Ultra-low budget silent PC for multimedia
- From: Serban Andrei Dumitrescu <sad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 12:24:39 +0100
Hi folks,
I need some help with my "ultra-low budget silent pc" project. When I built my current PC, which I'm using for work and gaming in my "work room", I was aiming for performance and that resulted in a pretty noisy beast. Now I'd very much like to be able to watch DVD/DivX/Xvid movies in my bedroom, as well as listen to the tons of music I've amassed on my hard drive without that annoying whirring.
Pretty much all of the few dozen "Build your Silent PC" articles I've read off the net where either targeted at the enthusiast with enough money to spare, or simply detailed the usage of yet larger fans and bigger heatsinks, which wasn't the information I was looking for either. So here I am, asking you guys for suggestions :-)
Since I'm starting out with a very low budget (some 200 Euros ~ 220 US$) and the requirements are pretty undemanding (playback of DVDs, Xvid/Divx AVI-files, mp3/mpc audio files, basic internet usage) I thought I'd use some older-generation components that generate little heat so I'd be able to rely on passive cooling only (maybe excepting the PSU since passively cooled PSUs are rather pricey)
For a CPU, I believe the 1.2 GHz Duron will work fine with only a (bigger?) heatsink mounted on it. Am I right there? Which Durons can do that (and still provide the performance necessary for, say, Xvid decoding)? I also read somewhere that the "Tualatin" Celerons can run with only passive cooling, but there wasn't any exact data. Anyone know something more about that?
The choice of the motherboard will be based on the CPU. In any case, I thought an older board supporting DDR RAM @133 MHz, parallel ATA (that way I'll be able to use a 40 GB ATA100 hdd I already have), USB 1.1 and AGP 4x will do just fine.
However I haven't decided on the form factor yet. I'll have to buy a new case anyway, so I might as well go for a smaller form factor, to better be able to unobtrusively integrate the PC in my otherwise hi-fi dominated bedroom. Would there be smaller form factor boards meeting my requirements?
For a graphics card (remember, it only needs to play video files) I could get a passively cooled older one like a GF MX440. On-board IGPs like those on newer boards would probably do the job quite well too, but on older boards you mostly get something like a GF2 or an nForce 2 or a Trident Blade3D GPU. Anyone know if those are OK for fullscreen video/DVD playback?
As for the hdd & DVD drives, I won't go for anything special there since I probably couldn't afford it. My "old" Seagate 40GB is really very quiet already. What about a low-end but not too loud DVD-ROM drive? Anyone know of some that don't sound like a helicopter taking off and still don't cost much?
Which leaves us only with the case and PSU to decide upon. I spent some time looking for passively cooled PSUs on eBay and they seem to be out of my price range. So are "fancy" cases like Shuttle and other mini-pc type barebones. I'd go for a no-name case (be it ATX or mini-ATX) and put the cheapest "silent" PSU I can get on eBay. Can anyone recommend some specific PSUs which run quietly yet don't cost much?
Well then, thanks for reading so far :-) I'd be very grateful for _any_ suggestions...
TIA,
Andrei
--
"Work is the curse of the drinking class." - Oscar Wilde .
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