El Cheapo silent PC

[noob]

Is that an ISA vid card I see?
With a PCI sound card, and PCI ethernet?

Does it have simms?

If you want, I'm pretty sure I have the old RAM, will have to check what type, that should fit that board. I'm pretty sure its a 64MB Stick. Not sure if postage from NZ would be worth it though.

[Got EpOx]

Probably something like £30 delivery.

[Favu]

Originally Posted by Got EpOx

Who sent you this PC? was it from ebay or from a member?

It was none other than our very own tevildo. Who's cheque I will be posting tommorrow!

Originally Posted by noob

Is that an ISA vid card I see?
With a PCI sound card, and PCI ethernet?

Does it have simms?

If you want, I'm pretty sure I have the old RAM, will have to check what type, that should fit that board. I'm pretty sure its a 64MB Stick. Not sure if postage from NZ would be worth it though.

It did have an ISA graphics card at first, it's now got an AGP one though PCI sound and ethernets for sure though! I think the ISA card is a modem

I'm not sure about the RAM type, I hope it's SDRAM since I also have a 64Mb stick floating around. I shall check later and get back to you, thanks a lot for the offer!

[tevildo]

I Might be able to help out on the heatsink front as well - my old one from my amd64 is lying on a table downstairs. Not sure how well it'll do for cooling, it kept the 64 below 60 degrees most of the time... as I recall it's a glacialtek or something, uber quiet (well, it was when new) thing. I can't see myself ever using it, so it's yours if you want.

I shall also have some words with interlink... the little 'fragile' checkbox was definately ticked... perhaps should have stuck some fragile stickers on the box itself...

[Favu]

I think it is time for a little update -

The PC is running very well with the stripped down gentoo install tev sorted out for me. But the processor HSF had to go, so I cut up tevildo's old A64 HSF and stuck on the K6. It gets warm to the touch but not noticeably hot. at the moment it is just held on by the surface tension of my cheapo thermal goop for testing.

I'm running memtest live CD on it as I type to make sure that it is stable Wish me luck!

If it passes all the tests I shall glue the heatsink on with a few dabs of superglue in the corners. At the moment the heatsink is held on via the high-tech method of an elastic band!

[GrahamGarside]

I wouldn't use super glue, it's not ideal for situations where it will get fairly warm. Epoxy resin is the better option

[Favu]

Hmm... but that involves money! And I am trying to avoid spending any

It might be a necessary evil though. How much is it to get hold of some epoxy? And is there anything cheaper I could use?

[Favu]

UPDATE = It's survived 1 pass memtest in ~40 minutes. The CPU temp alarm went off but I'm ignoring it until I see errors in memtest!

This is live stuff folks!

[Favu]

OK well it seems that the processor is pretty stable with the heatsink - 6 1/2 hours mprime stable

But these hard drives are very loud - does anyone have a good idea on quietening them?

[Samuknow]

Short of water cooling I am not sure. I have seen someone use a CD enclosure with foam, but they used water cooling tubes to pull the heat away..

[Favu]

No, I think watercooling is ever so slightly out of my budget. I might have to see about constructing some sort of foam cradle for them - that should at least mute the vibrations.

Here are some pics to prove it really is that stupid and it really is that stable

[Samuknow]

You might enclose them but leave room for air flow. The foam, even though it is not covering will eat some of the noise.

[fearless joe]

how much is the cheapest solid state memory drive??? i really have no clue, but it would save your noise problem

[Favu]

@ Sam - I will see if we have some foam floating around today

@ FJ - I am thinking about getting a ~2Gb CF card on the cheap and a CF- IDE adapter, that should work quite well

[Favu]

Well I have now swapped the K6 for a P3 866Mhz monster! It's an old HP Brio, and is entirely passively cooled already except for the PSU, which really is whisper-quiet

I also took the 6Gb Micro drive from a broken iPod Nano my friend donated to me, and with a CF-IDE adapter I now have a silent (or at least as close to as makes no odds) PC! Awesome!

I am installing windows 2k on it now to do some testing but I think I will go with linux eventually

Are there any major tweaks I can do with win2k to minimise HDD access? I am thinking about disabling the swap file, but is there anything else to do?

TIA for any advice!

[aghastpumpkin]

Originally Posted by fearless joe

how much is the cheapest solid state memory drive??? i really have no clue, but it would save your noise problem

Around £380 AFAIK. Thats for 30GB or so.

[cloasters]

Originally Posted by Favu

Righty, well the PC came yesterday and I now have some pix to post up.

Unfortunatly the HSF assembly came loose during transit and rattled around the case a fair bit. But luckily no lasting harm was done, and after a bit of prodding the PC booted up just fine.

However I had discovered a new problem - the HDD and very noisy. I am thinking of using just one HDD and encasing it in foam, so that it is queiter, I must be careful not to make it overheat though.

anyways, pix yo!

My neighbor's HSF looked like that--after the earthquake toppled his box to the floor. The machine kept running with no ill effect right where it was. Lucky!

[Favu]

Lucky indeed!

[Favu]

Well the silent PC stayed on for over a week, with me sleeping less than a meter away from it and it didn't bother me, which is awesome. It also didn't crash despite it was recording over 2 gigs of data to the HDD over the week for a personal project.

I think that makes it a success!!

[Samuknow]

Excellent job...

I agree....sucess