New to SFF - need help!

[Allen]

I'm looking to build an SFF pc for home entertainment and PVR functionality. Silence is therefore of utmost importance! Was looking at getting the SN45G and throwing in an Athlon 1.4 (Thunderbird I think) that I have spare, buying 256MB Corsair memory and a Samsung P-Series 160GB HDD.

As for graphics, should I get the Sapphire AIW 9000 "BEAST" AGP card (£113 from www.overclockers.co.uk) or go for a seperate PCI card like the Hauppage PVR-350 (£128 from www.dabs.xom)? Am not interested in 3D for this comp, will build up my main PC for gaming and such...

Am looking to spend no more than about £400-500 on this project. Monitor, keyboard and mouse are not needed.

Cheers!

[Russ]

if i were you i'd go for then sn41g2, as it has onboard gfx (8m-128m variable) so thats 1 less fan to worry about, altho the tv-out aint as good as you would find in an AIW card obviously, also pop to ultim8pc and grab the s4 case fan and the PSU fan they sell there to quieten it a bit.

[Bindibadgi]

If you want TRUE silence then youll want to avoid fans, therefore avoid shuttles.

If you want "common" silence, then just get a load of ultra quiet (sub 20dB) fans for it.

SK41G or SK43Gs are cheaper than the nforce alternative and cause ur not using it for games you dont need uber performance.

You can underclock and undervolt the Tbird cause those things were pretty bloody hot (85W peak iirc).
Personally i prefer the ATI cards for TVout, i find them easier to use and Rage3d provide good software for tweaking the rage theatre chipset. Rads are the best cards ive owned for TV out.

Ive nearly got a TRUE silent PC, all i have to get is this MC462 off a friend to replace the heatsink on my EPIA M10k and muffle my harddisk somehow. At the moment im using a 12dB Panaflo LA1 which is great.

[Allen]

Originally posted by Bindibadgi
If you want TRUE silence then youll want to avoid fans, therefore avoid shuttles.

Yeah, after reading through the forums I've read about the EPIA-M10000 Nehemiah which looks pretty good and could probably be ran on very little power and very quietly in a good looking small case like the Chyang Fun E-Note mini-iTX case on http://www.ultim8pc.co.uk/index.asp?...roducts&idd=2.

Only problem is, there's no AGP lot so I'd only be able to fit one PCI card in so it would have to be a PVR card like the one I mentioned above (Hauppage PVR-350). Does anyone have an HTPC system using the M10k? What's it like?

Also, what quiet DVD-ROM/DVD-RW drives are there, as I quite like the look of Sony's DRU-510a.

Thanks.

[Trickle]

If your Tbird isnt unlocked, you could consider running it at reduced buss speed (100fsb or less) and sticking something like the 12dB Panaflo LA fan on it that
Bindi mentions.

I'm about to buy a shuttle for the living room with the same intentions as yourself... I'm going to have to decide whether I want silence and clock my spare 1700+ only fast enough to play XVid or whether to have noise and have it encode TV on the fly without buying something like a Hauppage PVR-350 and using my existing TV in box.