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Hardware

A Truly Silent Desktop PC 289

Posted by timothy from the silence-is-metallic dept.
boris writes "The first in a series of turnkey systems seem to be coming through the fence from Hush Technologies. The systems weigh in a little expensive but look to be incredible quality. This is according to the review over at HEXUS.net who have a heap of photos up of the unit as well as an article. Is this finally the step to having a true PC in every living room? HTPC here we come!" These EPIAs are everywhere now; we mentioned the M-100 the other day; less-expensive ready-built systems (in various configurations) are available from SolarPC, too.
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A Truly Silent Desktop PC More

A Truly Silent Desktop PC

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  • Hard Disk Noise (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @04:58AM (#5841465) Homepage
    Looking over the specs this would be really quite however apart from the hard disk/CD Rom access. As such me being a geek would like to see a versions that could boot over the network and run everything from Ram. OK prehaps its over kill but if you remove all the mechanical bits then your should have somethnig truly quite and very reliable.

    I know for a fact that the Via MB are good. I bought one from Mini-ITX [mini-itx.com] and have had it running solidly for about 2 months. No crashes. Nothing. Very Impressed

    Rus

    • why not just buy a thin client? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Trepidity ( 597 ) <delirium-slashdotNO@SPAMhackish.org> on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:00AM (#5841471)
      If you're going to have no drive, the best solution is probably something like the NCD thin clients.
      • Thats an idea. Just wondered though it they have TV out as what I would like is to use the box as a DivX/MP3/Streaming box. Thats what I'm using my current box for.

        Rus
        • Thats an idea. Just wondered though it they have TV out as what I would like is to use the box as a DivX/MP3/Streaming box. Thats what I'm using my current box for.

          FYI... most of the reviews I've seen of the C3 have said it's a bit slow for DIVX decoding, I'm not 100% sure, but be sure to look into that before you buy one for that purpose.

          Seem the FPU on the C3 is really slow. Don't complain too much, though... cutting back on power-hungry and die-space-consuming stuff like kickass FPU's is how they
          • I have an EPIA C3 800 Mhz and it definitely doesn't have enough juice to do software based decoding for video. I've heard the M10000 series is much better but let me assure you that the 800 hits 99% CPU on very basic MPEG2 streams. I'm using an MPEG2 decoder card to get around this limitation but this won't help you with DIVX.
            • The EPIA-M has built in MPEG-2 direct decoding. Apparently, it is not supported under GNU/Linux though (but I'm not really having any problems). I'm pretty sure that the Eden 600Mhz (fanless), and 800Mhz (fan), 900Mhz (fan), and 1000Mhz (quietest fan of the three) versions of the C3 chips are avalible. I'm running a EPIA-M with a 600Mhz Eden for MP3/OGG/Streaming/TV purposes and appart from my frustrations with the gyration keyboard/mouse thing I'm pretty happy.
          • Remember this little thing called the Tualatin? The 800MHz version topped out at 12w, and could run circles around even a 1GHz C3, not to mention the sickly EPIA.

            Go and buy a Tualatin Celeron ( they're up in the 1.3 or 1.4 GHz range, be sure you get one with 133MHz bus ) and clock it down to 66MHz bus. You'll stil have a machine capable of decoding DVD in software ( a Celeron 400 could do this without breaking a sweat ), and it can be fanless.

            What is the world coming to that some company can pass off a
        • FYI: NCDs do not have a TV out, it would be cool if they did, though.

      • Just say NO to NCD and to thin clients (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Thin client is a MICROSOFT term for a proprietary terminal. Thin Clients are built to Microsoft's specifications and are intentially made to be ill-suited for adaptation as X terminals. That's two reasons not to buy a thin client. NCD is a company which has always substantially OVERPRICED its hardware and which has failed to offer support for its products for any use except as a locked-in terminal. That's a third reason not to buy an NCD terminal. NCD is doing so badly as a company that it was delisted

      • I've tried it both ways... for most applications it is faster to do root on NFS than to do X. If you do have an I/O intensive app, then you can always still use X.

        The real problem is local RAM. Although you can, you don't want to swap over NFS.

    • Re:Hard Disk Noise (Score:4, Informative)

      by Martin Kallisti ( 652377 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:03AM (#5841486)
      Ah, but they're using the Seagates for a reason. They run quiet enough that you'll hardly hear them. The slight noise tends to fade into the background.

      • Re:Hard Disk Noise (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Yeah, but IBMs drives can be made to run silent too. All you need to do is tweak it a bit using their drive tools: http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

        Sure there is a bit of a performance hit, but it saves a fortune on sound proofing.
        • Thank you for your informative post. I just want to pick one nit about silent versus quiet. I think the relevant definition of silent from webster.com is their second definition:

          2 : free from sound or noise : STILL

          I think you meant to say that IBM drives can be made to run quietly rather than silently, unless the amount of noise that they make is truely zero (which generally is true when the drive is spun down or turned off, but I don't think that is what you were referring to).

      • Re:Hard Disk Noise (Score:4, Interesting)

        by CvD ( 94050 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:32AM (#5841583) Homepage Journal
        You should try the Maxtor DiamondMAX 9 Plus with liquid bearings series. It is amazingly silent too. You have to put your head next to the case to hear it purring softly while doing an updatedb (heavy disk activity) for example. Very cool. Now I only need to silence my PSU and CPU fans. :-)

        Cheers!

        Costyn.

        • Re:Hard Disk Noise (Score:4, Informative)

          by psychofox ( 92356 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @06:45AM (#5841767)
          I've got a Mini-itx board and solid state powersupply.

          The only thing that makes any noise at all is the disk.

          Its a seagate IV, which also uses FDB bearing ('liquid bearings') I too previously thought this disk was 'amazing' and 'silent', but you'd be amazed how noisy something sounds when there is no other noise around...

          Even the electrical hum from my monitor is deafening now!
          • solid state powersupply

            Which can be a problem. I've got EPIA M series combination and I could not use Seagate's 200GB drive in the box because spinning it up took too much power causing the boot process to hang. A 80GB drive works just fine and the 200GB one boots perfectly using a standard 300W power source.

    • Well, I've been thinking along these problems myself for a while... The hard drive noise is the only noise left in my bedroom system. (No CD, no Fans, just massive cooling fins...)

      Even with the hard drive masked tightly for sound, I can hear it (especially when it wakes up from sleep... the spin-up sound is unmistakable in a truly quiet room)

      Instead of an expensive flash-ram based IDE hard drive, is there a way to boot from a USB Ramdisk? A 64/128MB ramdisk outh to be enough to boot the O/S, load the d
      • I haven't tried it but I know that my main machine can boot from a CF Reader. I might try putting Linux on a CF see if I could boot the system off it. If that works might give Windows a try. Drop me a mail to rghf@65535.net and I will let you know how I get on :)

        Rus
      • Why bother with USB? Compact Flash has an IDE interface so you just need a cheap CF->IDE adaptor (like this [linitx.com], 13 GBP) and a bog standard CF card (about twenty-five quid for 128Mb).

        As far as the computer is concerned it is just another IDE device and will boot from it as normal. Even in the over-priced UK this comes in at under forty pounds. Less money and much less hassle than trying to boot from a USB drive.

      • I've got a PC at home booting of CF at the moment, compact flash is ata-compliant so all you need is a dirt cheap ide/cf connector. No need for BIOS support, etc.

        Of course, its awfully slow if you just have the filesystems on the card, instead you need to play around with using a ramdisk for /tmp and /var and make sure you aren't swapping to the card or every time a program starts everything will slow to a crawl.
    • Quiet hard drives are here. My maxtor does not make any noise at all. Most 7200 rpm drives are silent today. Just avoid the 10krpm's because they are louder.

      My powersupply fan is the only thing making noise on my system.

      • Re:Hard Disk Noise (Score:5, Funny)

        by reezle ( 239894 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @08:24AM (#5842317) Homepage
        Hmm... If you say so.

        How about you get rid of that noisy power supply fan, and THEN tell me how quiet your hard drive is?
        {GRIN}

        That's where I'm at now... got rid of all the fans, and now am down to the minor noises. But when you are being passionate, etc, after watching a movie, you sure don't want a spinning-up HD to make her sit up and say, "what's that strange noise?"... Because then you'll get distracted from the main event, and start babbling at her about thermal recalibration, spin-down, suspend-mode, etc etc... Very quickly she'll realise you are NOT a dentist/lawyer/doctor like you said, but in fact one of those programmers [yahoo.com] you swore to her that you were not, and then lord knows you'd have to be pretty damn lucky if you ever get back the t-shirt of yours she was wearing as she bolts for the door...
    • I've got three letters for you: VNC

      Stick a server in one room, and access it from another room over a network with a dumb terminal or something that doesn't need a fan. Unless you're playing games this should work quite well.
    • For about $20, you can buy a CompactFlash-to-IDE adapter and use it with a Mini-ITX board in place of an IDE drive. You can then use a 512M CF card as your disk--plenty for installing a pretty usable Linux system.

      • Re:get CompactFlash (Score:2, Interesting)

        by tomstdenis ( 446163 )
        Ya you casually miss the fact that CF is not as durable as a real IDE hard disk. Try re-writing to a sector a couple of thousand times :-)

        From what I recall most CF are guaranteed for something like 10^6 re-writes while a hard disk for about 10^9.

        This is why CF is primarily used in taskings where you are not likely to have things like temp files etc... [e.g. mp3 player, camera]

        Tom
    • A cheaper alternative is to have your desk against an internal wall with the PC in the next room the other side of the wall. A small hole for the cables and a SCSI or USB DVD/CD drive means that you can have that on your desk with the PC configured to turn on by pressing the space bar and turn off in the usual way. No noise and no added expense :) The people trying to sleep/watch TV in the next room might complain but that noise can be resolved with a hand gun. My desk is against the kitchen wall so I i
    • I just got a Seagate Barracuda from endpcnoise.com, to replace the Maxtor my Mac came with (which sounded like a jet engine), and it's quiet as a mouse. The only noise now is the fan in the power supply. VERY satisfied.

    • Re:Hard Disk Noise (Score:3, Informative)

      by Pieroxy ( 222434 )
      I built a silent PC for my living room and here is how I reduced noise:
      1. My PSU fan is silent. But I mean Silent. You don't hear it unless you stick you ear to it!!
      2. I underclocked my CPU. Celeron 533@266, so no fan is needed.
      3. I use a laptop HDD, which is very silent
      4. I use a DVD-ROM drive that can be told not to spin over a certain speed. I use the "eject" command on linux to set it to whatever I want. 6X is totally silent.

      That's it!

  • A bemused admin writes (Score:5, Funny)

    by oPless ( 63249 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:02AM (#5841474) Journal
    I host hexus's webservers
    - now I'm starting to get worried :-)





    www.tetracite.com [tetracite.com]

  • 9/10 but not for the review (Score:5, Interesting)

    by matthew.thompson ( 44814 ) <matt@actuali3.14159ty.co.uk minus pi> on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:02AM (#5841476) Journal
    The machine looks great and the hardware seems to be extremely well put together but the review misses out on a few key areas.

    It's acknowledged that the unit would look great in a lounge or on a hi-fi rack. But nowhere is the video output from the composite and S-Video outputs mentioned.

    How easy would it be to get a remote control up and running with the unit? What's the sound quality like? Can the unit drive a high end sound card with the power supply that's supplied?

    These are the questions I want answered.
    • It mentions S-video and 6.1 sound. At least in their pdf order form.
    • Also worth saying that the VIA board can also do 5.1 but its either that or the video out. Nice boards though

      Rus

      • Re:9/10 but not for the review (Score:5, Informative)

        by SchnauzerGuy ( 647948 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:29AM (#5841573)
        On the recent mini-ITX boards, there is one RCA connector for either coaxial SP/DIF or composite video out, with an internal jumper to switch between the outputs. This can be switched on the fly while the system is running, BTW.

        Since s-video has its own connector, you can have both coaxial SP/DIF multichannel digital audio and s-video out.
        • It's also possible to mangle the s-video connector down to regular composite using a dongle. (I think it involves merging the Y and C componenents into one pin.)

          So, really, the composite video is nearly useless.

          S
    • The remote should be easy enough. There are lots of external IR devices available, which will connect to USB, serial, parallel, PS/2, etc. With the right software you can train them to listen to anything, like a universal remote or one you already have, so for 20 euros you could have yourself a remote control setup for this too.

      If you're feeling really 'hackish' you could cut a small aperature in the front cover and place the IR eye there, so it would be part of the unit.

      Cheers,

      Costyn.

  • Quiet? Ok... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But a C3?

    I can't imagine apple addicts find the comparison to an iMac flattering. Any color you want provided you want silver or black.

    And at those prices it seems like you're way better off rolling your own, and either stashing it with the help of longer shielded cables, or one of those wireless setups.

  • already (Score:4, Funny)

    by standsolid ( 619377 ) <{moc.dilosdnats} {ta} {ynnek}> on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:05AM (#5841490) Homepage
    from heux's site

    We are having major server problems at the moment. Something is up - we will fix this ;)

    yup. it's called a damn good slashdotting buddy. you better have some fire extinguishers ready to fix your "server problems" ;P
  • ... Jaheseus Christ that looks good.

    Most often you don't get good-looking !and! silent at the same time.

    Schweeet!

  • As far as silent systems go, you can't beat Dell (Score:5, Informative)

    by ikewillis ( 586793 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:09AM (#5841507) Homepage
    The latest Dell Precision workstations run completely silent, except for the optical drives.

    You can hear a faint whir from the fans if you place your ear next to the system, but otherwise they are completely silent.

    Furthermore, they are extremely inexpensive. The latest deal on slickdeals.net [slickdeals.net] was a $340 Pentium 4 2.53GHz system with 256MB PC2700 RAM, a 16X DVD-ROM or a 48X CD-RW, 30GB hard drive and 32MB Rage (in an AGP slot so it's upgradable) Slickdeals went so far as to say "You cannot build your own system for less then this."

    I see no reason to spend more money on an underpowered EPIA silent system when a Dell can be had for significantly cheaper.

  • Review (Score:5, Informative)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:11AM (#5841515) Homepage
    Managed to get this before the site disspeared

    ntroduction

    Possibly the area of greatest interest in the Computing world at present is the Small Form Factor (SFF) PC. They are perfect for a multitude of uses from a replacement for your main pc all the way to a Home Theater PC (HTPC). They have great flexibility due to their size, allowing many new designs to be considered. New to this market are Hush Technologies and they have approached the SFF with one thing in mind, total silence.

    They have created a completely passively cooled MiniITX based PC which does away with most of the sources of noise in a normal system and encloses it in a beautifullooking aluminium case. Let's have a look at how good it is in the flesh.

    What are the specifications of this PC?

    * Via Epia-M 9000: Featuring a 933Mhz VIA C3 CPU
    * 256MB of Crucial PC2100 DDR RAM
    * 80Gb Seagate Barracuda Hard Disk
    * TEAC DVD/CDRW Combo drive
    * Morex 55w Power Supply (PSU)
    * Dimensions: 37 x36 x 6cm (w,d,h)
    * Case material: Aluminium
    * Form Factor: MiniITX

    The specifications of the system are interesting, the inclusion of the TEAC combo drive is great and the large hard disk allows plenty of storage. I'd prefer 512MB of RAM but 256MB is adequate for the majority of its intended uses. The hard disc itself is renowned for its low noise. It's not totally silent but a lot better than many fixed disks out there. It sacrifices some performance for this but is generally no slouch. Hush provides plenty of options so you can specify the right system for your needs.

    I think I should start this review by explaining just what MiniITX form factor motherboards are. The form factor was originally proposed by VIA to be an ultra small form factor, smaller than the FlexATX and MicroATX form factors that were the smallest at the time. The original MiniITX boards were feature rich boards with a CPU soldered onto the board. This was cheap to produce as there was no discrete packaging cost for the integrated processor.

    The specifications of the MiniITX form factor state that the board may not be bigger than 170mm x 170mm. As you can see this is tiny when compared to the normal ATX standard.

    VIA also aimed to have very low heat output from the MiniITX so it would be more suitable in systems like the Hush. Some of the VIA EPIA series models are passively cooled but unfortunately these are the less powerful models. The higher powered boards require a small heatsink with a 40mm fan and these fans can often be quite noisy so Hush set out to combine the faster EPIA models with a passive cooling system.

  • ....with its scsi disks and four fans, but I've gotten to the point where I can't sleep when it's off. I actually can't hear the drives most of the time over the fans.

    It's much quieter than my ceiling fan, though, which I've had on the last couple of days because it's been warm.

    Whenever I need silence, everything but the iBook goes off.

    The Mini-ITX machine reviews are interesting. I've been meaning to get one to put in this dead Apple IIgs I've got.

  • Music Studios (Score:5, Interesting)

    by locarecords.com ( 601843 ) <david&locarecords,com> on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:19AM (#5841536) Homepage Journal
    This is the kind of computer that is needed in Music studios and for the life of me I can't understand why Apple G4's have to sound like a Tornado taking off.

    You'd think that creatives would be the ones Apple would identify as wanting the quiet to think and contemplate.

    However buying a PC feels like a real step backwards for me. I am totally socialised to using Mac's in music and now that Logic is no longer supported on the PC it is even harder to consider the switch.

    The sooner PCs get silent (like the blessed iMacs) the better...

  • IPX and VIA (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tacocat ( 527354 ) <tallison1 AT twmi DOT rr DOT com> on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:23AM (#5841553)

    I've been watching computers waiting for a combination of:

    • Small form factor
    • Very Low Power consumption
    • Low Price
    Much of this has been driven based on the realization that, with the exception of gaming, there is really no practicaly need for the incredible power consumption and heat dissapation of the high end COTS systems. When you consider it, the COTS systems today are very poorly designed because they are entirely dependant upon high speed fans to keep themselves from self distruction. This makes for an a-stable product which happens to be horribly loud and in a social sense, isn't scalable (you can't have 4 of these sitting in a room).

    Following this new realization that no one really needs a multi GHz processor for surfing, email, servers, and most all of their coding then the idea of a 30 Watt silent processor has some real appeal.

    VIA, with thei EPIA and the Mini-ITX motherboards are poised for some real advances on the user community. While not as power independent as a notebook PC, they can be arguable as portable and certainly more convenient for the desktop cube-ville environment.

    The other avenue for computer users to move in is the LSTP [ltsp.org] thin-client workstations like the jammin products. These are small devices with USB, PS/2 ports on the front. This is a new direction

    Not intending to get prophetic here, but I really believe that there is need for a product which has a thin-client architecture with the goal of providing only interfaces:

    • USB ports, 2-4
    • Firewire
    With the possibility of providing a single floppy drive or CD-RW and S-Video ports as well. But nothing more is really needed at the user desktop interface anymore. Unfortunately I haven't really seen anything like this at a sane price. I did see a few products which are mini-ITX motherboards installed at the back of flat panels for a single unit. Very wonderful, but not for $1500!!! Everything else would be retained at a single point of access at the server or at a "super station" which might have additional devicees (like CD-RW, S-Video)

    These are all really excellent devices. Now if someone would please sent me the $300 necessary to buy one I would be very happy! I have a lot of noise in my office.

    • Re:IPX and VIA (Score:2, Interesting)

      by giorgio_mant ( 669747 )
      I bought a fanless (zero decibel!!! ;-))) power supply from deltatronic (300 euro), I've got an old celeron 466 fanless, and I love my pc! soon I will try to put the hard disc in standby mode using hdparm or hdflush (not sure the name is correct) My pc is much better than those crappy mini-itx mini-performance systems You can also visit siliconacoustics.com silentpcreview.com etc

  • pages 3 - 6 text (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:23AM (#5841554)


    First Impressions

    First impressions count for a lot and with the Hush I wasn't disappointed, the system came in a well packaged and protected box. Opening up the box for the first time I was very surprised when I took the Hush out, it was a very solid piece of metal giving an impression of excellent build quality. The cooling fins on the sides are especially sturdy chunks of aluminium.

    I've seen some of the nicest and well built cases in my time but this was something else. This PC would would look perfect next to a video or DVD player. The colour of this particular example wasn't something to write home about, but it was bearable and seeing as you get a choice of colours it's not really an issue. Overall I was very impressed by the system and had good hopes for the performance of it.

    The Case

    People who know me know will know I'm a case person, that I'm a sucker for a nice looking aluminium case and with the Hush I'm blown away. The pictures of the case really don't do it justice, it's the highest quality case I've yet come across and that includes all the Coolermasters. The fins at the side are very solid and they make a very entertaining noise when you run your hands across them that can get addictive. At the front it's very clean looking, nothing destroys the clean lines unless it's essential to the function. In terms of switch gear and LED's there is only the bare minimum. The power switch is a Bulgin vandal resistant number with blue lighting and those of you in the Modding community will know that these are some of the best looking switches out there. The button action requires a firm push and the switch feedback isn't the greatest but the blue glow the switch makes up for it in spades. The switch means that no power LED is required as the blue glow shows instantly that it's on. This is quite important as the case is so silent, you cant tell its on by listening. Above the switch is a tiny hole for the hard disk LED which is red in colour, I'd have preferred a blue LED but that's just me being fussy.

    From the pictures you can see that the optical drive at the front is not your normal 5.25 drive, rather it's a laptop style one taking up a lot less room, thus allowing the case to be lower in profile. The drive is painted to make the drive fit in perfectly with the case and it's very good to see that Hush have thought of these little details, many manufacturers would just throw a beige or black drive in without thinking.

    In terms of case access on this system, things are different to nearly all cases. The top panel is held in by 6 bolts. These aren't normal bolts but have two small holes on the head. They require a special tool to loosen them but that said, it's very easy to loosen them and Hush provides the correct tool with retail versions of the system for those needing/wanting to tinker or just look at the insides of the system.

    On the bottom of the case there are four very sturdy looking feet with small circular rubber pads on the base. This means you can put the case anywhere without fear of marking the surface. If you have multiple Hush PC's you could even stack them on top of each other.

    The Back of the Case

    Turning the case round to look at the back you can see the ports are located in a nice ATX blanking plate, there is also a PCI slot (Note there is an option to have two), an extra 2 USB Ports and an extra 2 firewire ports. At the right of these is the input port for the Power Supply. Again, as with the rest of the case, it's very neatly laid out and well built. You can see that this is also Hush Serial Number S001 its always nice to see you have the first of something.

    Power Supply

    Again as with other parts of this system the Power supply isn't your normal type. In keeping with the passive cooling ethos Hush have used a Morex 55 watt power supply. This consists of an internal circuit board with no cooling and an external laptop style brick which connects to the case via a small connector and then to the plu

    • Re:page 7 text (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Now with the VIA EPIA M-9000 being the basis of the system it's not going to be great as a gaming rig, so I wasn't expecting huge power out of this system. Here at Hexus we have recently reviewed the EPIA M-9000 in a full and complete review so for a more specific review of the board look at it here. The specifications of the board mean that its aimed at being a complete solution containing on-board graphics and on-board sound along with lots of other goodies.

      What are the specifications of the Via Epia 90

    • Re:page 8 - 10 (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Gaming Performance

      Now I thought what would happen if someone wanted to use the Hush as an occasional gaming rig, how would they get on? I tried the Hush out in Quake 3 Arena 1.32 which is going to be a major test for any on-board graphics. Playing at the very lowest resolution available, the game was playable but on a large monitor or it's going to look horrific at 640x480. It was a bit slow but only when there was lots of action on the screen. I then tried out some timedemo's to give it a big test and I

  • Great dorm pc (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 )
    If you need a 24/7 web or quake server but your roomate will complain look no further. This is a great pc for this market.

  • Excellent for homebrew PVR (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CvD ( 94050 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:37AM (#5841598) Homepage Journal
    This looks like the option to use for a homebrew PVR solution. The only thing missing is a TV card, but you can add that in the PCI slot that is available. It even has an MPEG2 hardware decoder. Would 933 MHz be fast enough for encoding, though?

    Cheers,

    Costyn.

    • The only thing missing is a TV card, but you can add that in the PCI slot that is available.

      um. not sure about this, but I doubt you can just add a TV tuner card. Look how small the case is; if you tried to add pretty much ANY hardware to this, I don't think you'd be able to put the top back on.

      However, I was reading up on this Hush thing a few weeks ago. If you want to add a TV card or something, I suggest looking at the Mini-ITX site [mini-itx.com] and looking into building your own machine and buying a different case.

      • ...and moments later I eat my words.

        Looking at the picture [hexus.net] of the back of the case, it looks as though you CAN add an extra card. (The card is seated parallel to the motherboard, not perpendicular as I had initially expected.)
    • The Via C3 series is pretty anemic, especially in the FPU department. The Nehemiah series has a vastly improved FPU, but the current generation of Hush systems don't use them.

      In any case, if MPEG2 is what you want, the Hauppage WinTV PVR-250 [hauppauge.com] offers hardware MPEG2 compression. They just got basic support for it in MythTV in Linux, too. Linux support for the EPIA's onboard MPEG2 decoder is forthcoming as well (Alan Cox has one).

      My only issue would be the AC97-based onboard sound. Hopefully VIA comes out

  • MPEG decoder (Score:5, Informative)

    by cyco_penguin ( 572444 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:37AM (#5841599)
    It's just a shame the EPIA-M's onboard mpeg 2 decoder still has no linux.support. It's not at all obvious that this is the case looking at VIA's website. And there are a lot of people upset about this on the VIA forums.
    • What we need is a lightweight video codec which has just enough compression to get TV quality video down below 100Mbps. Then you could just decompress the video on a server in the back room and stream it over the LAN to a lightweight client which would actually display it. No need to muck around with undocumented MPEG2 decoders.
  • It's been done before. It's called a G4 cube [apple.com]. I have one. It's silent. It's fast. It works.

  • Apple had some of the first truly 'silent' desktop (Score:5, Informative)

    by soullessbastard ( 596494 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:43AM (#5841608) Homepage Journal

    Remember the PowerMac G4 Cube [apple.com]? Aside from all of its brouhaha on price, lack of expansions, etc., it was 8 inches square and was a fanless convection cooled machine (and still is, for those of us who still use them!), and 1-2 years before any of these fanless mini-itx form factor machines.

    It really is perfect as an iTunes console/DVR at the side of the TV, but priced well above using one for that purpose at the time.

    As evidence of a near-identical form factor, folks have managed to cram mini-itx motherboards inside its case [mini-itx.com].

    Similar to these mini-itx style boxes, the G4 Cube had internal hard drive and CD-ROM noise, but with NetBoot (or some optical FireWire repeaters and a hard drive in another room) you could run the sucker completely silent.

    The only fan that was in Apple original designs was the video card fan for the ATI Radeon graphics cards (Rage 128s were fanless). Unsupported Radeon upgrades were fanless. Most upgrades these days to honk up the processor to a 1GHz+G4 single or dualie add in an 80cm fan at the base of the unit to push air through. Similarly with GF3s or other video cards put inside this case...convection alone isn't enough to cool the chips. Fans and noise will probably be the price of powerful machines in small form factors for some time to come given that minimal heat dissipation is not a primary design goal of high-end CPUs and GPUs.

    • Actually the original iMacs were more silent than this. Original iMacs with the CRT screen were cooled with a number of heat syncs and by convection; the heat simply rose out of the back of the case. You couldn't hear the hard drive unless you had really good ears and tried to listen, and the only time you could hear anything was when a CD spun up.

      So lets see... that would put this whole project, what, 4-5 years behind?

    • Heck... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Faust7 ( 314817 )
      Every Apple II was completely silent, with those wonderful milk-carton-sized switching power supplies.
    • Funny now that the recent G4s are SO LOUD that Apple is offering a power-supply trade-in deal for $20 to help the noise. I have a newer model that came *with* the new PS and it's still louder than earlier G4s or any PC I've ever had. Plus it rattles. We just bought twenty dual-1.25GHz G4s and about 1/4 of them rattle like mine.
    • And that is exactly why Apple should re-release the G4 cube. If they keep the specs where they were when they canceled it with the possible exception of adding Bluetooth and other more modern options, they would have a pretty good media hub that doesn't cost too much and runs with no fans.

      As long as they only use lower end G4s or the PPC 970 clocked pretty low, they should be able to get away with convection. As long as they don't use too many newer parts, the price should be low enough to rival iMac sales.

  • Speed Issue (Score:4, Informative)

    by IanBevan ( 213109 ) * on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @05:44AM (#5841614) Homepage
    The most significant issue with this board is that it is based on the slightly older V series boards, rather than the new M series. The V series suffer from not being able to display MPEG2 and process AC3 sound simultaneously - making it sub-optimal for movie playback.

    Another review can be found on the this [mini-itx.com] website (bear in mind that they sell the Hush though). A comparison of the M and V series boards, including comparative benchmarks for video playback, can be found here [tweaktown.com].

    Personally I intend to wait until Hush produce a new model based on the M series.

    • Re:Speed Issue (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mccalli ( 323026 )
      The most significant issue with this board is that it is based on the slightly older V series boards, rather than the new M series.

      Nope, this model is based on the M board, as can by seen from the Buy Now [hushtechnologies.net] link.

      Cheers,
      Ian

  • One of them is a full blood assembled-from-spare-parts steed hidden in the cupboard by the toilets that talks to me through an old X terminal (absolutely noiseless) and an old Tosh laptop that's noisy like a quiet 1997 laptop but that I can't hear above the ambient noise level in the bar I usually use it in.

    I'm constantly chasing noisy equipment in my surrounding, and have been doing so for years because I suffer from hyperacusis and chronic tinnitus. Those are my time-tested solutions to the problem of no

  • Slashdoted (Score:2, Funny)

    by outofpaper ( 189404 )
    &:12 Am less than a hundrud coments and the site is slashed. We shoud use a distributed file systum for the web somthinc like freenet but faster. Sinsce at the moment freenet makes it seam as though its 8 years ago and I have a 14.4
  • These things are a slot-loading DVD-RW and onboard video capture away from perfection (the latter I can see being allowed for with the PCI slot - but why, oh why did they go with those horrible laptop drives ?).

    An easy and neat way of adding an IR receiver to the front would be a nice touch, too.

  • If you eliminate the fans, or put utterly silent ones in, what the frell are us techies who depend on white noise as a relaxation aid supposed to do? How can you possibly expect us to fall asleep in our chairs without that nice, ongoing, semi-pneumatic 'whirroosshh!' to mask out the noise of the couple getting it on in the supply room next door?

    Criminys, some manufacturers just take all the fun out of tech-work... ;-)

  • dead hexus (Score:3, Funny)

    by Oakey ( 311319 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @06:55AM (#5841801)
    For those that like numbers, the Hexus server is a dual xeon with a few Gb RAM and SCSI disks. Or at least it was, you heartless people have killed it. Dave won't be happy.

  • I built a PC for my father. The requirement was: it has to be almost dead silent. Now, he's working on an Athlon XP 2000+ with a Radeon 8500 and you almost have to look for the power-LED to tell if the thing is running. Also, the "whole" thing (wasn't a whole PC, but almost) came at about EUR750-800; today I'd guess you could get the parts for at least EUR150 less.

    All stock compopnents, a VIA KT400 mainboard, the 2000+ CPU, 512MB of PC333 DDR-Memory and the Radeon 8500 wth the stock fan. The CPU is cooled

    • Re:My Silent PC (Score:4, Informative)

      by Makarakalax ( 658810 ) on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @08:47AM (#5842468) Homepage
      Radeon 8500 with the stock fan

      That's got to be the noisiest component left in it then surely? Unless it's not a 60mm..

      A couple of months ago I decided to silence my machine. I nipped to QuietPC.com [quietpc.com]and got a Zalman silent heatsink for my GPU, 2 quiet case fans and a SilentDrive(tm) to enclose (and silence) my hard-disk. I already had a quiet enough PSU and a Zalman Flower on my 1800+.

      The result is that I can sleep in the same room as the box (my goal), but it isn't silent. When I lay my head down to rest and the house is quiet the hum from the remaining fans is very audible. However if you come into my room in the day, you can't tell its on unless you stop still and actively listen for it.

      I've found that low frequency sounds are quite soporiferous. However the SilentDrive doesn't entirely mask the high pitched whine of my Maxtor 740DX (also the SilentDrive's build quality is absolute poo) and it is that sound that I hear quite clearly on those nights that I just can't quite get to sleep. Interestingly too, the resistor slowed Zalman casefans are far louder than the Enermax PSU fans. Does anyone know if I dare reduce the voltage on the case fans even more?

      I have a coolermaster case, so I figured the sound gets transfered easily through the entire metal body. I was right; I made myself some rubber washers and isolated all the fans from the case and the difference in noise was very noticeable. So I figure I shouldn't have fallen in love with the sexy metallic sheen of the Coolermaster and bought the budget Dabs.com like I had originally planned ;)

      All in all the Athlon idles at 38C and at 100% load it gets to about 51C, so I might deactivate the case fans and see how that goes.

      Basically I was disapointed with the QuietPC products, they work ok, but they rip you off - the case fans were standard Zalmans, but on their site no brand is mentioned and all the products listed are overpriced. Also the results were not as good as I hoped.

      But anyway back to the Radeon stock fan. Removing my NVidia 440MX stock fan was the most noticeable change I made! Zalman GPU passive coolers are pretty cheap. It may be worth checking them out if you want that little bit more silence for your dad's box.

  • A-Tech Heatsink Case (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Coppit ( 2441 )
    Since people seem interested in near-silent PCs for their home theater: The Heatsink Case [atechfabrication.com]. This sucker is so well designed that the internal temp goes up when you take off the lid. :) Unfortunately the guy has had trouble getting production ramped up enough to satisfy his many customers...
  • Most of the articles I've seen about these small form factor and/or silent PC's seem to focus on the noise factor for living room use, since the most obvious use of these boxes is as a mp3/DIVX media player.

    Well, I think that focus is misguided. I have a ShuttleSV24, the first tiny PC that Shuttle made. It's great, but the power supply fan is really annoyingly loud (recent Shuttle mini-PC's apparently have made great strides in this area).

    It doesn't matter though, because the system is asleep 99.99%

  • Caveat Emptor (Score:5, Informative)

    by Salamander ( 33735 ) <`jeff' `at' `pl.atyp.us'> on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @08:53AM (#5842510) Homepage Journal

    I just built a system very similar to these, and it's a blast, but there are some problems. One is that the Morex 55W power supply seems to have some issues, particularly at boot-up, that can result in a hung system. Another is heat. The EPIA boards don't generate a lot, but they do generate some, and other components (e.g. hard disk) do too. VIA does not recommend running the M-9000 fanless; that's precisely why I bought an ME-6000, and the case does have two (very quiet) case fans, and I've still had a couple of lockups that might be attributable to heat. Other users at VIA Arena [viaarena.com] using the same mobo/case combination have reported very similar problems. Overall, there seems to be a growing feeling among the community of people who've actually bought them that systems built around these components might not be silent and stable at the same time. Pick one. :-( Maybe the next generation will be capable of running silently without these stability problems, and it's fine for a hobby project, but I couldn't really recommend this type of system for regular use.

  • Had no hard disk. No cooling fan.

    I remember when a high school buddy said he got a new IBM to replace his old Amiga. He turned it on for me and said, "Hear that? That's power."
  • I have an older Epia Eden, and I bought this case [caseoutlet.com] from case outlet. It comes with a brick power supply, and it was under $300 for the case, mainboard, and internal DVD. I pulled the fan out of the case, and there's only a heatsink on the CPU. I used memory I had laying around.

    I picked up a 120G Seagate Barracuda IV for about $140. This drive is impressively quiet. I leave it running at night, and I can't hear it at all. I've had it running 24/7 for about eight months now.

    The box makes less noise than my

  • here [silentpcreview.com]
  • I saw these things at the last FOSE expo in DC and was impressed. You stick a card in a PCI slot and then use Cat-5 to connect that card with their silent box which holds a PCI video card, USB, PS2, and line/mic in/out. You can then stick the box something like 100 meters away from where you are actually using it. Probably not for gamers since no AGP video, but good enough for a living room computer terminal and noiseless.

    We are thinking of using em for some tight or dirty spots where it is inconvenie

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