PC far far away = no noise

[ed^chigliak]

This is all I need on my desk

- USB hub
- monitor
- keyboard & mouse
- optical drive
- speakers
- PC on/off and reset buttons

Instead of trying to build a quiet PC how far away can I put it?

Far far away = no noise (not even in the same room)
Up close and personal = high noise

It's a simple theory and potentially very cheap. If I can do 5m then I'm going to move it under the stairs.

How far can you run a DVI monitor signal?

Do you think the PC on/off and reset will still work at 5m?

I'm fairly sure the USB will be OK and I may go BT wireless on the keyboard and mouse.

[Defiant]

hmmm lets see...

- USB hub -
(Get a 7 port USB2 one)
- monitor -
(5m DVI cable)
- keyboard & mouse -
(MS Elites are nice and they are usb with shut down buttons)
- optical drive -
(Usb2 drive casing with a nice DVDRW in it)
- speakers -
(USB? or you can get a 3.5mm jack and extend the cables)
- PC on/off and reset buttons -
(On keyboard)

[Spunkey]

5m USB cables are silly money. Basically the USB signal needs boosting every few metres so any extension lead needs a box of tricks to amplify the signal.
heres the one Maplin sells, but its £20

if you're any good with electronics its not to hard to knock up a momentary switch with some two core wire, shouldnt be much more than a quid all in.

[yamangman]

Most (newer) motherboards have a power on by keyboard feature.

[turkster]

You could use a Firewire Optical drive as Firewire can be used with 4.5m cables and even longer (10m AFAIK) in some cases .

In fact you could probably get some kind of Firewire USB hub (I think some external HDDs come with this) to plug all your peripherals into.

[Mblaster]

Far far away = no noise (not even in the same room)
Up close and personal = high noise

Also, if i could extend the cables by about 20-30m then i could put it in my garage far away and in the cold air

Also i think i remember hearing somewhere that you can use ethernet cables to carry USB over long distances, but i may be wrong

[ajbrun]

Most (newer) motherboards have a power on by keyboard feature.

I'm just curious - I don't want my PC far away or anything, but the only PC I've ever seen a keyboard power on feature with is a 10+ year old macintosh. What button might it be to press? I've not seen anything like this in my mobo manual, so does mine do it (see sig)?

[turkster]

I'm just curious - I don't want my PC far away or anything, but the only PC I've ever seen a keyboard power on feature with is a 10+ year old macintosh. What button might it be to press? I've not seen anything like this in my mobo manual, so does mine do it (see sig)?

Check the bios settings . That's where my settings for keyboard on are.

[Mblaster]

I have it on mine (Abit AV8), take a look though your BIOS it's probably in there somewhere.

Also, i found something to extend the USB cables up to 50m, far from cheap though, £89 for a two port version :O

[Thorsson]

Must also be WiFi and Bluetooth solutions, neater but rather expensive.

[ajbrun]

Check the bios settings . That's where my settings for keyboard on are.

I couldn't find any mention of the word "keyboard" or similar in the BIOS at all. It's not a problem - just wanted to know .

[yamangman]

I've seen and heard of many motherboards that have it, but the 3 i've used were an old Epox KT166 motherboard, the Leadtek K7NCR18D series (PRO-II) and the Asus A7N8XE-Deluxe. They all allow various combination of keys to be pressed.

[unrealrocks]

USB has around 3 meter limit, monitor cables can be extremely long although the quality will degrade as distance increases, especially when its at a high resolution and/or high refresh rate - you'll start to see ghosting and the colours won't be as vibrant.

The ammount of boosters and cable extenders your going to buy you could afford a decent quiet fan cooler (£30), Zalman heatsink for your graphics card (£20) and 7V your case fans ... all done

[Mblaster]

The only reason i would do it is for high performance cooling without the noise, but your probably better of getting some kind of phase change cooling if your going to be moving it a long way, it'll probably cost you over £200 for all the cabling etc.

[ed^chigliak]

The amount of money I would save each time I upgrade by not using quiet components makes me smile just thinking about it. Quiet PC components are expensive and silent PC components are insanely expensive.

Compare the price of graphics cards with heatpipe cooling vs stock cooling. thermaltake? volcano vs thermalright XP120. Evercool? fans vs silenx. CWT PSU vs antec fanless. No fan bus. No vibration decouplers for the HDDs. No sound proofing materials.

I don't mind having a play around with some cables. The PC's a hobby of sorts and everyone knows hobbies are all about spending large amounts of money on stupid stuff. I think that pretty much justifies the cost.

Edit: I just found this...
5m USB2.0 active extension cable £12
http://kryton.clickandbuild.com/cnb/...dCategoryID=24

[Kumagoro]

What happens if you use a USB cable without a regenerator over 3 metres then? does the bandwidth just tail off or does it stop working? like FM radio below 32.6 dB or whatever