Dell Zino HD (Mac Mini alternative)

IanM · **Posted:** Tue Nov 10, 2009 8:25 am

Now available
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/10/dell ... n-ireland/

Anyone know the idle power consumption for this system? Dell 'live chat' is unhelpful, they just quote the peak power load back at you i.e. 65W & 75W

And of course: is it actually quiet?

CA_Steve · **Posted:** Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:50 am

The product and store pages for the US are up and running. No idle power listed, but 65W load power with mobo gfx and 75W with the add-on HD4330....given the options for single/dual cores, wifi, blu-ray, tv tuner, and various HDDs, the baseline load power might be 50W-ish?

Could be a nice HTPC with MythTV.

Trav1s · **Posted:** Thu Nov 12, 2009 10:00 am

Looks promising. I wonder if it uses a 2.5" or 3.5" HD...

ilovejedd · **Posted:** Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:29 pm

Jay posted a pretty comprehensive review of the board.
http://links.amd.com/ZinoHD

Jay Taylor wrote:

Power Draw-
After bringing the unit back to work, I connected it up to a Kill-A-Watt meter to see how the power draw was going to be on this machine. Now, power draw did vary as expected based upon different use cases (DVD, streaming internet content, etc.). At idle (staring at the desktop), the system was using a mere 29W. When I streamed content from Hulu (via Hulu DT), the system was drawing about 40W while DVD playback was about 37W. With such low power operation, no high speed fans were necessary to keep this unit cool, bringing me to my next topic â€” noise levels.

Noise Level-
While I did not have a noise meter handy, it is worth noting that under all these circumstances, the box remained very quiet. Even in the quietest of rooms, the system is only barely perceptible. In most cases, I needed to put my ear within a few inches of the PC to hear it. I even left it on overnight in my bedroom and it was only noticeable if you were listening for it. Dell did an excellent job of keeping this PC almost silent.

As for hard drive, it uses 3.5". There's a pretty lively discussion on this little thing on the AVS Forums. It definitely seems more promising than any of the available ION nettops.

IanM · **Posted:** Fri Nov 13, 2009 4:59 am

ilovejedd wrote:

Jay posted a pretty comprehensive review of the board.
http://links.amd.com/ZinoHD

Thanks, that's ideal

It does look to be an excellent little unit, I am somewhat disappointed by the idle power - Mac Mini is only 14W (and double the price)

Quote:

I even left it on overnight in my bedroom and it was only noticeable if you were listening for it. Dell did an excellent job of keeping this PC almost silent.

Maybe a Noctua (or similar) fan would make it completely inaudible.

NeilBlanchard · **Posted:** Fri Nov 13, 2009 5:15 am

Hi Ian,

I would be very surprised if you can replace the cooling fan on this unit -- it probably is a "squirrel-cage" style blower?

IanM · **Posted:** Fri Nov 13, 2009 6:51 am

No doubt we'll see some teardowns and modders adapting these soon. It doesn't matter if it's not 100% silent, extremely quiet is probably good enough most of the time

JayT · **Posted:** Fri Nov 13, 2009 7:41 am

IanM wrote:

ilovejedd wrote:

Jay posted a pretty comprehensive review of the board.
http://links.amd.com/ZinoHD

Thanks, that's ideal

It does look to be an excellent little unit, I am somewhat disappointed by the idle power - Mac Mini is only 14W (and double the price)

Quote:

I even left it on overnight in my bedroom and it was only noticeable if you were listening for it. Dell did an excellent job of keeping this PC almost silent.

Maybe a Noctua (or similar) fan would make it completely inaudible.

Keep in mind, power numbers supplied were out of the box. I did not tweak any settings at all to try and get lower power.

CA_Steve · **Posted:** Fri Nov 13, 2009 9:03 am

Nice to see you cross-posting, Jay. I look forward to today's testing.

Also, more build options and price fun on the Dell site today - I built a 3250e system with the same options using 2 different starting points and got a $50 diff in price.

Add standby/sleep power to your growing list of requests

Hugh · **Posted:** Tue Nov 17, 2009 2:28 pm

This looks interesting to me. I'm thinking that it might make a good MythTV client.

My TV monitors are still analogue. Is there a way to convert the VGA signal to composite, component or SVGA simply? I've seen inexpensive cables that appear to do this but I suspect that they require extra non-standard signals.

The Canadian prices are quite a bit higher than the US prices.

capecodbackup · **Posted:** Sun Nov 22, 2009 10:15 pm

I am very interested in the acoustics of this machine. I would also consider putting a nice SSD in. I called Dell to see what size hard drive was in it. They said 2.5". But you know, sometimes they are wrong.

Hugh · **Posted:** Sun Nov 22, 2009 10:41 pm

capecodbackup wrote:

I called Dell to see what size hard drive was in it. They said 2.5". But you know, sometimes they are wrong.

The drive options go to 1T. Do 2.5" drives come in that capacity?
All the drive options are 7200 RPM. Many 2.5" drives are slower.

elorentz · **Joined:** Fri Apr 14, 2006 3:52 am **Posts:** 20

The fan on this unit is a standard fan, would guess 60 or 80mm, and the connector is 4 pins, don't know if it's a standard 4 pin connector or not.

EDIT.

On the other hand if you opt for the add-on gfx card, you will get a second fan wich is of the blower type, allso using a 4 pin connector.

CA_Steve · **Posted:** Mon Nov 23, 2009 7:32 am

Jay answers these q's in his blog (link posted above by ilovejedd).
- pretty darn quiet
- 3.5" drives

The AVS Forum discussion is very worthwhile following as well.

capecodbackup · **Posted:** Mon Nov 23, 2009 12:14 pm

Hugh wrote:

capecodbackup wrote:

I called Dell to see what size hard drive was in it. They said 2.5". But you know, sometimes they are wrong.

The drive options go to 1T. Do 2.5" drives come in that capacity?
All the drive options are 7200 RPM. Many 2.5" drives are slower.

these are why I called Dell. I figured maybe the 1TB could be 2 2.5's.

So who is absolutely correct. Dell or the other guy. Even with a 3.5, an adaptor could be used for a 2.5 SSD if wanted.

Even quiet 3.5's have been at least twice as loud as a 2.5 in my limited experience.

CA_Steve · **Posted:** Mon Nov 23, 2009 1:22 pm

You're call. Do you trust a guy that's done a device teardown, or a dude that answers a phone bank?

ilovejedd · **Posted:** Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:23 pm

capecodbackup wrote:

these are why I called Dell. I figured maybe the 1TB could be 2 2.5's.

So who is absolutely correct. Dell or the other guy. Even with a 3.5, an adaptor could be used for a 2.5 SSD if wanted.

Even quiet 3.5's have been at least twice as loud as a 2.5 in my limited experience.

Hmm, who would I trust? An IT professional who has a couple of these little puppies on-hand and has opened them up to check the innards or someone who answers phone calls based on canned responses (and if a canned response isn't available, makes one up)... It's a very big dilemma.

capecodbackup · **Posted:** Mon Nov 23, 2009 9:08 pm

OK, now I get it

I did not have my facts straight. Did not realize that someone had actually done a tear down. So, next quesion is......... Why put a 3.5 in a small silent computer? more heat,= more fan = more sound.

I had a feeling the Dell guy was an idiot when the answer to my HD size question was, "It goes to 7200RPM". Sheesh !

CA_Steve · **Posted:** Mon Nov 23, 2009 9:25 pm

There is the philosophy of "good enough".

Jay reports that the unit is darn quiet. So, the 3.5" drive is good enough, sound wise...and you can still cram more GB's for less bucks in a 3.5" drive. You could also pop in an 80GB Intel SSD as an aftermarket replacement. But then, the SSD costs as much as the entire box. <shrugs>

YMMV.

capecodbackup · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 6:06 pm

I was thinking of doing just that with the SSD. The Intel 80 G2 can be had for pretty reasonable.

Gonna read the tear down review now.

I think this would be a great computer to sell to clinets for their office whre they do surfing, Word,Excel, Outlook all day long. Takes up so much less space. I would like one for a second computer.

If they could get a nice Core I7 in there and still have it be quiet, it would be come my MAIN computer

Would need the 8GB of RAM, of course

CA_Steve · **Posted:** Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:25 am

Blog update- performance with the 4330 gfx card, Blu-Ray, etc.

Java Jack · **Posted:** Tue Dec 01, 2009 1:14 pm

By the way, I am not suggesting the unit is completely silent.

I just found it to be very quiet compared to other systems I have seen.

The heatsink is actally a passive heat pipe type design. However, sitting next to that is a fan that is blowing air out the back.

Here at the office (quiet, but still an office setting), I generally have to get within about 3" to hear the fans.

At home, if you listen for it, you can hear it. But if you are playing back content, the content easily overcomes any noise you might hear from the fan. Likewise, if you are just going about your business in a quiet room, you likely won't notice it.

I found that I had to actually listen for it before I noticed it. I even left it on overnight in my bedroom and it did not bother either my wife or I.

It is a pretty queit machine.

CA_Steve · **Posted:** Tue Dec 01, 2009 5:14 pm

I'd envision it sitting next to a large TV that's a good 6-8' away from me, hooked up to a sound system. The only time I'd think I'd have a chance to hear it would be during DVD/BD insertion/extraction. Plus, I can't imagine it makes much/any sound when in sleep/hibernate mode.

Java Jack · **Posted:** Thu Dec 03, 2009 4:34 pm

It is quiet...I just did not want anyone to think it is absolutely silent because it is not.

I am tempted to find a slot loading DVD player for the unit I ordered because I am not a fan of the laptop tray drive used, but I understand that this was a cost driven decision for Dell.

Koolpc · **Posted:** Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:28 am

Anywhere that you can get to see internal pics of the Dell?

capecodbackup · **Posted:** Fri Dec 11, 2009 7:47 pm

CA_Steve wrote:

There is the philosophy of "good enough".

Jay reports that the unit is darn quiet. So, the 3.5" drive is good enough, sound wise...and you can still cram more GB's for less bucks in a 3.5" drive. You could also pop in an 80GB Intel SSD as an aftermarket replacement. But then, the SSD costs as much as the entire box. <shrugs>

YMMV.

However, one must take into account that "good enough" is not really what SPCR is all about

CA_Steve · **Posted:** Fri Dec 11, 2009 8:52 pm

capecodbackup wrote:

However, one must take into account that "good enough" is not really what SPCR is all about

I guess that's the difference between me and others. Hence the YMMV end comment. If I can't hear it over the next louder source (ie: the 5.1 channel sound system), then it's good enough for me.

Koolpc - There are tear downs posted in amongst the freakishly long AVS forum thread. Somewhere around page 50+.

Koolpc · **Posted:** Sat Dec 12, 2009 12:15 pm

CA_Steve wrote:

capecodbackup wrote:

Koolpc - There are tear downs posted in amongst the freakishly long AVS forum thread. Somewhere around page 50+.

Link please? Thanks

ilovejedd · **Posted:** Sat Dec 12, 2009 2:12 pm

Koolpc wrote:

Link please? Thanks

Fourth post:

ilovejedd wrote:

There's a pretty lively discussion on this little thing on the AVS Forums.

Koolpc · **Posted:** Sat Dec 12, 2009 2:21 pm

Found it. Cheers

Dell Zino HD (Mac Mini alternative)

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