Totally silent - is it possible?

foreright

foreright

foreright

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Romford, Essex
I am hoping to build a totally silent (or as near as I can) HTPC in the new year.
Although I know they are expensive I would use a 400W fanless PSU and a 60Gb SSD.
Is there a motherboard and CPU combo that could also be fanless and provide what is required to supply BD o/p to my HT/TV. If a graphics card is required I know some of them have heat sinks as well.
Is this possible and could you suggest the Mobo/CPU/graphics card. That I could use at the cheaper end of the market as I would have used up a large chunk with the first 2 components.
 
Most motherboards are fanless nowadays and if you get one with heatpipes it could run rather cool. For a processor, I would get an AMD dual or quad and possibly underclock it to run with a passive heatsink. This will dictate your case dimensions as passive coolers tend to be larger. A single slow running 120-140 fan exhaust will complete the package. This can be set to spin at high temps only. You could use on board graphics, the HD4290 is quite capable and does not have a fan.
 
I would suggest an intel build with core i3 or G6950 processor, both are perfectly capable of running 1080p content, and an H55/57 motherboard to take advantage of the onboard graphics which can play 1080p video with no problems. Add a quality fanless psu and an SSD and you really do have a silent machine. Are you going to have an optical drive in it? Because they get quite noisy when they spin up

For PSU I would recommend Seasonic X-650, this power supply is simply great. It has a great efficiency and because of this runs very very cool; so that the fan doesn't even turn at 50% load (300W). To compare, the spec in my signature has a maximum power usage of 340-360W and this is while running benchmarks. The pc you're building will only use about 200W maximum meaning that if you use the Seasonic psu, it will be totally silent. The fan is just an added safety feature. Bit-tech liked it a lot: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/psus/2010/02/22/600-700w-psu-review-round-up/6
 
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Dunno for something to play back BDs but I think an Atom/future Bobcat CPU with a passive heatsink (coupled with an IGP, fanless PSU and SSD) would be silent. I think I'd be rather spooked by a truly silent PC though. :D

Also, a BD-ROM drive will probably be louder than most other things in your eventual system. ;)
 
my htpc is totally silent.

im using a passive ION board with SSD and pico PSU.

and it does 1080p playback better than the AMD i had before it
 
When I say playback BD, I will be playing archived copies of my own discs. I may not even bother with BD player just a DVD for installation of OS etc.
I was thinking of the Seasonic X400.
 
a pico psu would be the quietest as it has no fans.

and they deliver enough power for an atom based system.


my htpc is running mythtv, and runs everything fine.
blu-ray rips play perfectly on it
 
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