View Full Version : Silent Shuttle/SFF pc recommendations?
Can anyone recommend me a Shuttle or Shuttle-esque SFF PC that can take a P4 S478 and that is silent ? Needs to be absolutely silent if that is possible, as it is for the bedroom and I wouldn't want my beauty sleep interferred with by whirring fans!
Thanks in advance,
Gavin.
rsykes2000
19-07-2004, 18:08
Samsung drives to go in them are very quiet. Get a fanless VGA card if you're not using the onboard VGA. All current P4 / XP Shuttles have an 80mm fan on the back for the cooling, this is trivial to replace with a panaflo or papst silent fan (cost a tenner or so). Not sure about a quiet optical drive though.
alsproject
19-07-2004, 19:14
The Shuttle Zen XPC ST62K is one of the quietest Shuttles around as the PSU is external.
Info here: http://eu.shuttle.com/st62k.htm#st62k
It can be had for just over £222 including delivery from www.gemma.co.uk
How close to silent is it though, would it be irritating in a quiet room?
alsproject
19-07-2004, 21:20
My ST62K has a Seagate Barracuda and a Samsung Spinpoint drive and has been adjusted using the Hitachi Feature Tool (http://www.hitachigst.com/) to make the seek noise non existant.
Its a bit hard to say how quiet it is but it is quieter than my JVC SVHS player when its just powered on (but then again, that too is very quiet). The thing that might keep you awake however are the LEDs. The ones in the Shuttle (especially the blue ones) are very bright but you can always stick a tiny piece of card over them.
Here is a review of the ST62K that helped me (comments about the noise levels are on page 6): http://www.silentpcreview.com/article139-page1.html
I've read the review, sounds impressive, but still unsure if it will be quiet enough - as you say, one mans silent is another mans rock concert :) Bearing in mind, I can hear the hum from a mobile phone charger and find that irritating, this might not be enough....guess I could always just power it down at night, was just being lazy ;)
Can anyone recommend me a Shuttle or Shuttle-esque SFF PC that can take a P4 S478 and that is silent ? Needs to be absolutely silent if that is possible, as it is for the bedroom and I wouldn't want my beauty sleep interferred with by whirring fans!
Thanks in advance,
Gavin.
I know the tiny shuttle systems look very smart, but is it really the best way to get a quiet system ?
With a larger case you have more physical room to add sound dampening materials, enclosures for hard drives, more air, so less heat build up in the 1st place.
Just wondering if there will always be a compromise between size and noise?
I have made my tower pc very quiet now.
Oversize heatsink on the CPU with a very quiet fan (which was sold as quiet but still noisy to me, so fitted a resistor to slow it down)
A graphics card with no fan, and a virtually silent power supply.
In a silent room, it's very hard to know if it's even turned on.
Also as it is a large case I do have room for that acoustic padding if I so wished.
Oh yes, have my hard drive in a full enclosure, so it's basically sitting in a foam filled box. runs warmer than standard, but still well within limits, as it's transferring it's heat via aluminuim plates to the casing of my PC, which now gets warm as it's soaking up the heat.
Yes, needs to be SFF and not only does it need to be quiet, also needs to be missus friendly too :D
Did you get your shuttle ?
shuttles will never be silent...not a chance in hell! The zen is probly the best you'll get.
For a silent system you need to look at SFF based on the VIA Epia chips (as they can be run fanless), try the hush silent pc's as these are as quiet as you will get.
However these pc's will not play the latest games or even the current games:p
Your best bet for a silent pc that is game capable, is something like the antec sonata with the soundproofing pack from overclockers.
hookbeak
26-07-2004, 09:40
the zen is 193.87 including VAT at tekheads.
johnrevill
26-07-2004, 09:48
I guess it all really depends want you want to do with your silent PC! There are far better options around than Shuttles if you want but then these won't be able to play games etc. I'm currently looking for a PC that can run a media center type interface to play mp3s and DIVX files. A shuttle would be way too powerful for this kind of thing....
well you say that...and your right...unless you want to play hidef video on it, as the wmvhd doesnt work on my 2.4 ghz system:(
tbh I was looking for the same thing, and in the end I got a pre modded xbox. XBMC is brilliant, it plays pretty much everything (only big format i've noticed is that it wont play the audio from the latest quicktime trailers) and has a far better interface than the other solutions.
The only thing it doesn't do is recording but I can live with that. If i needed a pc based solution then I would plump for the microsoft media centre one, its better than the alternative solutions which involve far to much fiddling about.
MrHat001
26-07-2004, 14:34
Bearing in mind, I can hear the hum from a mobile phone charger and find that irritating, this might not be enough....guess I could always just power it down at night, was just being lazy ;)
If you find the slight hum of a mobile charger irritating then I'd be supprised if there's a PC in the world that's quiet enough to meet your needs.
I wasn't gonna mention that:)...maybe you should consider moving this stuff out of your bedroom?
Nope, not got a shuttle yet, still looking at the Zen, but thinking that it won't be quiet enough to leave running all the time, so will have to power it up and down when necessary...
A zen would the quietest you will get, coupled with a samsung or seagate barcuda harddrive, one of those quiet cd/dvd drives and a fanless (or at least quiet as poss) ATI graphics cards. But even that would be louder than the mobile charger, different pitch maybe!
considered ear plugs:D :p
I'll probably get one and see how noisy it is, if it is unbearable, then it will have to be powered down at night...
Decided I'm going to get the Zen, anyone got any ideas where I could go and get one tomorrow (sat) in the midlands? Left it a bit late to order one now...
Decided I'm going to get the Zen, anyone got any ideas where I could go and get one tomorrow (sat) in the midlands? Left it a bit late to order one now...
Sorry, can't help you out but I'll be very interested in to how you find the shuttle noise wise....
Reading some reviews on the Zen, it sounds very quiet indeed. I don't know what CPU you are going to put in it, but I'd guess a 2.4 would be better than something higher and need less cooling (fan speed) to do the job.
I want something like this for my HTPC. But I'm worried about the built in graphics card, I bought a Radeon 9600 (non pro) and not sure how the Zen's built in Radeon compairs for this use.
Still, please keep us informed as you obviously know what quiet is!
Will do, probably be getting it next week now, as I can't seem to find anywhere local with them, Eclipse Computers in Coventry have them, but don't open on a Saturday :(
Finally got my st62k zen Shuttle, after having to RMA the first one and await a replacement......
Conclusion, indeed it is nowhere near silent, not even close :( Certainly can't sleep with it running.....
Hush (http://www.hushtechnologies.net/start.html) computers seem to be damn quiet. Never seen (or heard) one in action though.
The hush ones are good for music/av servers, they haven't the power for the latest games though.
scrap that, their latest E3 MCE 2005 one has a 2.8ghz P4 and a x800 pro!
and they are all fanless! so no noise, cept drive noise i suppose.
Not cheap though are they..... I've ordered a Nexus case fan which is 17db to quieten down the shuttle a bit...
UPDATE: Fitted the Nexus fan boy has that made a difference, the fan is now inaudible at normal distances, all I can hear now is the hdd spinning, so may well have to look at replacing that with something a bit quieter!
cheekster
10-11-2004, 13:08
The hush ones are good for music/av servers, they haven't the power for the latest games though.
scrap that, their latest E3 MCE 2005 one has a 2.8ghz P4 and a x800 pro!
and they are all fanless! so no noise, cept drive noise i suppose.
Just priced the above model and it's in the region of 3,266 Euro's delivered. Bit pricey! :cuckoo:
Gavin - Any chance of a breakdown of all the components you went for in the end please? I'm looking to build a Shuttle/SFF purely for surfing the web all day. A quiet PC would be ideal me thinks.
Cheekster.
cheekster, try the shuttle zen...with a suitable p4 that should be fine for what you want.
vBulletin® v3.8.7, Copyright ©2000-2012, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.