Low power media pc

Chronictank

Chronictank

Chronictank

Soldato
Joined
12 Jan 2006
Posts
2,547
Basically i want to build a pc which uses as little power as possible, but at the same time keeping the noise down.
I dont need:
TV Card - already have a Nova-t
DVD Drive - already have a external sony dvd-ram drive
Network card - 3 com standard pci network card
HDD - Have a IDE 500Gb Seagate

Other bits i have in the current box:
Gfx card - Geforce 4 AGP

£300 max to spend

I dont know where to begin, so some pointers would be much appreciated
 
The lowest power boards I know of are the epia series. They include a low power CPU on them ,and some don't need a cpu fan as they generate so little heat!

I've got an epia 5000 myself, and with a 120gb hard disk and wifi card, uses up less than 30 watts (measured from the main socket). I'm soon going to give it a 1tb raid 5 array, so I'm sure the rig will be using more power then. :D
 
I would base it around an Antec nsk2400, its very quiet at stock and has an efficient psu, a sempron or low end A64, maybe even one of the low power versions of the X2 3800+ if you can get hold of one and a board with voltage and fsb adjustment for underclocking to lower power usage if need be.

Then you can use the option in mce to set it to standby after say 10 minutes and come back on to record. You can use the ms remote to bring it out of standby when you need it.

The stock cpu cooler with a decent fan controller will usually be fine, mine has been. Preferably get a board with a fan controller built into the bios.

An Epia will struggle with mce and htpc duties.
 
I have a Shuttle media centre. Probably not as low powered as the ones you have mentioned, but it has a small psu and a sempron chip. The cooling system is good, fan is hardly on.
 
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