50 V)
+12 Voltage: +12.10 V (min = +10.20 V, max = +13.80 V)
CPU FAN Speed: 989 RPM (min = 600 RPM)
CHASSIS FAN Speed: 0 RPM (min = 600 RPM)
CPU Temperature: +50.0C (high = +60.0C, crit = +95.0C)
GPU Temperature: +52.0C (high = +60.0C, crit = +95.0C)
user@XBMCLive:~$ sensors -f
atk0110-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
Vcore Voltage: +1.12 V (min = +0.85 V, max = +1.60 V)
+3.3 Voltage: +3.35 V (min = +2.97 V, max = +3.63 V)
+5 Voltage: +5.05 V (min = +4.50 V, max = +5.50 V)
+12 Voltage: +12.10 V (min = +10.20 V, max = +13.80 V)
CPU FAN Speed: 983 RPM (min = 600 RPM)
CHASSIS FAN Speed: 0 RPM (min = 600 RPM)
CPU Temperature: +122.0F (high = +140.0F, crit = +203.0F)
GPU Temperature: +125.6F (high = +140.0F, crit = +203.0F)
Honestly, for all I've read about the "silent PC" it just convinces me that it's all in people's heads and the "silent PC" has become the new expensive Monster Cables pushed at you by the sales reps at Best Buy. I used a G4 Mac Mini for years in my living room, and sitting twelve feet away I can honestly tell you I never heard the damn thing. I then went out and replaced it with an Early 2009 24" iMac, put it on an end table less than 3 feet away, and connected three external hard-drives to it and they're all happily spinning away.
The battery operated clock on the other side of the room is louder than all that put together and the clock itself isn't even that loud.
Even when putting the iMac under a heavy load the thing barely makes a sound, its whisper quiet just like the old G4 was before it. Of course if it *was* making a lot of noise its unlikely I'd notice what with the fact I'd be engrossed in what it is I'm doing and having the volume cranked up a bit; I wouldn't be able to hear the fans even if I was listening for them!
Because let's be serious here original poster, you're trying to convince yourself that when you've got a good game going with the surround sound turned up to comfortably enjoyable levels you can still somehow hear a tiny little fan blowing from the bottom of your AV cabinet on the other side of the room? And that somehow that tiny little fan is throwing out so much noise it overpowers the combined power of your enjoyment of the game and your kick ass 5.1 surround sound and subwoofer setup? (Taking poetic license here, you might not have a kick ass surround sound set up. But hell, even the speakers on your TV should be more than loud enough to overpower any sound coming off the computer!)
Go get the Mac Mini back, you've already got it configured to play the games you want, and turn up the volume on your TV a bit more. Spending a metric shit tonne of money for what amounts to the sonic equivalent of a Monster Cable when a quick flick of the volume control knob will take care of your problem is about as stupid a buying a Monster Cable because the sales guy told you a hundred dollar cable makes the picture on your TV look a bazillion times better.
Is the question you need to answer. Decent emulation of old hardware often requires fairly hefty CPU - and there's no getting around that (other than trading off frame rate or accuracy).
I suspect you may (counter-intuitively) find more success with large cased desktop hardware than the small form factor laptop style hardware - the reason for this is that large fans make less noise for the same airflow than small high speed ones.
Sure, a mini, laptop, etc is fairly quite when it is idle. Ramp up the CPU however and they sound like a turbine. A desktop will have some fan noise at idle, but it won't ramp up much under load.
I doubt that a passively cooled system will provide enough cpu power to run emulation at an acceptable frame-rate, other than for rather old hardware, in a somewhat inaccurate manner, however depending on the emulators required, YMMV.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Both of your solutions are a bit overkill you could have just adjusted the Speed Step/Cool'n'Quiet settings in the Windows power management menu. You loose a bit of performance by doing this but the Mid-2011 Mac Mini should still be able to use dolphin even after lowering it quite a bit (though you may have to lower your settings some).
The chassis fan is connected to the CPU fan lead, there is no CPU fan on this motherboard. The temps are high but they are always this high even with the fan spinning slowly to cool down the case and also the fan in the power supply.
There might be less expensive and more powerful options available this year with the AMD and Intel with integrated graphics but I haven't looked into them in terms of thermals, Mini-ITX, case compatibility, noise, etc. My little HTPC runs non-stop as my Linux server and HTPC box and works great so I recommend it.
I don't know exactly what hardware you want to emulate, so I will describe my emulation needs and solutions.
I use a modded Sony's PS2 to play Sega Genesis, Atari and SNES games. The PS2 is pretty silent, and the emulators are not that bad.
I don't play N64 or newer (or less older) games, but I can (barely) play Orbiter http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ on an Atom 330 with 2GB RAM and a 5400 Samsung EcoGreen HD, so I presume that it's possible that this box can handle these emulators. I will check this soon and post the results.
The Atom330 is nice because it's TDP is around 2.5W. While I'm using a traditional fan heatsink, I think that with a so low TDP it's possible to use a Peltier processor cooler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_cooling (I saw one once for a Pentium M333 some years ago).
This will not work nice on environments with high humidity because of the risk of water condensation.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
I would go with a LV (low-voltage) or ULV (ultra low-voltage) Core2 Duo mobile CPU on a Intel based Mobile chipset.
Anything more than two cores is a waste on current console emulators. There are small mobile chipset motherboards that take the Intel mobile processors from the previous architecture. They can be had for around $400 and will take 4-8 GB of ram and use a fairly modern chipset like the PM45. I think Commell still makes them with a PCIe X 16 slot. You could get a passively cooled single slot graphics card for modern emulators like Dolphin and the Model 3 emulator.
I think this MB and cards/cables, etc will fit in a very small case, probably around the size of a Mini-ITX case.
Then, get a small SSD for the OS and apps. Put the roms on a high-speed network share for lots of room for full sets (like MAME)
Then, put a good front-end like Hyperspin and you're good to go.
OTOH, a low-power CPU (i3 2100T with the included 600 RPM fan, a PSU with a quiet FAN and an 80+ gold rating, and probably no graphics card, will make no audible noise, less than the hard disk. silentpcreview.com has lists and reviews of components.
Dolphin is a Wii emulator, so it may need a real graphics card, especially if he's considering 1080p (wii doesn't do 1080p but the emulator does).
I'd recommend the $40 fanless Radeon HD 5450. As you can see from this review the 5450 provided double the framerates compared to a i3 2100 without a video card, in many cases going from unplayable 20-something fps to very playable 50+ fps.
Of course in that same review they threw in a $70 Radeon HD 5570 which many times offered 2-3x the framerates of the fanless 5450, but the 5570 has a fan and noise is the primary concern to the poster, not price or framerates.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
do consider placing the computer you choose farther away. in many cases, putting it in the next room or attic or a cabinet will resolve this problem.
I have a 1.44mb floppy disc here, and I can fit a copy of every game ever for those systems (except the ones I can't fit) on there too. Amazing!
What it says to me is that the OP doesn't actually own a MacMini – after all, his assertion was that he was using a MacMini (a machine which doesn't have an optical drive) to rip his BluRay collection. Even earlier MacMinis never had BluRay drives.
My bet is troll Article is troll.
BSNES by its very nature is going to consume a lot of power, its focus is accuracy, not optimization.
That's inaccurate. bsnes' focus is accuracy then optimization. In other words, it doesn't sacrifice accuracy for speed, but it's still pretty well optimized. And that's only talking about the accuracy profile. There's also a compatibility profile that works very well even on my first generation Atom netbook.
Mada mada dane.
Exactly. It's not that hard to build a PC with only a few slow, quiet fans. Silent PC Review helped me out a lot 3.5 years ago.
I've got an Antec Solo case, Seasonic S380 (I think) PSU, passively cooled E8400 and HD3850, and I think a Nexus case fan. Two fans total (the PSU and the Nexus) do make some sound, but you only really hear it when the rest of the world is really, really quiet. And even then it's barely audible. If your game makes any kind of sound at all, you won't hear it.
And I'm sure than you can improve on my setup.
why not go the atom route? You buy an atom mobo so you will get cpu+gpu in a heat efficient package. put a Thermalright HR-02 or a Prolimatech Megahalems or the 2kg copper one from thermalright :-P and you are set to go. The atoms that come with the top line mobos atm will give you a doual core quad thread system that should be able to deal with any emulation you throw at it plus a decent desktop env.
-- no sig today
Here are the fanless systems I have used :
* Neo . The whole case is an aluminum radiator, with fins on two sides, and holes.
It died after 4 years (DC input capacitor on mobo, I guess).
* FitPC2i . The aluminum case is the radiator, with no fins, no holes (except for connectors).
Very small. Still running fine after 1 year (in the dust).
Both systems are silent - 0db - with solid state storage. Instead of SSD I use USB key and mmc on the FitPC2i.
Various configurations use those fanless cases, you can find some more suited to your needs
1) Ask slashdot what fanless hardware to use for emulation
2) Casually mention you previously tried a mini, but it was too loud
3) ???
4) PROFIT!
Seriously though, what would be the point in trolling this? Most slashdotters wil get stuck in designing mini-itx system or suggest modded consoles for solving the problem, like the good little geeks they are. The Apple Defense Squad might hook on to the "mini was too loud" bit, but there are much more fun ways to troll those guys.
As for the mini blu-ray thing, you have a point, i'm guessing external blu-ray drive?
People, what a bunch of bastards
I had a similar - if completely different problem. I got fed up trying to work with the constant whirr of my GPU/CPU fans coming from my desktop PC. After a bit of experimentation (replacing fans with quieter ones), I finally plumped for some of this stuff, and the results are pretty impressive. If you're an extreme overclocker it's probably not for you, but for everyone else it's a godsend!
The cheapest i3 chip is $100 and is 73W. The 35W chips are $135. You still dont have a motherboard.
That was an E-350 + Motherboard for $90. Thats also passive cooling (silent) on this 18W combo. Are any of the i3's capable of running on passive?
If you cant find emulator performance reviews for the E-350, look for people running the emulators on old 3.73ghz P4 boxes, because the E-350 is a bit faster than those.
Intel literally has nothing in this class.
"His name was James Damore."
The i3 H.264 decoder is definitely superior. Thats the one thing Intel did right with its GPU!
"His name was James Damore."
My home server/HTPC only has a fan in the PSU - and the only reason I haven't gone fanless is because I can't justify the cost for such a tiny noise savings, especially with so many spare PSUs lying around.
It has an Intel E5500 (2.8 dual core) with a Xigmatek Loki cooler with no fan, using onboard video (good enough for non-gaming stuff, and it's energy-efficient).
Now if I pegged both CPUs it would eventually overheat - in the BIOS I set it to hard-shutdown at 75C. To keep the temps under control I have a minutely cron script that checks the temps. Above 64C it limits the SpeedStep setting to 1.6Ghz (it can run pegged at 1.6 all day and never get too hot). Once the temps drop it opens the limits back up so it can run at 2.8Ghz.
If both cores are pegged for an extended period (the only thing that ever caused this apart from 2 CPUburn threads is when I was slow-formatting 2 encrypted disks at once) it will cycle between 1.6 and 2.8Ghz and the temps will stay under 65C or so. It normally idles around 38-40C, but that's in a hot climate. Last time I put a Kill-A-Watt on it, it was drawing 40W with the two disks that are usually active spinning.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You mean a 40mm fan? Wow that's small. I've only seen them in 1U rackmount servers and some HDD coolers, never on a CPU.
A few years ago I was running my home server on ancient hardware - a 700Mhz P3. It had two 60mm fans stock but they were worn out, I just screwed a scrap 80mm fan right into the aluminum heatsink (that's how the stock fans went in as well - just screws dug into the heatsink fins). Worked great and even though the fan was running flat out all the time, it wasn't that loud as long as I kept it clean.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Unless that's a software feature the CPU won't step down its power use to prevent an overheat. I wrote a script for my server to do just that (I wrote about it here)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Certain big 'ole desk or table-fans can run slowly enough to be silent, yet move a hell of a lot of air. You get a lot more mileage than you should by pointing a 2' wide desk fan at the back of a computer.
No need, you can get 140mm or even 200mm PC fans these days.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
There are Celeron, and then Pentium, below the i3. Main difference is the graphics part, goes from HD to HD2000 to HD3000, which is a concern for games and emulation, though the CPU itself will be much better than Atom/E-350. Prices start at $56 at newegg.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
they do, try running a cpu benchmark and see the performance drop when it starts throttling because of heat.
What temp does this usually kick in at? I have a desktop widget that shows the current frequency setting, and at least up to 75-80C it will stay pegged at max. frequency.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I assume someone has already pointed out that the mac mini's problem isn't active cooling but too small of fans (a mistake I"ve made before as well).
What I'd suggest is longer cables. Specifically, I normally put my TV-connected computers in a different room and just run a USB cable and HDMI cable to them. If your cables can't reach, for $50 you can extend HDMI over 2 cat-6 cables. You can also get self-powered USB repeater cables which can let you extend USB out pretty far. Then your computer can be as big, loud, and ugly as you want. At your entertainment center all you have is a USB hub (with a USB sound card and bluetooth receiver) and the cable going to your TV.
I do security
Your best option is an i3-2100T on a bare bones H61 motherboard. TDP for the i3-2100T is only 35 watts. It will run circles around Atom and AMD fusion solutions. The faster the cpu gets it's work done the faster it can get back into a low power sleep state. The i3 idles lower than Atom and every AMD chip. Put a good, large, low profile heatsink on the i3. You want one with a big, slow 120mm fan. Go with a low rpm 120mm yate loon fan for optimum quietness.
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
BSNES would make a supercomputer beg for mercy. The author of the program even wrote an article entitled, "Why Perfect Hardware SNES Emulation Requires a 3GHz CPU." Just use SNES9X as it is pretty efficient and it doesn't suffer from some of the... errors... that the BSNES author harps on again and again in his defense of BSNES.
http://www.tested.com/news/why-perfect-hardware-snes-emulation-requires-a-3ghz-cpu/2712/
CPU performance of the E-350 is a real dog. I was looking forward to putting one in my home server but when I saw performance/watt numbers I went i3 instead. I got an i3-2100 + motherboard for $150 at newegg after combo and rebate. That was months ago when i3's and H61 boards were more expensive. Totally worth the extra $60 IMHO. P4 performance in 2011 is no deal even at $90 for cpu and board.
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
Check out jonnyguru's reviews of the picoPSU's. Basically, they're shit. After reading them I'd never put a pico in any of my machines. Better to go with a lower wattage bronze or gold psu from a good company like seasonic. Get one with a big 120mm fan.
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
The Wii only supports standard-definition (480p) video output. Emulators can render it at full HD 1080p. Emulation might be desired for quality reasons in a home theater setup.
Mac Minis; Blu-Ray drives: no. USB ports: yes.
just sayin'
Put the machine with loud fans in the next room or a closet and use wireless controls plus an extra long hdmi cable.
You mean http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story9&reid=207 ?
At the end of which he gives them a "Recommended" award, with grades between 7 and 8 out of 10 ?
Indeed, this looks really really bad ~
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Nice! I didn't know that. That's just about the only reason I can think of to do it, then, but it's a pretty solid one if you have a TV setup good enough to be called a "home theater".
I used the external LG Super MultiBlu drive in combination with makemkv and mkvtoolnix (for muxing the PSG subtitles back in).
-- -a
I like BSNES, or more specifically, I like OpenEMU on my Mac. However, the new system will likely run Windows since it runs everything. Maybe Ubuntu or OpenSUSE, we'll see.
-- -a
http://files.lostcreations.com/bluray.JPG
-- -a
Too cool for school. You know it! :)
-- -a
Why not get a Wii? There's no good reason why your emulation station has to be a "normal" computer. Besides, you won't have to worry about Dolphin emulation on a Wii, you can just use the built-in hardware. And please don't complain that "emulation" is code for "pirating" and so this solution won't work. Another benefit is that your Wii and the SD card you're going to need can't be more than $200; can you say that for your Mac Mini?
Go to Wiibrew.org to find out how to install Homebrew Channel with Hackmii. There are plenty of methods, the best currently being Bannerbomb or Letterbomb (depending on your Wii version). Preinstall Homebrew Browser on the SD card and use it to get some nice stuff like SNEX9xGX and Wii64. If you never want to take the SD card out again you can install ftpii to use Filezilla as long as the Wii is connected to your home network. You can even play DVDs with WiiMC if the Wii is old enough (newer ones have DVD video instructions purposefully removed from the hardware).
If you followed these instructions, then congratulations! You've got yourself a cheap, silent machine that can play Wii/Gamecube games natively and with their original controllers, as well as any emulated system like SNES or Nintendo 64 with any Wii supported controllers. Much better experience overall than trying to get a "normal" computer to run such a setup.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
What does it matter in home server? (and most "average user" stuff) It will be idling virtually all the time anyway. Or, when in a modern browser ("average user" stuff), E-350 will have GPU acceleration. Similar with video, nicely offloaded in both cases. And in some rare game... the E-350 is probably at least as good in overall perf/Watt, and most likely higher performing.
One that hath name thou can not otter
It's one of these:
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/epn_41els_02
The system in question is a Mini ITX system, and the processor is a P8400, mobile penryn-based Core2 Duo. When I turn the system on, the fan spins up to about 5000-7000 RPM, and sounds a bit like a jet engine taking off, but once the system is booted it spins down to about 200-300rpm, is still slow enough under load that I can't hear it when I'm watching full-screen video. You can hear it when it's idle, but not from more than 2-3 feet away. Since that system is on 24/7 and rarely rebooted (it's an HTPC, but it's also my network fileserver), and is bolted to the back of a 42" TV, that really isn't a problem.