Fanless solution..?

natty · Post by **natty** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 11:53 am

Hi there,

It's been a long time since I built a pc, but I am wanting to put one together for my living room.
It doesn't want to be anything spectacular, but will need to be able to play music, download things (Ninan), run GBPVR - so it will need to be able to take a DVB tv card. I'd like to stick as much storage in there as possible, but wouldnt be unhappy to stick little 2.5" drives in there (they are quieter..right?) I'm not really going to be playing any games, but would like a HDMI out to plug straight into the telly, possibly making the graphics card a harder choice(?).
Would most likely be running XP (not Mediathingy), but possibly I might stick Linux on there.
Ideally, I'd like to have one of those slimline DVD player size cases, but wouldn't mind a more amplifier type size (not keen on the square ones however) if its impossible to achieve what I'm after with a skinny one.

I understand that Intel CPUs are much cooler than the AMDs, and also that I would most likely need a MicroATX board for the ideal type of case.

But most of all, I'd like it to be as low power as possible, and wondered whether a fanless solution would be viable? I'm not too keen on the whole water cooling thing, but not really sure how much of a CPU I can get without having to cool it with a fan, with it still having enough grunt to do the above...

If anyone can recommend me any components, main boards or cases it would be very much appreciated, and maybe just explain if this is possible at all. and of course whether a fanless solution is even worth trying for, as you can get silent fanny (:) ?) solution instead.

many thanks

Nat

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:07 pm

Fanless is not worth the trouble, if your criterion is silence. If you are doing it for the extreme challenge, fine, but if you just want silence all you need is low speed fans.

It is true that the newer 45nm Intel processors (E5x00, E7x00, E8x00) run very cool and are much more powerful per Watt than AMD solutions. On the other hand, the ratio of processing power to price is about even and for the jobs you've described you don't need much processing power. AMD ÂµATX motherboards are also better featured and lower priced. That's why I'd recommend a board based on the AMD 780G or Nvidia 8200 chipset coupled with an X2 4850e processor. These motherboards have integrated graphics that provide HDMI out, so you don't need to worry about a video card if you're not interested in gaming.

As for a case, go with the Antec NSK2480 or Fusion. It is the size of an amplifier rather than a DVD player, but the added size means 120mm fans (good for silence) and plenty of room for add-on cards and normal sized drives. This is the easiest case to make silent without having to make extreme sacrifices on component selection.

For storage, the established choice is Western Digital's Green Power drives. A new contender is Samsung's 5400RPM 3.5" drives, but I don't know how good their availability or reliability is.

wim · Post by **wim** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 4:54 pm

as long as you are using hard drive based storage, there is no point to aim for fanless - a single 2.5" hard drive will be louder than a good quality fan eg nexus 120mm at 5V (~550rpm). the fan will provide significantly better airflow than natural convection alone

natty · Post by **natty** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 5:48 am

hi

thanks very much for your replies, very interesting
I have had a look at the antec cases, am liking the fusion (with the remote) although not quite sure how useful that would be, and there seems to be a antec fusion (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148791) which is slightly different to the other ones i have found. do these cases require me to get extra fans, and a separate (better) power supply, or will I be fine with the ones that come with?

with the HDMI out on the board, i presume that doesn't necessarily mean it will kick out 1080p at all?
but would be nice if the main board was able to take a nice graphics card if I decided it needed it...

just trying to work out everything I need so I can maybe get it all from one place (saving on postage and all that)

also the tellly watching with GBPVR, records as Mpeg to the HDD and then pushes it out, do any of these mainboards come with MPEG-2 hardware decoders, to take a bit of pressure off the CPU? dont think that gigabite board does... would be willing to cough up the extra cash for an intel setup if that is the only way to get that mpeg 2 stuff

. Antec Fusion Remote Veris Silver MATX Media Center Case (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148790)
. AMD 780G mainboard (Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G ?)
. X2 4850e CPU (AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850e 2.5GHz Socket AM2 Energy Efficient 1MB L2 Cache Retail ?? http://www.ebuyer.com/product/144638)
. couple of meaty WD HDDs (or just this monster... Western Digital 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 16MB Cache Caviar Green Power - OEM http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135132)
. some RAM - any suggestions ? (im guessing 2 GB minimum would be advisable)
. a better TV card than my current hauppauge Dual DVB one (NOVA-T i think)

anything I'm missing...?
maybe some heat grease - cant remember quite what that is called

if anyone can tell me if any of these choices are any good, that would be most helpful

thanks

nat

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 1:19 pm

Unlike the NSK2480, the Fusions don't come with a PSU. What to get is a matter of some debate. Personally, I'd be looking for something in the 250-300W range that is 80+ efficiency rated -- something like this.

The 780G can do 1080P just fine, paired with just about any dual-core AMD CPU. It has acceleration for MPEG2, H264, and VC-1. The same can be said for Nvidia 8200 boards and they have better audio over HDMI support. I think there is still a bit better selection of 780G and their drivers are a bit more mature. If you are only using a TV's built in speakers, the 780G audio is fine.

You may want to think about getting a CPU HSF, rather than going with the one that comes with your CPU. I don't have experience with AMD's retail HSF so I can't make a good recommendation on whether you will be satisfied with it. The Mini Ninja is a popular choice with the Fusion/NSK2480 cases. The heatsink will come with the thermal grease you need for installation.

The Fusion comes with all the fans you need, but many decide they are just not quiet enough. I'd recommend trying things out for yourself and then deciding, as changing out case fans is easily done even after everything is assembled. That is not the case for CPU HSF, so you might want more advice there before making a decision or just spend the extra money on a known quantity like the Mini Ninja.

PartEleven · Post by **PartEleven** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 3:58 pm

A bit of clarification there, Fusions come with a 430-watt PSU. I don't think it's 80-plus certified though.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 11:01 pm

PartEleven wrote:A bit of clarification there, Fusions come with a 430-watt PSU. I don't think it's 80-plus certified though.

No. There are two different models: Fusion Remote and Fusion 430. The Fusion 430 comes with the 430W PSU (and from the look of Antec's site this model may be discontinued). The Fusion Remote does not come with a PSU. If you look at the OP's links to ebuyer, they are for the Fusion Remote (no PSU).

dfferent · Post by **dfferent** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:53 am

+1 for the GA-MA78GM-S2H
after many hours and days of research i settled on the full size version of this board, haven't plugged it in yet but pleased with the look and list of features, most notable HDMI 1.3

bozar · Post by **bozar** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:19 am

If you decide you want to play older games sometimes, 780G is superior to all chispet intel ever made, I play Warcraft III at 1600 and maxed details on a 780G and a Phenom 9550.

dukla2000 · Post by **dukla2000** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 10:59 am

natty wrote:also the tellly watching with GBPVR, records as Mpeg to the HDD and then pushes it out, do any of these mainboards come with MPEG-2 hardware decoders, to take a bit of pressure off the CPU?

The 780G has some pretty nifty video capability (see AnandTech preview).

If you look at my sig my prejudice is clearly 780G/ 4850e etc.

jessekopelman wrote:I don't have experience with AMD's retail HSF

Mine was nasty - a fairly noisy 7cm fan. My stock Xigmatek fan @ 320rpm keeps my 4850e 6C cooler than the retail HSF at full speed.

pps - I got my mobo/CPU/memory/Xigmatek from Scan on a "today-only" deal - the mobo was a whole heap cheaper than any 780G from eBuyer but that is meaningless if you can't find a case you like @ Scan.

klegg · Post by **klegg** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:20 pm

jessekopelman wrote:Fanless is not worth the trouble, if your criterion is silence. If you are doing it for the extreme challenge, fine, but if you just want silence all you need is low speed fans.

This seems to be the common wisdom, but has it been tested? I would think the noise would "add up"? Maybe it is true if you have one silent fan, but is it still true if there are five silent fans in the system?

Besides, there are other advantages in going fanless. If you want a small system, you need small fans, and they tend to be more noisy...

We have built a fanless based on a micro-atx (gigabyte ga-ma69gm-s2h) and a low power athlon (45 W), 2.5 disk and a slimline (vertically mounted) dvd. Width and height of this system is little more than mainboard (25 by 25 cm) and depth of it is about 11 cm. there is also a tv-card squeezed in.

Stress test indicates a cpu-temp of about 50 C.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 12:20 am

klegg wrote:
jessekopelman wrote:Fanless is not worth the trouble, if your criterion is silence. If you are doing it for the extreme challenge, fine, but if you just want silence all you need is low speed fans.
This seems to be the common wisdom, but has it been tested? I would think the noise would "add up"? Maybe it is true if you have one silent fan, but is it still true if there are five silent fans in the system?

Why would you need 5 fans? Anyway, you need to remember the logarithmic quality of additive noise. 5X fans make 7dB more noise power than a single fan at a given speed. Meanwhile, because it takes 10dB to achieve a doubling of apparent volume, a 7dB increase translates to about 63% louder. So, 5X fans could mean 63% louder, but because having 5 fans would give you a very high level of control over airflow, they could each be running at a very low speed. In reality, the actual noise would be even less because not every fan would be directly in line with the observer. In the end the total noise of the 5 fan system could be very close or even lower to the 1 fan system and it could certainly be silent.

klegg wrote:We have built a fanless based on a micro-atx (gigabyte ga-ma69gm-s2h) and a low power athlon (45 W), 2.5 disk and a slimline (vertically mounted) dvd. Width and height of this system is little more than mainboard (25 by 25 cm) and depth of it is about 11 cm. there is also a tv-card squeezed in.

There is no fan at all anywhere in that system? If so, very impressive, but I would say you must have especially good ambient conditions where that box is located. Some people struggle keeping setups like that operational even with fans . . . Anyway, nobody said it couldn't be done, just that it is a challenge. A challenge not worth it if all you are after is silence and you have room for a setup that can accommodate fans. I'd also point out that there are cases of similar dimensions to what you listed that would accommodate the same internals and have at least one 80mm fan (which can be silent).

klegg · Post by **klegg** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 12:48 am

jessekopelman wrote:A challenge not worth it if all you are after is silence and you have room for a setup that can accommodate fans.

What do you mean by this? If the system works equally well as one with fans and if it is not more expensive then why shouldn't it be "worth it"?

Should mention that we use internal graphics, no room for dedicated card.

wim · Post by **wim** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:32 am

klegg wrote:
jessekopelman wrote:A challenge not worth it if all you are after is silence and you have room for a setup that can accommodate fans.
What do you mean by this? If the system works equally well as one with fans and if it is not more expensive then why shouldn't it be "worth it"?

i would say it is not possible to have this system working equally well as without fans. you have less airflow to use and so will have higher temperatures, at least one thing to consider is that you will decrease the lifetime of components and for no measurable or detectable improvement in noise level

klegg · Post by **klegg** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:40 am

wim wrote: at least one thing to consider is that you will decrease the lifetime of components and for no measurable or detectable improvement in noise level

Would 50 C (full load, around 20 in the room) at the CPU decrease the life time of it?

Should also have mentioned that we (of course?) use "home made" case, with cooling integrated in the structure. And pico-psu, i.e., external "power brick".

And is it really true that one fan, even if it is quiet, will go undetected if there is a HD to hide it?

protellect · Post by **protellect** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 6:45 am

klegg wrote:
wim wrote: at least one thing to consider is that you will decrease the lifetime of components and for no measurable or detectable improvement in noise level
Would 50 C (full load, around 20 in the room) at the CPU decrease the life time of it?

No. CPU life is generally pretty long [10+ years] assuming you're not over-volting it. CPU's are rated to run 100% at there max temperatures for long periods of time [years].

klegg wrote:And is it really true that one fan, even if it is quiet, will go undetected if there is a HD to hide it?

The nexus fans undervolted are very, very quiet. You will hear disk noise over it.

leospagnol · Post by **leospagnol** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 7:32 am

I agree with jessekopelman on almost everything, you can't go wrong with these components:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811129034
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128090
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103255
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136298
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231122
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835185046

That's a sub-$500,00 htpc (except for the dvd drive). If you want a dedicated gpu, take a look at 4550 (passive, http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3420) for hi-def or 4670, for some gamming.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 12:30 pm

klegg wrote:
jessekopelman wrote:A challenge not worth it if all you are after is silence and you have room for a setup that can accommodate fans.
What do you mean by this? If the system works equally well as one with fans and if it is not more expensive then why shouldn't it be "worth it"?

Should mention that we use internal graphics, no room for dedicated card.

What I mean is that unless you are a very skilled system builder, or have the perfect environment to place a fanless box, or can get by with very low heat components (lower than the build you listed, it is very hard to build a fanless system. Clearly you either are a very skilled system builder, have great ambient conditions, or both. I don't think it is safe to assume such things of people asking very general questions on these forums. That is why I say it is not worth the trouble just for silence -- if you enjoy that kind of trouble (and some do), that is another story.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 12:46 pm

klegg wrote: Should also have mentioned that we (of course?) use "home made" case, with cooling integrated in the structure. And pico-psu, i.e., external "power brick".

Yes, this was pretty obvious from your case dimensions. What you need to understand is that building a custom case is exactly the kind of "trouble" I'm talking about. The vast majority of people do not want to go this route. Custom computer case building is dwarfed by custom speaker building and most people have never even heard of that hobby.

klegg wrote:And is it really true that one fan, even if it is quiet, will go undetected if there is a HD to hide it?

Yes, this is very well documented. It may be difficult to beat a very good 5400RPM 2.5" drive. However, one inaudible drive + one inaudible fan is very likely to still be inaudible. For example, the worst case of a 16dB HDD + a 16dB fan is 19dB (23% greater apparent loudness), but the reality will be far less as the primary noise of a 5400RPM drive is 90Hz while the fan is going to be around 10-15Hz (600-900RPM) and your ear is much better at hearing 90Hz than 10Hz.

klegg · Post by **klegg** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 7:18 pm

jessekopelman wrote:Clearly you either are a very skilled system builder, have great ambient conditions, or both.

Neither I would say. But I believe the design principles we are following are good (new?). Have also built a small cluster along the same lines (at the moment just four CPUs). Also fanless.

Maybe fanless will become more popular when solid state disks become common? The absolute sound level will decrease, but when HD is gone the fans will be generating most noise in the system... But somehow I get the feeling you love fans here

Working on a web page, will return when that is ready.

wim · Post by **wim** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 8:14 pm

klegg wrote:And is it really true that one fan, even if it is quiet, will go undetected if there is a HD to hide it?

if the fans are spinning slow enough, yes!
at least in my case and for my ears, it is true - the system has a 2.5" samsung drive sitting on soft foam, fanless psu, and two 120 mm fans push-pulling through a scythe ninja heatsink. one is a nexus and one is a noctua, the fans spin at ~500rpm and they don't start at this voltage, i have to give them a push with the finger and then they will keep spinning until the machine is turned off. sometimes i would forget to spin them , so the system runs fanless (it is low power enough to idle fanless, probably would crash if i ran prime95 but haven't dared to test that) and to avoid this i just decided to leave it on permanently now
i can detect no difference in noise with the fans moving or not, and this is with my head right up next to the computer. from where i sit, neither the fans nor the hard drive are audible at all, the loudest component is my lcd monitor

i guess anyone who gets addicted to silencing their computer discovers this eventually, because it is a process of removing or quietening the loudest thing which gives you results. you realise very early on that removing a source of noise that is not one of the loudest few makes almost no difference (because of noise being additively logarithmic). the best hard drive is still significantly louder than the best fans if the fans are spinning slowly. and so you eventually find as i did that removing all your fans - if you can still manage sufficient cooling - does not improve noise level while there is a hard disk.

it is also worth noting that some people here even prefer to keep a bit of fan noise at a slightly higher volume than their hard disk, because it is a more pleasant noise signature

ZzZ_Guy · Post by **ZzZ_Guy** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 7:07 pm

Though this is probably excessive, expensive and too limiting for what you want I thought I'd throw this out there as a idea.

Zalman makes two 100% fanless cases, the TNN 300 & TNN 500.

These cases are the quietest case/PC systems available. The entire case (for both) is one big heatsink making it VERY heavy, comes with a built in fanless PSU and are very expensive.

The TNN 300 uses a m-ATX MoBo, 300/350 watt PSU (i forget which) and costs ~$750 Canadian, ~$612 USD.
The TNN 500 uses full size ATX MoBo, larger PSU and costs ~$1300 Canadian, ~$1062 USD.

(I would post links but this is my first post on these forums and it won't let me, google "TNN 300 review" for SPCR review -[re]edit- there are also YouTube reviews for the TNN 300, but not TNN 500 -edit-)

The biggest noise maker is the Hard Drive due to lack of isolation from the rest of the case. This can be solved with a Solid State Drive (SSD) which has no moving parts but are very expensive and generally have poor writing speeds (but fast reading speeds) compared to standard Hard Drives.

You also need to check with zalman what parts are compatible with these cases, I believe they have a list.

potsy · Post by **potsy** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 9:02 pm

My two cents - I'm using a Fusion and running it completely fanless for much of the time. I have two case fans which I turn off for periods of 2 or 3 hours while I'm recording music and the system copes fine for that time. For the rest of the time I'm generally running one Noctua 800rpm fan which is undervolted. For example it's over 30C in the room now, I've had the fans off for an hour just doing some surfing and pretty light stuff. The highest cpu core is 63C, gpu is 85C and HDDs are 38C.

I agree with what people have been saying - Jessekopelman is generally right on. But there are questions of degree and how much you're prepared to compromise to get silence. For example I think shortening the life of components by running them hot is well worth it because technology moves so fast that I'm upgrading before it's an issue anyway.

My system has no psu fan, no cpu fan, no graphics fan and boxed HDDs. And the case lives in a wooden box so ventilation is also bad. It's been going just fine for over a year. You can see it here (although I've changed mobo & cpu since then): potsy's puter

My point is, I don't think you should listen to the doomsayers - if you don't want to hear your computer just buy all the fanless stuff and give it a go. Maybe it will run hot, but so what? Just run it that way till it dies. And I'll bet you a 6 pack (of nice beer too) that doesn't happen before you're ready to upgrade!

Potsy