[vox] Good quiet hardware for Myth TV

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:39:03 -0700, Brian Lavender <brian at brie.com> said:

BL> I guess the biggest thing I am thinking about is noise and size,
BL> similar to my existing Tivo box. It is very quiet.  Any
BL> recommendations on cases and fans?

Sorry for the delay on this...

Everyone else's suggestions are good ones, but I'll mention some
additional thoughts:

1) High speed drives are faster, but slower speed ones are quieter (and
   cooler).  And cooler is always quieter.  My low-power disks certainly
   don't have the bandwidth of the high-speed disks, but they can record
   multiple streams and play one at the same time without problems.
   They're significantly cooler (by like 10 degrees C) than the non-LP ones.
2) You can find cases that are designed to be quiet, though every case
   needs air holes so there is only so much that can be done.
3) Get a CPU that supports frequency scaling so that it's running as
   slow (cool) as possible when not in use.  My last CPU only had two
   speeds, and they were so close to each other I'm not sure what the
   point is.  My newer CPU has speeds that support about a "half speed"
   mode which is a huge drop from the running-flat-out mode.
4) Get a video card that has passive cooling.  Specifically, get one
   without a fan.  Unless you're planning on doing a lot of 3D gaming,
   you don't need a full blown graphics card for just myth.  Personally,
   I have been using nvidia cards even though the driver installation is
   more of a pain: because it's solid and works.
5) Make sure your system has fans that scale according to need.  Most do
   these days, so that shouldn't be hard (in fact, good luck trying to
   break this rule).
6) As I mentioned in the talk, set the job schedules so that commercial
   flagging and any other job you may want to run doesn't happen during
   prime-sitting-in-the-room-time.  Not only will the disks start making
   more noise but the CPU will be burning away, making the case hotter,
   making the fans come on higher, ...  If you delay jobs until 1AM this
   goes away to when no one notices.

-- 
Wes Hardaker                                     
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