[Cretster]

Cheers - certainly like the case (thanks for the advice), and in general I'm pleased on the whole with the machine.

Once I have nice easy control of it without needing a keyboard and mouse wired in, and get it that little bit quieter I'll be really pleased for sure.
I plan on having a receiver dongle plugged into it for some sort of wireless kb/pad/mouse (thinking Logitech K800 currently) so I can use keyboard etc if I need to, but without any messy stuff plugged in. Other than that, it will mostly be ipad/phone controlling XBMC app I think.

I don't often have to do much with my IP camera software so it should just be a nice easy to use streamer basically.

I've ordered a Gelid silent 8 to try it out. Really think as a smaller fan it'll be quieter though?

Will wait and see but admit I am well out of practise with these things re' knowing what's good and what's not.
Still tempted to try that 120mm one though if it fits on there. I bet that'd be whisper quiet.

[Dougie Fresh]

Sorry for the confusion but the Gelid/Noctua suggestion was for the 80mm case fan, not the CPU cooler.

[Cretster]

Oops, never mind. Didn't cost a lot and will be used sooner or later I'm sure.

After some research I've ordered also an Akasa Apache 120mm fan to try on the heatsink for lower noise.

Reviews say its super quiet, and despite being slow turning it has a pretty good static pressure compared with most 120mm fans so should still be suitable as a CPU/heatsink fan. Hopefully...

Ill, have to fabricate some sort of brackets for it to fit on the heatsink, and hope there's enough room for it!

[Cretster]

Ok the new Akasa apache fan came today while I don't really get excited about fans, its really nice!

It's not held in place at all yet, just sitting on the heatsink after I removed the 90mm Praeton fan. But it's been going several hours now, and at idle, the CPU is at 24C, and the machine flickering between 21/22W.

Most importantly, it's much quieter. If you listen deliberately for it, with no other noise then you can hear it. But mainly you won't hear it unless you sort of go out of your way to.

So I need to make brackets now but initial impressions are great!

[Dougie Fresh]

Awesome. When you have the 120mm installed with your brackets, please post some pictures. Mods are very cool, especially mini-ITX mods .

[Cretster]

Will do! Juggling too many projects at the moment as I've just rekindled interest in the MAME arcade cabinet I've built and the hardware in that etc. Not enough hours in the day.

Would be nice to make some nice ally brackets on my mill for this fan but it'll take too long with my lack of skill!

One annoyance is that the fan speed of the Apache 120mm is around 1100rpm with the asrock tuning program at it's slowest fan setting. I think this fan goes down to 600rpm or so, and it'd be nice to run it at that. I don't really have time at the moment for figuring all the settings for speedfan though to accomplish this. Is there a quicker easier method for controlling PWM fans?

[Cretster]

Hmmm, I have a couple of annoyances currently with this build, one of which I know the cause (broadly), but the other is a mystery.
1) XBMC keeps changing to a smaller window than full screen and I can't find how to change it back without killing it and restarting. I believe this is due to other processes popping up and grabbing the focus of the desktop. I've tweaked a couple of things but it's still happening. I need to somehow disable other things from popping up or something. A bit annoying.

2) Worse though, I am finding that when I change the input on my amp to the HDMI input used for the HTPC that it often does not detect the signal. I have no idea why this is.
Initially, I thought this was because the power settings for the pc must have been set to turn off the display after x minutes of inactivity. I was right so I changed it to never turn the display off. But it still happens so there must be something else too.


I haven't bolted the fan in place yet by the way. Ought to I know...