SPCR

with the upcoming PlayTV coming to the PS3 - i was thinking of getting one instead of an HTPC...

anyone have any comments on the noise front (idle / when playing music / movies - not bothered about any gaming noise)

It has one small laptop type fan in it.

It's fairly noisy, but the theory I guess is that it gets swamped by your TV's volume. A typical TV program will be on the order of 50db+.

you cant really hear it when using for movies, music etc, its only gaming when it gets hot and the fan starts.

if its in an open well ventilated place then you should have a problem, mine is in a low unit, with about 5 inches gap on the extractor side, iv moved it all the way over to give myself the biggest gap possible, but mine has only recently started making a bit of noise,

i had a spare pc fan lying around, so i striped the wiring and connected to a spare usb cable, plug that in to ps3, now i use that to extract the hot air from around the ps3.

i found this information

28,7dB — Blu-Ray-movie
35,8dB — DVD-movie
35,8dB — Playing games
23,5dB — Doing nothing

so can be loud
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2007/1 ... y-make.htm

My opinion is that the PS3 is just plain loud, under any circumstances. I'd never use it instead of an HTPC (customized by myself for silence, of course).

i dont know maybe different units have a slight difference in sound.
as for that link, apparently the xbox is quieter when playing a dvd than when it is doing nothing.

i recently completed my silent build, replacing my old psu and new case.
my ps3 is now louder than my pc when they are both on. i think my pc is around 22dB or less. so based on those figures above its probably about right.

Its extremely silent. Not sure how anyone can call it loud.

When I'm not doing anything it hard to hear it unless of course you like to lay on your system.

Movie playback hardly ramps the fan up, and only games like GTA 4 and CoD4 etc can get it louder.

The 40GB is the most silent as it uses a 65NM cell processor versus the old 90nm. It does have cheaper heat sinks though, so its not a whole ton quieter.

I bought the 40GB version a couple of months ago.

The PS3 does make some noise, my specimen has an even and distributed noise though so for my part the subjective noise isn´t that bad.
It´s loud but not bad.

Decided to stick it inside my sideboard though.
I have my amp and my ps3 in the same cabinet with a couple of 12cm slipstream fans in the bottom pushing air into the cabinet from the bottom and ventilation outputs in the back.

It gets fairly warm so I wouldn´t stick it in a cabinet without ventilation.

The ps3 is not what you would call silent. it still has a small notebook fan...
but properly placed you wouldn´t even know it was there.

EDIT: I have a 10 month year old daughter that likes technical and expensive stuff so I NEED to put everything in a cabinet.
Otherwise I don´t think I would have bothered.

The fan actually isn't all too bad .

You can see most of the cooling for the PS3 in this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdB2qQPv7LI

The fan is HUGE! 130mm actually.

Edit: I found this a bit interesting. The PS3 is getting yet another heatsink change.

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NE ... 24/150927/

First generation was 700G PS3 using about 200 watts total.
Second gen was a 500G PS3 using 160 watts total.
Third gen will be 350G, 130 watts total.

Impressive!

The other day I read a anecdote somewhere on the net of someone who upgraded the hard drive in the PS3 for a model that produced less heat, which made a reasonable difference to the overall noise of the PS3. Anyone tried this or experimented along these lines? Any suggestions for a really cool running drive?

Any higher capacity 2.5" drive would probably fit your needs. I've heard that the Western Digital Scorpio line of drives are very quiet and very cool. Check SPCR's hard drive charts.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article29-page2.html

EDIT: Also, the Hitachi Travelstar drives are probably the lowest power consumers on the market right now. Low power = low temperature.