Search found 20 matches

by mikewu
Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:27 pm
Forum: Green Computing
Topic: Intel Pentium G4400 & Intel H110 Power Consumption: 15 watt?
Replies: 5
Views: 23493

Re: Intel Pentium G4400 & Intel H110 Power Consumption: 15 w

Just put together a H81 system and it idles at 16W (Kill-a-watt) connected to a gigabit network a 25" 1080P monitor with Win 10 Pro. I have about half a dozen systems built up over the last few years just trying to get a nice silent, low power system usually trading off performance to get the power ...
by mikewu
Sat Jun 23, 2012 7:45 pm
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Intel DH77DF, finally a silent system
Replies: 6
Views: 8537

Intel DH77DF, finally a silent system

I finally built a truly silent system without going through a lot of trouble or using really special components. Even with really good/expensive silent components I've had issues with electronic noise (my DH61AG motherboard squeals some when doing I/O, my Seasonic X power supply emits a high tone wh...
by mikewu
Wed May 16, 2012 5:04 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Western Digital WD5000LPVT Hard Drive is Super Quiet
Replies: 8
Views: 15774

Re: Western Digital WD5000LPVT Hard Drive is Super Quiet

After a little more than a week of use the WD5000LPVT (190 hours) the drive's SMART counts read 117 starts/stops and 382 load/unload cycles. Both perfectly reasonable.
by mikewu
Tue May 15, 2012 7:08 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Western Digital WD5000LPVT Hard Drive is Super Quiet
Replies: 8
Views: 15774

Re: Western Digital WD5000LPVT Hard Drive is Super Quiet

I can't compare directly with the WD10JPVT or WD5000BPVT, but compared with the WD7500BPVT I have the WD5000LPVT is definitely quieter at idle. There is a definite difference in vibration as well, the LPVT doesn't have any noticeable vibration while you can easily feel the BPVT with your finger. In ...
by mikewu
Wed May 09, 2012 5:11 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Western Digital WD5000LPVT Hard Drive is Super Quiet
Replies: 8
Views: 15774

Re: Western Digital WD5000LPVT Hard Drive is Super Quiet

After a day of solid use I'm even more impressed with this drive. The sound that was bothering me must not have been head parking (maybe some sort of calibration). It went away after the first few hours. The WD5000LPVT is a perfect complement to my SSD... whatever Western Digital did with this drive...
by mikewu
Mon May 07, 2012 9:10 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Western Digital WD5000LPVT Hard Drive is Super Quiet
Replies: 8
Views: 15774

Re: Western Digital WD5000LPVT Hard Drive is Super Quiet

I agree about the Western Digital Green drives. Over time I've built my larger desktop stations using Lian-Li mid-tower cases that have internal rubber grommet mounts populated with either Western Digital Green or Samsung F4EG 5400 RPM drives that I also can't hear. Those systems sit under desks on ...
by mikewu
Mon May 07, 2012 6:32 pm
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Western Digital WD5000LPVT Hard Drive is Super Quiet
Replies: 8
Views: 15774

Western Digital WD5000LPVT Hard Drive is Super Quiet

Just got a Western Digital WD5000LPVT, it is a 500GB single platter 2.5" mobile drive for ultrabooks. I first heard about it about a month ago when Western Digital put out a press release talking about its size (7mm tall) and the fact that it uses mounting holes in the same place as normal laptop ha...
by mikewu
Sun Jul 24, 2011 6:39 pm
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo
Replies: 41
Views: 46882

Re: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo

Just a couple of quick tests. Each of the power bricks is roughly the same. If I was going to purchase another one, I'd get this one:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ZLTHZK
by mikewu
Fri Jul 22, 2011 10:11 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo
Replies: 41
Views: 46882

Re: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo

Nope, this is the only desktop system I've had with a DC input. I have about 25 PCs for business/engineering use (taking care of them is my personal hell). All of the desktops were built from scratch. Most of them actually sound ok with headphones and moderate volume, the larger drivers tend to damp...
by mikewu
Fri Jul 22, 2011 8:12 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo
Replies: 41
Views: 46882

Re: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo

I posted previously about my 90W power brick coming from here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003AOTEJ6 I previously had another power brick that looked essentially identical: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ZLTHZK I hadn't really noticed before, but I think that the second one (B003ZLTHZK) ...
by mikewu
Fri Jul 22, 2011 8:01 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo
Replies: 41
Views: 46882

Re: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo

The audio coming out of my DH61AG (rear headphone jack) is shockingly clean. I normally play music through portable MP3 players instead of through my PC because of coupled noise during PC activity or background noise. But the DH61AG is super-clean even with a pair of earbuds, volume control turned u...
by mikewu
Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:39 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo
Replies: 41
Views: 46882

Re: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo

Just one more thing... the G620 CPU I'm using with the DH61AG idles at 1.6GHz / 0.96V and ramps to 2.6GHz / 1.12V at full load. The Dell Inspiron 17R was using as a reference (Core i5 2410M, a mobile processor) idles at 800MHz / 0.796V and ramps to 2.9GHz at full load. Anyone know what frequency/vol...
by mikewu
Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:30 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo
Replies: 41
Views: 46882

Re: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo

I did some further testing and I'm pretty sure that it isn't throttling in the fanless 1 CPU test case (its performance does seem constant) but after playing with it for a couple of hours I don't think that trying to run it fanless is a good idea. Even in my open air benchtop environment there is ju...
by mikewu
Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:22 am
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: What is the quietest 120mm fan?
Replies: 23
Views: 15367

Re: What is the quietest 120mm fan?

Forget my previous comment about SilenX fans, my memory must be fading. I just checked a system I thought was using SilenX fans and it is actually running 80mm Scythe S-Flex fans that are very quiet (SFF21D) but don't seem to be available any more. I remember now, I bought 60mm SilenX fans that fit ...
by mikewu
Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:13 am
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: What is the quietest 120mm fan?
Replies: 23
Views: 15367

Re: What is the quietest 120mm fan?

I've been through all kinds of fans trying to get silence (first) and reasonable air flow (second) and my favorite by far is the Arctic Cooling F12 running at 5V. It starts up in the mid 3V range so running it at 5V isn't a problem. It is a cheap FDB fan (under <$10) and the current version (the F12...
by mikewu
Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:39 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo
Replies: 41
Views: 46882

Re: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo

It didn't look like it was throttling with one core, CPUID showed 2.6GHz the whole time. But if it wasn't, it was probably close to the edge. It actually took a while (> 10 minutes) to get to max temp, it just ticked up slowly. It was just an experiment, I typically don't run fanless. Arctic Cooling...
by mikewu
Sat Jul 16, 2011 6:49 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: SSD squeaking / buzzing?
Replies: 5
Views: 7874

Re: SSD squeaking / buzzing?

I hear the same thing, but I'm pretty sure that it is coming from the power components on the motherboard and not my SSD or power supply. For me it is both during network and disk activity. I think it comes from the fact that when you're doing I/O you're getting really short bursts of large activity...
by mikewu
Sat Jul 16, 2011 5:28 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo
Replies: 41
Views: 46882

Re: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo

After installing Windows 7 (64-bit, Home Premium) instead of Ubuntu 10.04, idle power dropped to 14W. 2 cores loaded with the PovRay benchmark max power is 39W. With one core disabled in the Intel BIOS, max power is 27W with the PovRay benchmark. System Configuration ------------------------ Intel D...
by mikewu
Wed Jul 13, 2011 9:03 am
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo
Replies: 41
Views: 46882

Re: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo

I agree, I think that a combination of any of the reasonably power efficient H61/H67 "normal" MicroATX motherboards with integrated graphics, a reasonably efficient PSU and a SSD gets me into the 22-25W range at the wall easy. But my desktop Core i7 860 with a 3.5" WD10EADS hard drive and Nvidia G21...
by mikewu
Tue Jul 12, 2011 9:00 pm
Forum: CPUs and Motherboards
Topic: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo
Replies: 41
Views: 46882

Re: Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX mobo

My DH61AG came this afternoon. I've been waiting for something like this ever since SPCR's Intel D945GSEJT review a couple of years ago. The goal of having an extremely low power desktop that is also very fast (I run a lot of compilers/development tools) is an obsession for me. I'm not going to get ...