the Geeky PC thread, building a Media PC similar?

bluechair84

The HTPC is nearly ready after much faffing with an angle grinder; I've installed a beefy but silent Zalman over the CPU to find out that it was only just defying the noise emitted from the GPU. The GPU sits vertically right beside an Asus soundcard which unfortunately covers about 3/4 of the face of the GPU's fan making it work overtime. I'm hoping someone might have a solution for me

I've come across another cooler - passive this time;

Zalman vnf100

It attaches a contact over the processor to a heatsink which dangles over the back side which would be perfect - but Zalman don't state an 8800 card as supported.

Any other ideas for me to look up? Crudites have always been very handy in this dept (a nod to the spread of Yeeha's knowledge there)


edit -
Problem solved. That passive cooler fits. Just need to check if it's going to be man enough for the job now.

Raymondavalon

What's the spec of the machine? CPU/RAM etc?

Anonymous

8800s run hot, beware.
Best bet would be to spend £40-£60 on a modern entry level card that will run silent.

Why do you need the Asus soundcard?

bluechair84

The way I solved the problem was not being a spaz... and realising it was in fact a 9800.

I fitted the asus originally because it has an optical output which I used with a set of speakers that live elsewhere now. And a year ago when I started I assumed the onboard sound would be inferior for film and music once it went through an amp. Though the project doesn't need to be spectacular as I'm only running a bottom end Cambridge and Wharfedales - and I'm not that much of an audiophile anyway.

Actually... I just like hobby projects and I might have got carried away fitting a fancy soundcard 8) But the GPU does get used for a bit of Supreme Commander.

bluechair84

Raymondavalon wrote:

What's the spec of the machine? CPU/RAM etc?

Pentium 4 3.2ghz
1G Ram - might upgrade to 2G

And I've learnt that the 9800 isn't supported so... still after a solution to quieten the cooling.

Chunkers1980

An extra gig of RAM is the cheapest way to improve perfomance hardware wise.

1 is not enough unless you're still on XP, but still 2 is better.

Anonymous

bluechair84 wrote:

Raymondavalon wrote:

What's the spec of the machine? CPU/RAM etc?

Pentium 4 3.2ghz
1G Ram - might upgrade to 2G

And I've learnt that the 9800 isn't supported so... still after a solution to quieten the cooling.

I hear that the ATi cards are generally quieter. Try and get a reasonably modern-ish one with the HDMI output. Then you can connect the SPDIf from the motherboard sound (or the asus) to the graphics card, and have one cable going to the telly.

bluechair84

Chunkers1980 wrote:

1 is not enough unless you're still on XP, but still 2 is better.

Check!

yeehaamcgee wrote:

I hear that the ATi cards are generally quieter. Try and get a reasonably modern-ish one with the HDMI output. Then you can connect the SPDIf from the motherboard sound (or the asus) to the graphics card, and have one cable going to the telly.

The Nvidia outputs on DVI which converts to HDMI with an adaptor which I have - though the DVI doesn't carry the audio signal. Sound wil go to the new amp from the Asus.
I'm happy enough with the components though, no performace upgrading is needed but I'll add an extra ram module when money affords. First priority is to hush down the system. The motherboard is getting on abit now, microATX, 1x PCI-e 16. 800mhz bus speed from the CPU... If I start going for performance I've a mobo to upgrade first.

Anonymous

Who are you quoting from and where? (and why?):?

The newer cards are practically silent. In fact, some actually ARE silent, that's why I'm suggesting it, not for performance gains.

nicklouse

when i joined this forum I never thought i would post in a PC build thread.

but I will be later with pics...

still waiting for cyberlink to get back to me :evil:

bluechair84

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Who are you quoting from and where? (and why?):?

The newer cards are practically silent. In fact, some actually ARE silent, that's why I'm suggesting it, not for performance gains.

God only knows... Quoting myself apparently :idea:

And - silent GPUs? I'll look into them. I'd be suprised if they were man enough without having some serious radiator grills with like, bull bars and stuff, and dead deer haning off of them. In which case, it still wouldn't fit along side the soundcard so your first suggestion of getting rid of the Asus might be worthwhile. Two options for me to look into.

edit-
Yeehaa - I think I just tried to pass off your quote as my own, and stick my own words in the mouth of annonymous.

Anonymous

have a look at something lke this...
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/produc ... s/zo-gt430
or
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... ubcat=1699


You'll pretty much never get a graphics card with enough punch for modern gaming that's silent, but something like this still packs a wallop.

bluechair84

hmm.... that's not a bad price for a card really... But I'd have to take the Asus out which is causing the restricted air in the first place...

Anonymous

Why would you have to take the Asus out? I can see at least two PCI slots underneath the graphics card.

bluechair84

sorry for confusion - that's not my system. I just dropped an example of the cooler in for reference.
The soundacard and GPU are side by side, millimeters apart. The GPU's fan only has about a quarter of it's diameter above the Asus so it can't breate properly making it over heat and thus noisey.
I'll drop a pic up after work - parents evening tonight.... 'What? Who's this child? Never seen it before.'

Northwind

You can get the passive Arctic Cooling Accelero for the 8800 and it's apparently good enough, though I bet it relies on good airflow in the case. I suppose you could underclock it for lower heat

According to QuietPC that Zalman is definately NOT compatible with an 8800 series.

Not sure what's on mine, it's posssibly a Coolink GFXchilla but not 100% on that. It's alright, not silent but quiet, 2 80mm fans which I run slow. But occasionally one of the fans will stall with low voltage which is a bummer. Not that this has ever caused a problem but then my PC's built to run cool, lots of quiet airflow from loads of 7V 120mm fans.

bluechair84

Cheers Northwind, I found this on Quiet PC - the GFXChilla;

I'll check tonight but looks like this will fit and push the air directly into the fan over the CPU which is then ejected out - which is better than the passive cooler posted previously. I might need to look at fitting a rear fan as I've stripped it down to just the one very large horizontal over the CPU - I haven't tested the system with this as err... bios isn't booting the OS RAM problem I think from the beep code but I can't asssertain the BIOS type, going on law of deduction :?

Northwind

Yeah, mine has different fans to that but it looks basically the same. It's buzzy at full power so if you want it quiet you'll need a resistor pack or something. I think mine is at 7V but couldn't swear by that (it's supposed to take the speed control from the GPU but that's never worked on mine for some reason, supposedly early 8800GTs were flaky for that)

bluechair84

A fully silent PC isn't my big concern... just cutting down the damn hurricane that's going on in there. This could be great. Does yours interfere with the next PCI slot along at all? I'm hoping that by hanging this off the arse end of the GPU I can leave in my soundcard.

Northwind

Mmm, don't know, there's nothing in that slot. It's not massive but I think it'd probably get in the way of any full thickness card.

nicklouse

well well, bought another BD drive and it works..... well better than the LG one. still needs some tweeking as it is not right.

but put the LG Blu drive in this PC and it works perfectly. MMMmmm

Anonymous

With what software, Nick? Still using Cyberlink?
I might pinch the BD drive from work this weekend and see if what I've been told about Win7 media centre is true.

nicklouse

yep come bundled with the same.

tis strange on the AMD machine it plays and then freezes after 20ish mins but then starts the audio again after 5mins freeze, while the Intel one there is no probs at all.

I am wondering.
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ (2 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
verses
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2.33GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.3GHz

above and beyond me.

bluechair84

nicklouse wrote:

yep come bundled with the same.

tis strange on the AMD machine it plays and then freezes after 20ish mins but then starts the audio again after 5mins freeze, while the Intel one there is no probs at all.

I am wondering.
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ (2 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
verses
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2.33GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.3GHz

above and beyond me.

What are the bus speeds of the motherboards? That can bottleneck the speed of the system and chock what the CPU is trying to do. I would have loved to put a dual core in but there's no point, my mobo just won't support any thing more advanced than a P4.

nicklouse

bluechair84
now how would one find that out?

bluechair84

If you find the specification sheet for your computer - off of the manufacturers website - they should say what the mobo is and the bus speed. Mine comes in at 800mhz and modern desktops are around 1300mhz. Expensive mobos higher still. But the one with the smaller bus speed might restrict the amount of data that can flow between the cpu and system.

nicklouse

that is what I thought.
how does 5200MHz sound?

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... 607&dl=#ov

was wondering if there was a way of seeing the actual speed.

bluechair84

Yeah... that looks to be it! Really rubs in what a turd my mobo is... How does that compare to the machine that runs smoothly?

nicklouse

good question cant see any info on Intels weeby

but the board is a Intel® Desktop Board DG45ID

rubins4

Just for reference, I'm running a bottom end Cambridge audio stereo amp with B&W speakers off the intergrated audio card and it works fine for everyday use

Anonymous

bluechair84 wrote:

What are the bus speeds of the motherboards?

Back in the Athlon 64 days, AMD (sort of) did away with the idea of a "front side bus", and used their "Direct Connect architecture.
This means that the motherboard effectively runs at the same speed as the processor. Things don't have to share time on a bus, because they're connected (more) directly.
It also has drastic improvements in the amount of time it takes to access RAM.
Also, each individual core on an AMD chip can access memory directly, and can share memory with the other cores, making them work "together" better.

Although a lot of what they claim is marketing guff, it really does work. On an audio workstation that does it's processing on the CPU, for example, the input->output latency can be set lower (faster) whilst still remaining stable on an AMD system.
This advantage has been reduced considerably since intel's chips became so much more powerful, but it is still evident.