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>Does anyone have advice on building a quiet frontend?

Put your noisy beast out in your garage as your backend and buy a shiny new
shuttle and use it as your frontend...
http://www.ascent.co.nz/search.aspx?T1=shuttle&D1=All+Categories

It doesn't need much horsepower as your box in the garage will do all the
grunter work.

Minimal noise and nice size.
There are other home brew cases around that might cost a bit more but look
just like a component in your av system but they probably won't be much
quieter than a shuttle.

Even better, boot over the network from your backend to make your frontend
diskless.

Cheers
Toby

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> Does anyone have advice on building a quiet frontend? I have been using
> a standard PC as a combined backend/frontend (PVR500, Athlon XP 2200+,
> home made lirc, FTA, etc) parked next to my TV and stereo, for some
> time. It looks stupid, and makes a terrible racket, but as the master of
> my domain, I really don't care, and can always turn the volume up.
>
> However $MISSUS2.0 would like something quiet (that can be hidden), in
> our new house. I have permission to spend money, but I don't want to go
> over the top.
>
> There are a plethora of different options, and apart from separating the
> frontend, I can't seem to work out what to do. Advice and opinions would
> be appreciated.
>

New home - so you've got CAT5 cable running to every room so no problem
putting the existing machine into a cupboard somewhere and running a
frontend only machine!

I'm running an Epia SP13000 which hasn't run out of steam yet for TV, DVD
or DivX, Gallery, Music and Mythstream (podcast, streaming audio etc). Its
diskless so no harddrive noise, the BIOS supports network booting without
any hassles. The only change I'm going to make is go for a DC-DC supply
with an external AC-DC brick as the mains one is VERY inefficient and gets
quite warm (and hence its fan runs noisily). Its using a PVR150 card for
capture (so in my case is a combine fe-be machine) with 600G of raid5
array on the server box for all the data.

Another thought I've had is to move the TV so the wall its on backs onto a
cupboard under the stairwell and put all the noisy bits in there - that
depends on the WAF for the rearrangement of all the furniture - just means
going through a door to change a DVD or CD :-) Perhaps the geography of
your room would allow a similar arrangement.


--
Robin Gilks



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Gidday,

On Mon, 2006-04-24 at 22:13 +1200, Toby Mills wrote:
> >Does anyone have advice on building a quiet frontend?
>
> Put your noisy beast out in your garage as your backend and buy a shiny new
> shuttle and use it as your frontend...
> http://www.ascent.co.nz/search.aspx?T1=shuttle&D1=All+Categories

I know people who have had ... issues with Shuttles. Also consider that
the motherboard is a funny shape so if it fails you need to buy another
shuttle motherboard or throw out the case.

> It doesn't need much horsepower as your box in the garage will do all the
> grunter work.
>
> Minimal noise and nice size.
> There are other home brew cases around that might cost a bit more but look
> just like a component in your av system but they probably won't be much
> quieter than a shuttle.
>
> Even better, boot over the network from your backend to make your frontend
> diskless.

I have a seperate frontent and backend system. The backend is a noisy
old PIII sitting in the study with the encoders in it and is pretty
boring.

The frontend is much more interesting. I'm using an Via Epia 1GHz
machine which has mostly done the job (the latest Debian modular X.org
upgrade has caused some issues though).

I've taken an old CD player, gutted it and shoved the motherboard and a
DVD ROM in there. No HDD, as I'm using network boot. Warning: My
motherboard has issues with network booting about 1 in 5 times and needs
to power reset to boot correctly.

I'm using a DC-DC power brick and a 120mm fan in the top of the case for
cooling. It looks the part in the stereo cabinet and when the fan speed
is turned down is super quiet. However, my fan seems a bit dodgy and
has a bit of a habit of stalling at low speeds. When the motherboard
overheats all sorts of funny things happen to the video output! I think
I need to drill some ventilation holes in the side of the case - I think
there are issues with air flow.

I can put some pictures of what the box looks like (including part of
the building phase) if people are interested.

Cheers!

--
Andrew Ruthven
Wellington, New Zealand
At home: andrew@etc.gen.nz | This space intentionally
| left blank.


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