Fanless Media Center Box

An anonymous reader writes "I didn't know that Hush Technologies made Media Center PCs, but they do. Here's a review of one of those beautiful fanless machines running media center 2005. Could this be the perfect media center box?" It's certainly perfectly expensive.

nice, wish I could afford it

[the arbiter]

Ahh, now this is what those of us who have home recording studios need...it's so hard to get good vocal/acoustic guitar takes with that damn Athlon fan blasting away in the background.

One day...

Looks nice...

[bennomatic]

...but I still think the cube [apple.com] was nicer, for a fanless beauty. Too bad it was just waaaay too expensive.

Am I really the only one who doesn't mind a fan?

[digitalgimpus]

Not that I want a helocopter in my PC... but what is the big deal? I don't put my ear to the computer, I leave it on the floor, next to the desk... and don't hear a thing with everyday ambient noise.

I think it's more about techical ability than actual noise.

pocket players?

[Doc Ruby]

PocketPCs are "fanless", and cheap. Even iPaq 36xx models are fast enough to play fat LAN streams. CF ethernet+adapter only costs $100, and the devices themselves are only about $100. Where is the Linux installer that makes them dedicated network players?

Live next to a freeway?

[vhold]

Adjust your level of ambient noise and suddenly it'll seem important.

I used to live near a really busy street and never noticed the fan noise. When I moved out into a quieter neighborhood it became rather noticable. Once it becomes something you can actually control, you think of it differently.

Re:MythTV?

[Anonymous Coward]

Answer - of course.

Just got Myth and Plextor ConvertX. The holy grail of TV is finally acheived! The realtime certified Divx recordings play back perfectly in the Phillips DVD player.

Myth puts all other PVR software to shame. So sorry that I payed $80 for Showshifter; what a mistake.

Re:Alternate link here:

[bsupak]

Damn linewrap!

http://www.ausmedia.com.au/hush_technologies_E3_MC E.htm [ausmedia.com.au]

Re:physical location

[mythosaz]

I think the parent meant something along the lines of, "Why can't I put the thing in a cabinet, use a remote with an IR/FM repeater, and run a couple of cables out to my Hi-Fi and TV?"

I've used the OneForAll line of remotes, and I do enjoy their IR-repeater. Similarly, on the PC end, I've used the ATI All In Wonder Remote, and the RF range on mine (interference, perhaps) was less than exciting.

Lack of good HARD buttons keeps me in a remote nightmare right now, but I've got a mid-level URC (OneForAll) that I like right now. Doesn't have the annoying PVR "Thumb" buttons, but does have enough extras that I can map my Exploer 8000 to it.

Media Center Edition is nice, but it's still not QUITE the killer set-top machine. I still haven't seen GOOD two-tuner support in 2005, something that Cox already gives (well, sells) people on it's PVR units. As lon as NBC is going to start ER at 8:59pm, I'm gonna need two tuners.

Re:Wife...Slashdot...does not compute

[Suburbanpride]

what's wrong with a glass door in front of the PC

Heat is the problem, the reason why there are fans is that heat needs to escape and glass is an insulator, not a conductor.

My 500 watt reciever has a heat sink thats about 4x10x4, and has a fan that turns on a very high tempertures, which it usaul only reaches when it is cranked up for an extended period of time.
What I'd really like to see is a volume controled fan controler. When the movie gets quiet, the fans slow down and then crank back up when it gets loud again.

Re:Different processor for heat requirements?

[Hellasboy]

If I had mod points, I would mod you up.

Of all the processors they picked, they picked the worst one. My opinion.

What stopped them from using a Pentium M or an XP-M chip? I believe there was an earlier slashdot story on using the Pentium-M chip in desktops and it's performance was very good at encoding and even better in games than the P4 alternative.

There are people who have volted down their XP chips to 1.1 volts and are running a very respectable 2200+ rating.

It's a shame that they wasted 5cm of aluminum to waste it on a P4 2.8.

My (almost) noiseless HTPC

[MWales]

Athlon Mobile-XP 2200+
Zalman CPU Heatsink and Fan (1600RPM - QUIET)
NVidia GeForce4 MX
Hauppauge PVR-250
Streamzap Remote
Actisys IR Blaster
Windows XP
Beyond TV 3 - PVR Software

The GeForce4 MX GPU is passively cooled with just a heatsink. The only fans in the system are the power supply fans and the CPU fan. The CPU fan has been "underclocked" down to 1600 RPM.

The CPU I use is Barton core at 1.6 GHz (I think). Being a mobile part, it has a much lower stock voltage, and can't change clock multiplier on the fly. I use CrystalCPUID (Toms Hardware) [tomshardware.com] to underclock the CPU to save power and keep it nice and cool. The system runs great. It's very quiet, the HDDs make more noise than the fans do, and I have no thermal issues. Best of all, it was very inexpensive. I put it together for around $500. No monthly subscription fees for Beyond TV either, and their SW works great.

I'm running Mandrake in my office now, and I'm gonna try to create a similar setup with Myth TV too just to try it out.

Why painted heatsinks

[yorkpaddy]

They went through all the effort of making the whole case into a heatsink. Cool. Why then paint the heatsink? painting reduces the thermal efficency compared to bare metal.

nice

[mixmasterjake]

I just built a PVR, so I can appreciate the challenge of making it quiet. You don't really realize how loud your PC is until you actually put it in your living room full-time.

I have to say that making the thing quiet turned out to be the most expensive part of the project. You have to get special versions of everything - special power supply, special cpu fan, special hard drive (laptop drive w/ adapapter in my case).

I finally have it pretty quiet, but the DVD drive is the final kicker for me. I can't seem to find a quiet *black* dvd drive and these things are noisy as hell! luckily, it only makes noise while its playing a movie, so the volume is usually up.

Re:Method to the madness...

[Coryoth]

Part of the reason the US has been able to carry such a large current account deficit for so long without any noticeable depreciation in the Dollar is the fact that Japan, and recently also China, have been buying large amounts of US bonds and securities, propping up the value of the Dollar. There are other reasons - for instance the budget surpluses during the Clinton years, and the worldwide view of the US as an economic powerhouse (so they are a little more forgiving of the imbalance). A good discussion of the current account deficit, and why it was carried in the past is here [iie.com]. A discussion of why this careful balance may be tipping toward instability can be found in my journal. feel free to follow the link in my sig if you're interested.

Jedidiah.