[b0ssman]

You can go fanless. its just gonna set you back a bit of money.

check out
http://www.quietpc.com/sys-z77-workstation

[seedzero]

Check out SilentPCReview.com for silent builds. Things to consider for silent / low noise:

1. Bigger fans can generally run at a lower RPM and move the same volume of air as smaller fans running at a higher RPM. Lower RPM = Less noise.
2. Good fans are a must. A well built sleeve bearing fan will make less noise than a cheap ball bearing fan. Check out the recommended list on SPCR for some comprehensively tested fans. I personally use 120mm Nexus fans.
3. Fans are not the only source of noise in a PC build. For me, fans are relatively easy to quieten, then your will notice hard drive noise, and sometimes power supply whine. Get a good quality power supply. I have a Seasonic, but there are many good brands available. For hard drives, lower RPM drives or SSDs are better noise-wise.
4. Just as important in the design of a quiet build is the case you choose, the mounting of components, and the layout for airflow. A cheap case or poorly mounted components will vibrate and you will get vibration or resonant noise.
5. Don't use the crappy stock CPU heatsink and fans. They are usually one of the noisiest parts of a build. Check out a Noctua heatsink and fan.

I cannot begin to describe how good SPCR is as a resource for all this sort of information.

[binwiederda]

Thanks for the great tips redtapemedia. Still trying to go fanless though. I'll revisit your comments when I've given up the fanless dream.
I'm still looking for a MiniITX board with an "Linux compatible"/nVidia GPU, without a fan and enough (>2) SATA ports.

Questions:
1. Board okay? - The only board I found matching my requirements is the Jetway NC98-525-LF . Any thoughts? It seemed to be quite good 2 years ago (review on tomshardware.com). Plus, it has an external power supply. Just from looking at the board, it does not look as if it was high quality. Is Jetway a good mainboard manufacturer?

2. Other boards like this? - I'm wondering if there is no other boards like this?! I've checked ASUS (Intel CPU onboard), Gigabyte (Intel CPU onboard), Zotac (see above), etc.

3. Other Linux compatible GPUs? - I'm not a Hardware person, and I'm quite new to the world of mainboards. I find it pretty hard to find "Linux compatible" GPUs. People say nVidia is the way to go, but that helps only very little for a newbie like me. I've learned that Atom / ION, Next Gen ION works good on Linux, but that's pretty much it. Can you guys give me some key words I could search for to in order to educate myself a little more on that matter? -- Or also to find/identify "Linux compatible" boards?!

Thanks again, everyone!

[thethirdnut]

@binwiederda - one other thing I'd mention is that I have had very spotty service with the RealTEK NIC's.

ie. sometimes on powerup it won't for whatever reason detect the NIC and if you have automatic library update on startup it causes a blank library when no network...used to on Dharma anyways.

Some Ubuntu / grub loaders too are very tempermental if no network connection on boot - default seems to be wait 90 secs plus on 12.04 LTS if no network connection for instance.

Summary of rant is that I have moved to INTEL-only NIC's for all *nix builds and have never looked back. Not a single issue.

Just some more food for thought...

[h0ly lag]

@binwiederda - one other thing I'd mention is that I have had very spotty service with the RealTEK NIC's.

ie. sometimes on powerup it won't for whatever reason detect the NIC and if you have automatic library update on startup it causes a blank library when no network...used to on Dharma anyways.

This was fixed with Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangoling. Dharma is based on Lubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot.

[binwiederda]

interesting. thanks for that hint. what about the jetway board i found? any thoughts? or the other questions?

[thethirdnut]

@h0ly lag - XBMC2 in my sig was running off of Ubuntu minimal 12.04 and it still had the temperamental RealTEK NIC issue so I DON'T consider it fixed. I threw an Intel NIC into after I freed one up elsewhere and haven't had a single network issue since.

Couple things I'll add to the RealTEK NIC conversation:

i) I found that the newer hardware rev of the RTL8111/RTL8168 had more issues than older hardware builds.
ii) I also did try blacklisting / forcing other drivers. It did get unit to work to, but knocked it down to 100Mbps and still wasn't 100% stable.

If RealTEK NIC's working good for some people - great. Me personally I have added it to the "it's-not-worth-my-time-if-it-can-be-avoided" category.

[binwiederda]

Any thoughts?

Option A: Jetway Build
Mainboard: Jetway NC98-525E-LF (Atom D525 + NM10 Express)
RAM: 2x Kingston 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) KVR800D2N6/2G
Power: Some AC Power Adapter 12V (no idea which)
PCIe: (none)
Disks:
- 1x SSD SSD SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC064B/WW 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC
- 2x HDD Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB
Case: Streacom FC10 (or maybe the HD PLEX H5.S with a 'Layout B / ext. placement' as per this post, image here)
Fans: (none)

Option B: Zotac Build
Mainboard: ZOTAC IONITX-S-E (Atom D525 + NM10 Express)
RAM: 2x Kingston 2GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM Unbuffered DDR3 800 KVR800D3S8S6/2G
Power: (no idea yet)
PCIe: HighPoint RocketRAID 2300 PCI Express SATA II
Disks:
- 1x SSD SSD SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC064B/WW 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC
- 2x HDD Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB
Case: Streacom FC10 (or maybe the HD PLEX H5.S with a 'Layout B / ext. placement' as per this post, image here)
Fans: (none)

[teaguecl]

I disagree with the consensus here. I don't believe you can have "silence" with moving parts. Fanless is the way to go if you have a very quiet room, or very sensitive hearing. Fortunately most adults have terrible hearing and don't notice the difference. Don't forget that fans have ball bearings in them. Bearings are quietest at the beginning of their lifetime, and get louder and louder as they wear out.
That being said, fanless isn't that difficult as long as you give up the RAID portion of your requirements. IMO HTPC's are for displaying media, not for storing it. If you're going to throw two giant RAID1 drives in this thing, then fans aren't even your largest source of noise! Get those things out of the living room, and into a closet somewhere.

[binwiederda]

I generally agree with that idea. Keeping the data separate from the media PC makes total sense. However, whenever I decided to go with the 2-PC-option I wondered: why should I build two if I can just build one with two more disks? What's the harm?

Again to the build: Does anyone have an opinion on one of the two options?

[mctubster]

Was browsing trying to work out which GFX card upgrade to and saw your post.

Think about the heat you will be producing idle. On the low side

3 h/ds ... 10 watts
cpu, chipset, gfx ... 20-30 watts
ps ... 85% efficient ... 6 watts

Of course if you are sitting in XBMC at the menu I would expect another 10 watts at least on the video and cpu

So idle in XBMC with Atom, NVidia, really power efficient drives, lets say 40 watts best case.
Playing video maybe 50 watts really best case.

That is a lot of heat to release using convection. You need a huge amount of surface area, heatsinks on everything or a very large case with a lot of holes in it in the right places so you create a chimney effect.

Now consider that with a "silent" fan, the hard-drives will produce far more bearing noise and harmonics amplified by the case in interesting ways ... so unless you use SSD's there is no point in heading down fanless ... the h/d's make more noise

Cheers
Steve

[b0ssman]

the first fanless versions of the nm70 boards are comming out

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=143433

[binwiederda]

Hi mctubster,

thank you very much for that great feedback.

So idle in XBMC with Atom, NVidia, really power efficient drives, lets say 40 watts best case.
Playing video maybe 50 watts really best case.

I'm hoping to achieve an average of 35watts, I haven't calculated anything yet. I'll try to set the HDDs in sleep mode when not needed, and maybe also automatically shut down the machine (and wake it up) as needed. However, I am well aware that with the requirements I have, the electricity bill is not going to be small.

That is a lot of heat to release using convection. You need a huge amount of surface area, heatsinks on everything or a very large case with a lot of holes in it in the right places so you create a chimney effect.

Now consider that with a "silent" fan, the hard-drives will produce far more bearing noise and harmonics amplified by the case in interesting ways ... so unless you use SSD's there is no point in heading down fanless ... the h/d's make more noise

The case I've chosen is the Streacom FC10, which -- according to the manufacturer -- can take up to 3 HDDs. So I'll try it fanless first with lots of heatpipes, and if it doesn't work buy a large Noctua 120mm fan.

What do you think about the mainboard though? Would you take the Zotac plus an SATA PCIe card or the Jetway board?

[mctubster]

I wouldn't have an opinion on that

Jetway does send a shiver up my spine ... based on history though. They could be reformed! Adding a PCIe card could be another 5-10 watts

Good luck and let us know how you go with power consumption and cooling once you have built

[binwiederda]

In case anyone stumbles upon this through a search engine. These threads are the continuation:

- http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=149312
- http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=149615