Creating a totally non moving Media PC

[knutinh]

Originally Posted by cheetah05

Yeah good point about the undervolting and stepspeed.

This is the cheapest way to get less heat - and therefore less noise alongside speedfan.

Surely if i get passive components, then i am assured that they have low heat and that there wont be any problems with the heatpipes.

Perhaps. But most passive graphics cards are based on regular fan-cooled parts that have been equipped with larger coolers and a higher price.

Fair enough about the sound card. what would you recommend?

I have an m-audio card that works ok for me. If you only need spdif out then any card capable of bit-perfect playback will do.

I am after a digital TV.

cable, sat, terrestrial or IP?

I am using a terratec USB DVB-T thingy for terrestrial digital tv.

I am planning on getting the mcubed mini case with vdf, does that have the fan and does the heatpipes things come with it?

I think you should ask those questions on a forum dedicated to silencing computers rather than one about HTPC software :-)

I think that the mini has restrictions on what cpus you can use, I dont remember the specifics thou.

regards
Knut

[moullas]

Another -vote for the X-Fi card... overkill for an htpc (If you are going to use SP/DIF), extra cost, and flaky drivers. Only go for it if you are planning on gaming. Otherwise, any onboard soundcard with digital out will suffice.

About the vga, if possible try finding something beefier (like a 7600GT) with passive cooling if planning for HD content.. because the 7300 will struggle along ..

[funkstar]

I have a passive nVidea card which i took the stock cooler off (not a big one) and connected it to the case with heat pipes. Passive cards do expect there to be some cooling and air flow in the case. Mine used to get extremey hot.

If you get the mCubed case, connect everything you can with heat pipes

[cheetah05]

OK cool, I have only suggested the 7300 as that was the only card i could see with HDMI out, which is what i want, Ill try and find a more 'beefier' card.

[huma2000]

There is a way to get rid of the hd noise... don't use hds at all.
You can use Gigabyte's i-RAM or something similar to it, ram is not expensive at all, so you can put 4gb at one i-RAM device or use 2 or more in a riad setting to get more RAM.
Also you will get the faster storage device avaible atm.

[cheetah05]

Yeah I have thought about the iRam thingy, but for the actually thing its like £50 plus for 2GB of Ram (roughly the space i will need i think) its an extra £100. So I cant justify the cost for just 2GB of space.

Btw, I was looking for Freeview cards.

[demion]

Have you seen one off these " http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/adsahdcf.asp"