[plug] PVR advice

[Trevor Phillips]

On Tuesday 21 October 2003 10:37, Derek Fountain wrote:
>
> I was thinking about hardware options, and, since the thing is going to sit
> in my lounge, *quiet* hardware options in particular. Fanless cases, CPUs,
> graphics cards, etc. Anyone put such a thing together?

I'm using an older model Chyang Fun eCube which was $240 (barebones, case + 
mobo) with a Celeron 2.2 in it. I got it because it was cheap (compared to 
the alternatives), and I'm broke. ^_^ 
Some observations:
  *It was rather noisy. The model I have (http://www.chyangfun.com/Product/
CF-S868.htm) has two small high-speed fans at the back to vent air. They ran 
at 6000-7000rpm. It's much quieter now I've added a speed limiter to drop 'em 
down to 4000-5000. Noisy part now is the HDD. ^_^
  *S3 graphics sucks! The on-board TV out does the job,  but quality & 
performance are pretty lousy without hardware scaling, etc... I'll probably 
put a Matrox G400, or a GeForce (if I can find a cheap one with decent TV 
out) eventually
  *The case is small for a PC, but huge for a media appliance. I'd love one a 
top of the line one of these as a gaming rig. ^_^

I haven't actually bought the TV tuner part yet. My first goal was to have 
something to play general media files (divx, mpeg, ogg, mp3). But it has a 
PCI and an AGP slot.

If I was rolling in ph4t l3wt (money), I'd get one of these cases:
   http://www.mini-itx.com/reviews/3688/
... with a fast Mini-ITX motherboard, and slim-line DVD. But it's a tiny case 
with no room for a PCI TV Tuner (but you could use a USB tuner if you were 
desperate).

The middle ground is this sort of case:
   http://www.everythinglinux.com.au/item/ELS0030
... which is more appliance-like in size & shape, & supports PCI through a 
riser card.

The last two cases have external fansless PSUs (from memory - been a while 
since I've looked at the details). The faster Mini-ITX boards have fans on 
them, although there are some rather expensive solutions customised with a 
completely passive cooling system:
   http://www.mini-itx.com/store/hush.asp

-- 
. Trevor Phillips             -           http://jurai.murdoch.edu.au/ . 
: Web Technical Administrator     -          T.Phillips at murdoch.edu.au : 
| IT Services                        -              Murdoch University | 
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