A strong silent type PC for MCE

Zaph0d

I want a decent PC that I can use for MCE that's powerful and fast but also quiet enough to have in a living room. I also want to use it as a server for other PCs on a home network. I want to get a few years out of it.

Budget is €2,150

Can I get a normal PC and just add on some fancy noise damping kit? I've never built a PC but I guess I could if I had to.

What the hell is Intel viiv? Some new chipset from intel intended for MCE but their marketing doesn't say how it differs from any other chipset.

Thanks

Stoner

If your building it , I'd deffo go for an 6600 passive graphics card, I used a 7800 and its a bit loud, aslo I got an Asus A8N premium motherboard, it has a cooler and heat pipe on the chip set, reducing the need for a fan, power and noise, and the software you get for cooling and turning on and off fans is very good, I have yet to figure out if I there is a difference between it and cool and quiet tech ( it supports this also I just have it off at the moment)
I bought an Asus dual layer DVd player as it is ment to be able to run in a slow mode i.e some DVDs hockey around all the time regardless if they need it or not, i have not managed to turn this feature on yet and it might be worth making sure your DVD drive can do this and it should be quiet. AMD chips are ment to run cooler then P4s, I dont know anything about a Viio chip, never heard of one.
Make sure you check the MS media centre web site for a list of compatable hardware stuff like TV tuner cards are expensive and many work in with XP but not with Media centre.

Your budget matches what I spent on mine, I got the case in Dabs.com as they were good enough to get some of the newer thermaltake cases in and they dont screw you when selling to ireland, I put mine in a Tenor case, its nice but a bit big, but i game on mine too.
The A8N Asus MB has dual GLan making homenetworking faster.

SouperComputer

Fast?

In what way? Do you plan playing games?

TBH MCE doesnt need a very high spec to run well. If you are running Hi-Def, anything around the 2.8Ghz or equivilant is fine. Graphics card does not need to be very snazzy either, a 5200 is fine.

The server side if things doent even come into the equation in terms of power, only capacity.

Main features of VIIV

- Remote control operation
- Dual-core processor
- On demand Movies, Music, Pictures and Games
- Ability to Record, Pause and Rewind Live TV (DVR functionality)
- Surround sound/home theatre support

Not much to shout about TBH.

The software side of this whole "media experience" lark is in its early stages. TBH, id grab a cheap, used S478\A board with 1GB RAM and a hauppage PVR 500 (dual tuner).

Theres no point in spending too much money at this stage, the software is too immature IMO.


To keep it quiet, heres a couple of pointers:

Try to use a PSU with a 120MM Fan.
Thermalright's XP90 and XP120 offer fantastic cooling with little or no noise.
Samsung & Seagate offer the quietest HD's
You can get replacement NB coolers from www.hitide.ie to keep things quiet on the Mobo.

maxheadroom

Zaph0d wrote:

Can I get a normal PC and just add on some fancy noise damping kit?

Not really - you need to pick low noise equipment from the beginning, otherwise all you'll be doing is trying to mask the sound that's already there. Have a look at www.silentpcreview.com for tips, tricks, inspiration etc.

Stoner

No I just ment fast cos there are two of them, and you can do a few fancy things if you want, too much for a home network i guess so forget it.

and yes i do plan to game, its a gaming PC running Media centre 2005. I stuck in a 3800 x2 processor, 2GB ram and a 7800GT graphics card, so i should be set for a while. Also if i get an xbox 360 I can link it directly to the media centre over the other LAN port.

The asus MB also has onboard 8 channel sound, it comes complete with sound software etc and it very good IMO, the sound is very good from it. However I was looking at an Abit MB the other day, it seemed to have 8 channel sound onboard and onboard RGB graphics output, if all you wanted was a media pc then this could be worth looking into I have not explosed it but if Abit say it is good enough for HDTV then it might be a good quiet value buy

SouperComputer

well you could prolly build a rig around a late S478\AGP board that will play games pretty well. But in a years time you are stuck with it, depending on how you like to play your games and what games you want to play.

You have a good budget, ill dig up a few links that might be useful for powerful\quiet PC's:

www.hushtechnologies.net
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=276210
http://www.silentpcreview.com/
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-118-1.htm
http://www.endpcnoise.com/

Theres a UK website, but I cant think of it, maybe someone else can?

dalk

As Supercomputer mentioned, if you dont intend gaming on the MCE box then buy the hardware he suggests. It doesnt need bleeding edge. It might also be worth looking into Pentium M solutions to try and lower power usage.

If you still want to spend all your money though, and want a PC that is completely fanless, and therefore silent buy this case.

SouperComputer

dalk wrote:

As Supercomputer mentioned, if you dont intend gaming on the MCE box then buy the hardware he suggests. It doesnt need bleeding edge. It might also be worth looking into Pentium M solutions to try and lower power usage.

If you still want to spend all your money though, and want a PC that is completely fanless, and therefore silent buy this case.

have you used one of these Dalk?

dalk

SouperComputer wrote:

have you used one of these Dalk?

Hi... No, never used one. What Tom's Hardare has to say about a PC using that case. They are quite expensive, and i have my HTPC down to 2 slow running fans... so not pushed.

Zaph0d

dalk wrote:

Hi... No, never used one. What Tom's Hardare has to say about a PC using that case. They are quite expensive, and i have my HTPC down to 2 slow running fans... so not pushed.

I looked at this case but it is very heavy and it gets so hot it could burn a child and the cooling fins are sharp as knives so it was not practical to put in the living room. In the end I got a Hoojum Cubit 5 case with a Pentium 640 3.2 and an XFX 6600 DDR2 graphics card.

There are settings in the BIOS to change the speed of the fan. Is it dangerous to set it too low? Could the components overheat and get damaged?

Thanks for the advice from everyone.

Endurance Man

Install a program called speedfan (google), this can monitor both temps and fan speeds. You can configure it to sound an alarm if things are getting to toasty inside.

8T8

P4's have thermal throttling when they get too hot they will slow themselves down to prevent overheating and turn themselves off in case temps get unmanageable.

Most current motherboards usually have an option in the bios for a variable speed CPU cooler whereby it adjusts the RPM depending on the thermal temperature. According to this review on your enclosure there is a bios setting that when set to "auto" will take care of the CPU cooler fan speed using a manual speed setting could have varying results in a room were the temperature changes (for example would get hot from central heating or a fire etc) would not be a great idea especially since P4's put out quite a bit heat, if you really want to you can set it to a manual setting though a program like RM clock would be useful to monitor when the clock throttling kicks in.

conzy

Why not buy a S939 Shuttle Barebone, Add a Athlon 64 3000 a geforce 6600, a gig of ram and a capture card.

P.s I am making a HTPC from an old Dell, its quiet and has loads of PCI slots.

What is a good PVR card for recording analogue/digital television?

8T8

ATI's Theater 550 line are pretty good for analogue signals as are Hauppauges PVR150 cards as well.

SouperComputer

yea, ATI's hardware is pretty good. Although if you plan using MythTV, then the the Hauppage range would be the best way to go.

Tom Dunne

SouperComputer wrote:

if you plan using MythTV, then the the Hauppage range would be the best way to go.

Just don't do what I did - purchase the USB model. MythTV/Linux isn't too hot on it's support for USB models. As you have plenty of PCI slots, it makes sense to purchase the PCI versions.