Well, at the beginning of the week I finally got sick of my 200MHz server dragging along, and ordered a shiny new Mini-ITX system. It's a fairly standard Jetway JNC92 1.6GHz Hyperthreaded Intel Atom 230, with the 3xGbE expansion card (so has 4x Gigabit Ethernet ports), 2GB of RAM, a pair of 500GB Seagate hard drives (and a pair of 400GB externals if I run out of space), all mushed together in a T-Win 1U rackmount case (photos here -- http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=33, and specs here -- http://www.twinipc.com/ProductDetail...ref=RAC-1E-R02).
It does, however, have a problem: it's noisy. Very, very noisy. Noisy enough that you have to shout over the top of it...
I narrowed the noise down to the PSU fan, and swapped the existing cheap-junk 10cfm 12V 40x40x20mm fan with a Sunon Maglev fan. This has brought the noise down a little, but not enough that you can sleep in the same room while the server is on... Moving the machine into another room isn't an option -- all the network cables terminate upstairs, and rerouting them would be somewhat difficult.
The best idea I've had thus far is to install some form of temperature-controller on the PSU fan, and limit its speed while the PSU is relatively cool, ramping it up when the PSU is under load. This, of course, involves finding a speed controller that is capable of running off a single 12V supply, and is also small enough to squash into the PSU casing...
Unless, of course, anyone knows of a quiet, reasonably efficient (the 180W FSC that LinITX are selling ranks at 63% peak efficiency... sorry, no) 1U power supply, or any way to make one of these servers a little (or preferably a lot) quieter?
Thanks,
Phil.