Underhanded Penguin Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Just so u know Griff, I wasn't trying to be a jerk or anything, even though in real life I am a jerk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuNat Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 j-melotky, you can in fact find geforce 6600/6800 cards in AGP, there arent many choices, but they definately exist. nvidia cards run fine with whatever software you run it with. especially when running 3rd party dvd decoders such as sonic/elecard/ndvd(obviously) with scalers like ffdshow and dscaler. i havent had any problems with scaling and nvidia cards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 ---------------- On 1/12/2005 11:47:40 AM Underhanded Penguin wrote: Just so u know Griff, I wasn't trying to be a jerk or anything, even though in real life I am a jerk. ---------------- I take everything I read with a grain of salt around here, Penguin. No harm, no foul! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenratboy Posted January 12, 2005 Author Share Posted January 12, 2005 OK, what I have learned: I need a smokin' fast computer that looks cool, runs very quiet (while generating a lot of heat), and I need to spend a lot of money to pull it off. COOL! I have another dirty idea: I already have a 3 GHz. P4 (800MHz. FSB and all) with a gig of PC3200 DDR and all that. Maybe I could use these parts and rebuild my computer to be very quiet. That way, instead of spending $1000 or more, I would be out of few hundred bucks. I could run TWO copies of XP Pro on TWO hard drives and just boot into whatever one I wanted. Hmmm... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vladi Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 I had the same dilema about 1.5 years ago when I was building my HTPC. After researchig well, here are the components I chose. It was a very good system then. I can post pictures later on tonight. Hope this will help in selecting your components. * Aluminum case (wide so there is more room) with quite 120mm exhaust fan at rear, and one 80mm intake fan in front. Both fans are adjustible speed. I modified the case so it "breathes" more, you will see on pictures. * 450 W Antec power supply. I replaced the 2 fans with adjustible fans. * Motherboard - Intel D850EMV2L * CPU - 2.4B Intel Pentium 4, 533MHz bus. CPU is very cool running, installed large heatsink with adjustable fan. * RAM - 512MB Mushkin PC1066 RAMBUS, 533MHz * Video - GeForce 4 Ti 4800, TV out. * Gaming - 3D Stereo glasses, Logitech Force Wheel, Logitech Wireless Gamepad, Microsoft Force Joystick * TV - Hauppage WinTV Go with FM radio * Sound - Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, SPDIF digital pass thru * HDD - 60GB Seagate Barracuda IV, two of these. The quitest drives at the time. * DVD ROM - Panasonic DVD115 * CD-RW - Yamaha 24X * FireWire card + 4 USB ports card * BlueTooth - Belkin USB adapter * LAN - on board * CanoScan slim scanner * HP 932C Printer * IBM Net Camera Pro * Labtec Microphone * Logitech Wireless Freedom mouse and keyboard * Windows XP Professional I run S-Video cable to my TV, and an RCA digital cable to the receiver. For video I use Power DVD. For music I use Media Player 10. Vladi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuNat Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 it doesnt need to be $1000.. try this: antec overture case + 380w PSU - $110 asus p4p800-e delux $117 intel 2.4C p4 - $147 2 sticks 256mb pc3200 corsair value ram $75 seagate 80gig 8meg cache drive - $70 geforce 5700 - $100 thats $620 total, of course this is the bare minimum i would go with. not to mention wireless keyboard and mouse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenratboy Posted January 12, 2005 Author Share Posted January 12, 2005 NatGun: That is very close to the rig I have selected! You left out some parts such as the drive ($50 for a combo) and possibly a sound card if I cannot use the internal one. My current rig is a Asus P4P-800 Deluxe with a 2.6 GHz. chip running at 3 GHz. with the stock cooler. 100% stable. I bet the 2.4 would OC like a MoFo. I think I now understand what I need to do. Thank you so much for the help everyone! I hope a lot of us got something out of this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuNat Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 i run my 2.4c at 3.3ghz 24/7 for almost two years now. stable as a rock. let us know how it turns out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meuge Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 ---------------- On 1/12/2005 7:39:30 PM NatGun wrote: i run my 2.4c at 3.3ghz 24/7 for almost two years now. stable as a rock. let us know how it turns out. ---------------- That's impressive, I had a 1.6A that did 2.5GHz on air, but I eventually got a 2.8C, hoping to get 3.5-3.6 on it, but I was unlucky and the chip can only do 3.2GHz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 ---------------- On 1/12/2005 3:52:18 PM NatGun wrote: it doesnt need to be $1000.. try this: antec overture case + 380w PSU - $110 asus p4p800-e delux $117 intel 2.4C p4 - $147 2 sticks 256mb pc3200 corsair value ram $75 seagate 80gig 8meg cache drive - $70 geforce 5700 - $100 thats $620 total, of course this is the bare minimum i would go with. not to mention wireless keyboard and mouse. ---------------- 512MB ain't enough, period. 512MB is the minimum "recommended" by Micro$chlock to run Windoze XP. You want to run heavy-duty video processing (Hi-Def) you need a gig. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuNat Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 uhh, XP sytem requirements are 128mb reccomended: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation/sysreqs.mspx even MS reccomendation to run WMV-HD is only 512: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ChoosingPC.aspx most HD capture cards dont require nearly that much memory for PVR functions. even so, he has stated this is only for music and dvd playback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
007 Posted January 13, 2005 Share Posted January 13, 2005 I am getting very efficient at building silent PC systems and only one company comes to mind when I think of silent computing www.zalmanusa.com They have a 100% fanless and select PC case. Yes I say fanless! Its no surprise when you see the MSRP of the TNN 500A ($1500) but they also have other great components if you want to have a low-noise case for a lot less. You could also go with the watercooling route, but its not better quieter than good air cooling componests, and I dont like to trust my entire PC to a single cheap pump. Here is what I would recommend, and this is from a lot of experience, trust me on this issue like no one else. Antec Phantom 350 Power supply. Its 160 bucks, but its 100% fanless, and 350 watts is all you will need, trust me. Plus this PU has two 12volt rails so youll never have to worry about your CPU eating too much power. If you cant justify the price tag, Zalman has a 80 dollar 400 watts PU thats very quiet. Thermaltake also has a 110 dollar fanless PU, but I dont like that company. Zalman CNPS7700-Al Heat sink (if it fits in your case and on your main board, otherwise get the CNPS7000-Al. This CPU heatsink is amazing. I think it is the absolute best design around and its very quiet due to a very large surface area. Zalman ZM80D-HP fanless VGA cooler which is designed for ATI's and GeForces. If you get the newest Geforce or ATI you will need a fan, but you dont need those cards for an HTPC, you're not playing videogames, you need quality video out, not speed. The other Geforce 4 or ATI 9700 are plenty Zalman ZM-2HC2 harddrive stabilizer and cooler This component is greater because it has rubber washers which act as dampeners for your hard drive. Once you build a silent case, youll notice some vibration noises cased by your harddrive. This can be corrected with this device. It also cools the hard drive which can prolong the life span. 2x Zalman 80 case fan or Coolermaster 80mm case fans both these fans have good ball baring design, but the secret here is not just the fan, youll need the couple the fan with a fan controller to reduce the RPMs. Unless youre overclocking, case fans dont need to move much air. I would recommend two Zalman Fanmates. They have a knob which adjusts the fans RPMs. You can use double sided sticky tape and stick them on the inside of your case (out of sight) They are very clean and cheap and work perfectly. Vantec Power supply and Fan damping kit. These are like rubber gaskets for your power supply and fans that can reduce irritating noise vibrations. They are very cheap so dont hesitate. I have no recommendations for the case. But I will say that you should get something thats big. I like the Antec outside models. They are pretty much he standard PC case, Lian Li makes some slick looking stuff and so does coolermaster. Get whatever you like, just get something without a power supply and expect to replace the fans unless they are coolermaster As far as components go, Make sure you get a mainboard that does not contain fans and if that is unavoidable, get the Zalman Northbridge fanless cooler. Make sure you get a GOOD mainboard. Do your homework because this will save youre a pain in the ***. I have had even the best brand names fail on me, so dont just buy it because of its name, do your homework and research the exact model and printed circuit board version. For CPUs I happen to be an AMD fan, so I would recommend on of their chips. For memory, just get whatever. I have had almost no problems with cheap memory vs. expensive registered member. I dont think this is a very critical aspect to consider when building a PC unless your overclocking. For a hard drive, Lately I have liking what Samsung has to offer. I find they are quiet and reliable unlike my IBMs Maxtor and even Western Digitals. You can not avoid getting 7200 RPMs and maintain the size capacity you need for an HTPC. Youll probably want to store either movies or music on this drive and I would recommend at least 160 gigs. The Zalman hard drive kit should help with the noise. I also think 7200 rpm models are newer and more reliable, furthermore the speed increase is huge enough to justify the slight noise increase. Dont get a 5400 RPM model! DVD rom. I got a cheap 25 dollar Samsung. I find it very loud even though it said it was not, but I would recommend it if you just need something cheap, but I really dislike its noise problems. It happens to be VERY Fast. I noticed when watching movies on my PC, rewinding or just navigating through the DVD menu was almost instantaneous when compared to a standard component DVD player. I cant make any recommendations for this component other than maybe you could try some older optical solutions which run at maybe 8x or 4x DVD speed. I will say that when the movie is playing, I dont noise the noise, even at 2 feet away, even during quiet scenes, but you might want to do some more research and see what you come up with. Video card. I have heard ATI has nice video output. Make sure you get something with digital out (not analog and not s-video) The digital out is the best solution and it can be hooked up right to a projector. Some ATI cars even have dual VGA out and thats a nice feature too. Dont worry about the speed of the card either, just get something with quality. Soundcard, a seemingly critical aspect. All you need is digital out, and digital out cant be low quality or high quality, its just digital, on or off, 1 or 0. You may want some analog options for music, but you can even use digital out for that and go right into your receiver for an even better DAC. I recommend a M-audio Revolution 7.1 or a Creativelabs Audigy 4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenratboy Posted January 13, 2005 Author Share Posted January 13, 2005 Wow, nice post!!! I am going to try some of that stuff out on my current computer. I just replaced the power supply and now the computer is almost silent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted January 13, 2005 Share Posted January 13, 2005 Of course, you can also just solve the whole problem a lot cheaper by getting a rack-mount case and RF mouse&keyboard and just racking your computer up with the rest of your gear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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