Every case is too noisy, read this (MSI Mega PC) (1 Viewer)

strider

Portal Member
June 21, 2006
15
0
Melbourne, Australia
I researched quite a lot prior to building my HTPC.

I wanted something that:
  • Looked good and belonged in the lounge
  • Was quiet
  • Able to be turned on/off via remote
  • Didn't generate a lot of heat.
  • Had plenty of room for PCI cards, disks, the like.

I settled on the Origen X11 HTPC case.

It works excellently... heat isn't a problem, and the unit is cool to touch. In addition the rubber gromits ensure the DVD and HDDs don't vibrate.

Whilst it's not the cheapest case out there, it's slick, looks good, and even fits full sized PCI cards (no riser), and a full ATX sized motherboard.

I purchased the optional VFD, so it can be started/stopped via remote. Very slick.
 

r32godzilla

Portal Member
February 19, 2005
33
0
hakuna said:
r32godzilla said:
Ok guys heres some photos of my setup. The case is obviously not pretty but behind the cupboard door who cares? It does the job nicely:) Would love a Plasma TV but at the moment my trusty Panny 80cm TV does the job. I still have my Panny AE700 projector to mount on the roof so once thats done I can output to HDMI so it should be awesome.
What's the projector doing on the roof, projecting the Bat-sign in the sky? ;-)

Nah, I was really writing to propose to make the holes in the cabinet for the orange fan bigger. Now it looks like it's just blowing into a wall? This I think makes the air flow restricted.

/Niclas

Heheh I meant I need to mount the projector to the ceiling LOL.

Yeah the hole at the back where the orange fan is is a bit bigger thna it looks in the photo, but is still a little small. However it is still extracting quite a bit of hot air along with the dual fans from the power supply. Might see if I can make that hole a bit bigger though.

Still the temperatures have been quite good considering how hot the P4EE's run. Will do some more temp testing soon.
 

fathead

Portal Pro
March 17, 2005
209
0
I'm in the process of going over my rev3 HTPC & am nearing completion of specs. Currently running on a 939 3200+ athlon64. I'm now going to switch to the new AM2 socket & pick up a 3000+ 35w Processor - this should reduce power consumption & heat (not that it was a problem before). I plan on running the CPU cooling passively with one of the nice Scythe coolers, although I may yet change that idea & fit a Zalman CNPS7700-Cu if they bring out an AM2 version - in this case I would 100% not use case fans.

Case wise I have an Antec NSk2400, which is designed as the non HTPC desktop case. Antec also have the FUSION, which is the exact same case but with different front panel (made for the HTPC market). I would like to run zero case fans at this moment in time, but we'll see how that goes. If push comes to shove I'll use a single Nexus 120mm RealSilent fan (best I have found & I have used a fair few) & hook it up to a Zalman fanmate2 to control its speed right down.

PSU wise the case is fitted with a "quiet" High-efficiency 380 Watt, however I'm not yet convinced about that so may well change it. For anyone looking at PSUs, look no further than the Seasonic range for true "quiet" & efficeny. I may consider totally fanless in this department, but again I'm not convinced by the quality & price with some of these.

To reduce hard drive noise I initally was looking at running a laptop 2.5" drive & suspending it. Now I've read a few reviews of another awesome product & will instead buy this (when available):

gigabyte-ramdisk.jpg


Use DDR2 modules up to 8Gb, system sees them grouped as a single SATA II hard drive - solid state! No noise, no vibration, no seek & faster than a raptor in performance. :D This will be used for the system drive with Tiny XP & media portal only installed. I've recently just tried tinyxp on my main system & was blown away with boot times!

For optical drive I'm going down the laptop route mainly to reduce noise.

Motherboard I'll be using the updated AM2 version of what I already have, the M2NPV-MX which is AMD live approved for all the good that does! This uses the onboard DX9 built in graphics with DVI or VGA output. I've tested this already with MP & it works just fine though more system memory is must have.

Sound wise I'll be picking up a HDA Digital X-Plosion, I would have thought the HDA range is a must have for HTPC's due to the encoding ability.

I've also lined the case in AKASA paxmate which makes a small difference in reducing some of the vibration & general noise within a case. (I had loads left over so had nothing to lose).

Only thing I'm really left to think about is what capture card to use. I really like the idea of the Terratec Cinergy 2400i, but from what I've heard & experienced they are flakey as hell.

All my movies, music etc & stored elsewhere in my NAS Drive (2x500GB).
 

amnw14545

Portal Pro
February 11, 2006
53
0
Check out this article. Made my PC before I read this one, but it's pretty similar. Certainly easier to cool a larger case and tends to be quieter since a more effective CPU cooler is possible. In fact the Zalman cooler I use has yet to actually spin its fans other than at startup.

Worthwhile getting a quiet or temperature sensitive PSU - i.e. fans do not go on unless it's really hot.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/05/16/confessions_of_a_serial_htpc_builder_uk/

Samsung Spinpoint's were the most silent disks a couple of months ago.

Get some silicon gaskets and washers and maybe some arrow head fan mounts to isolate the case fans from transmitting vibration to the case.

The hard disks are so silent it's hardly worth isolating them though.
 

alexeix

Portal Pro
January 28, 2005
199
5
UK
I run a Shuttle SN95G5V2, which I mistakenly thought would be quiet (having read a number of reviews).

It's really anything BUT quiet, even at minimal load, so I would advise anyone looking to use a Shuttle machine as an HTPC to check one out first. If you can't have a demo, then look elsewhere for your case.

I've tried installing Speedfan in the past, but it didn't make any appreciable difference. CPU temperature for my Athlon64 3200 is usually around 40-45 degrees, so not exactly hot.

If I was building it all over again (and money was no object), I'd go for an mCubed HFX, an OrigenAE X15e or an Antec Fusion.

In fact the Antec case is quite affordable...
 

knutinh

Portal Pro
September 4, 2005
558
2
I use a Silverstone LC16m and can truly say that noise is not an issue any more.

Intel p4 2.8ht@3GHz
Nvidia GF6600GT (passive)
NorthQ 4000-something 140mmfan (!) PSU
XP120 CPU cooler with 120mm PAPST 4412 2/GLL
speedfan software controlled fanspeeds
Samsung p-series harddrives
AnyDVD speeding down my DVD drive


The most offending component in my system is harddrives. They can only be heard with 1m distance in a normal room, but I want to soft suspend them anyways.

-k
 

alexeix

Portal Pro
January 28, 2005
199
5
UK
How well does AnyDVD work at reducing the DVD drive noise?

My Pioneer DVR-109 drive is pretty loud (as with most PC DVD drives). I have Nero Premium and that includes a utility for reducing drvie noise, but it only works when you use the Nero DVD playing application.

I have DVD Ripper too, but I don't think that has a facility to reduce noise.

Are there any free apps which do this?
 

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