On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 19:00:38 -0000
"Stimpy" wrote:


Because I don't want a huge, ugly, noisy PC cluttering up my music room;
this way I have a silent PC hidden in a small cupboard and dedicated to
playing music, with just the flat screen and keyboard visible. The server
lives elsewhere together with it's backup device etc

you can buy truely silent PCs nowadays and it'll use less electricity that way too.


--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with ketchup.

more from the 'Ian Molton school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

you can buy truely silent PCs nowadays and it'll use less electricity
that way too.

Truly silent? Most 'quiet' home computers are still pretty loud! After a
lot of work I've got my main pc quiet enough now, quite a bit quieter than
most spinning CDPs but far from silent. It's still audible at night from a
meter away.

One of the computers I use most often is a Sun Ray - basically just a thin
X client to a Sun Unix server. Now that IS silent - no fans at all! If I
was going to build a 'HTPC' it'd be a ray!

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

more from the 'Ian Molton school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

you can buy truely silent PCs nowadays and it'll use less electricity
that way too.

Truly silent? Most 'quiet' home computers are still pretty loud! After a
lot of work I've got my main pc quiet enough now, quite a bit quieter than
most spinning CDPs but far from silent. It's still audible at night from a
meter away.

One of the computers I use most often is a Sun Ray - basically just a thin
X client to a Sun Unix server. Now that IS silent - no fans at all! If I
was going to build a 'HTPC' it'd be a ray!

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 01:01:56 +0000 (UTC)
Jim H wrote:

you can buy truely silent PCs nowadays and it'll use less electricity
that way too.

Truly silent? Most 'quiet' home computers are still pretty loud! After a
lot of work I've got my main pc quiet enough now, quite a bit quieter than
most spinning CDPs but far from silent. It's still audible at night from a
meter away.

I said 'can buy', not 'most'

and that doesnt mean expensive.

look at the Via M series - my webserver here (see sig) is on a Via M6000.

it is a *SILENT* machine. it has:

256MB RAM
4GB HDD
64MB USB flash disk.

the harddisk is spun down most of the time. it has *ZERO* other moving parts except for a DVD drive (for when I get round to making it play DVDs as it lives under the telly). Its PSU is an external 'brick' with no fans, feeding a voltage converter inside the machine on a small PCB, which feeds an ATX connector for the mobo.

It runs linux, so once its cached any files it needs, they sit in RAM and the HDD can go to sleep. the USB disk is for any data that needs to be written, as the HDD is mounted read-only (except when updating the websites it hosts).

It also runs a Quake3 server.

I'd challenge you to beat its noise output with ANYTHING else :-)

My main PC is a shuttle XPC which *never* steps its fan above the slowest seting and is about as close to inaudible as a PC with a fan and HDD can be (seagate barracuda harddisk is actually quieter than the very quiet fan, and blindingly fast).

Te Via M6000 is capable of playing DVDs with its video systems onboard DCT acceleration. it does this pretty well. mp3s are easy, it can decode about 10 simultaneously no problem ;-)

--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with ketchup.

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 01:01:56 +0000 (UTC)
Jim H wrote:

you can buy truely silent PCs nowadays and it'll use less electricity
that way too.

Truly silent? Most 'quiet' home computers are still pretty loud! After a
lot of work I've got my main pc quiet enough now, quite a bit quieter than
most spinning CDPs but far from silent. It's still audible at night from a
meter away.

I said 'can buy', not 'most'

and that doesnt mean expensive.

look at the Via M series - my webserver here (see sig) is on a Via M6000.

it is a *SILENT* machine. it has:

256MB RAM
4GB HDD
64MB USB flash disk.

the harddisk is spun down most of the time. it has *ZERO* other moving parts except for a DVD drive (for when I get round to making it play DVDs as it lives under the telly). Its PSU is an external 'brick' with no fans, feeding a voltage converter inside the machine on a small PCB, which feeds an ATX connector for the mobo.

It runs linux, so once its cached any files it needs, they sit in RAM and the HDD can go to sleep. the USB disk is for any data that needs to be written, as the HDD is mounted read-only (except when updating the websites it hosts).

It also runs a Quake3 server.

I'd challenge you to beat its noise output with ANYTHING else :-)

My main PC is a shuttle XPC which *never* steps its fan above the slowest seting and is about as close to inaudible as a PC with a fan and HDD can be (seagate barracuda harddisk is actually quieter than the very quiet fan, and blindingly fast).

Te Via M6000 is capable of playing DVDs with its video systems onboard DCT acceleration. it does this pretty well. mp3s are easy, it can decode about 10 simultaneously no problem ;-)

--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with ketchup.

It also runs a Quake3 server.

I'd challenge you to beat its noise output with ANYTHING else :-)

Like I said, the rays are just as quiet but without the HDD.
From the user's point of view they're a desktop pc.

My main PC is a shuttle XPC which *never* steps its fan above the
slowest seting and is about as close to inaudible as a PC with a fan
and HDD can be (seagate barracuda harddisk is actually quieter than
the very quiet fan, and blindingly fast).

I'd agree with this. I still run a 60gig Baracuda V (suposedly the quietest
of the lot).

Te Via M6000 is capable of playing DVDs with its video systems onboard
DCT acceleration. it does this pretty well. mp3s are easy, it can
decode about 10 simultaneously no problem ;-)

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

It also runs a Quake3 server.

I'd challenge you to beat its noise output with ANYTHING else :-)

Like I said, the rays are just as quiet but without the HDD.
From the user's point of view they're a desktop pc.

My main PC is a shuttle XPC which *never* steps its fan above the
slowest seting and is about as close to inaudible as a PC with a fan
and HDD can be (seagate barracuda harddisk is actually quieter than
the very quiet fan, and blindingly fast).

I'd agree with this. I still run a 60gig Baracuda V (suposedly the quietest
of the lot).

Te Via M6000 is capable of playing DVDs with its video systems onboard
DCT acceleration. it does this pretty well. mp3s are easy, it can
decode about 10 simultaneously no problem ;-)

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 13:17:51 +0000 (UTC)
Jim H wrote:


I'd challenge you to beat its noise output with ANYTHING else :-)

Like I said, the rays are just as quiet but without the HDD.
From the user's point of view they're a desktop pc.

:-)

The disk is spun down though so it is silent

--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with ketchup.

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 13:17:51 +0000 (UTC)
Jim H wrote:


I'd challenge you to beat its noise output with ANYTHING else :-)

Like I said, the rays are just as quiet but without the HDD.
From the user's point of view they're a desktop pc.

:-)

The disk is spun down though so it is silent

--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with ketchup.

Ian Molton wrote:
On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 19:00:38 -0000
"Stimpy" wrote:


Because I don't want a huge, ugly, noisy PC cluttering up my music
room;
this way I have a silent PC hidden in a small cupboard and dedicated
to
playing music, with just the flat screen and keyboard visible. The
server
lives elsewhere together with it's backup device etc

you can buy truely silent PCs nowadays and it'll use less electricity
that way too.

I know... I have one in the cupboard as described above :-) I have *a lot*
of mp3's and am currently running a 1tb disk array on the server to
accomodate them. The 'Hush' PC I'm using as a client won't support that
much disk space and backup devices etc