[mythtv-users] Dual tuner mini-itx system

Paul Andreassen paulx at andreassen.com.au
Mon Sep 25 01:44:15 UTC 2006


On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 02:32 pm, Chad wrote:
> Yeah should be fine, be sure you get a case/PSU with enough watts to
> carry that.  I had a system (I believe with one of the 90w PSU's) that
> would occasionally have a hard time cold booting the card everytime.
> A couple of resets were necessary when it failed to cold boot the
> card.

I couldn't boot after putting in a new 400GB hard drive in with a DVB-T card 
because my 90w external brick power supply couldn't handle it.  Worked ok 
with a 120GB.

On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 07:39 am, Ron wrote:
> On 24/09/06  "Owen Berry" <owen.berry at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm also thinking that one of these more powerful CPU's will require
> > more cooling, resulting in more fan noise. Maybe I am wrong though.
>
> As far as I am aware all EPIA fan-cooled boards come with the same nasty,
> overly loud (25dB) fan - if you want a really quiet system the first thing
> to do is junk the original CPU fan and buy a nice quiet one. I got a SilenX
> 60mm fan with a 60-->40mm adaptor and it's _much_ quieter. I have a
> diskless SP1300 running front/backend with mysql on the boot/nfs server. I
> have two tuners: a PVR 150 and a DVB-T USB stick and have no problems with
> CPU load. The PVR 150 uses about 9-10% CPU when recording.

To help reduce noise I oiled the cpu fan and attached a 47 Ohm 1 Watt
resistor to red connector of cpu fan.  Fan 12V .09A 6300rpm now with
8.9 Volts across 5120rpm.  My case has two 4cm extractor fans which reduce the 
risk of overheating.

On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 02:00 am, Owen Berry wrote:
> On 9/24/06, Chad <masterclc at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It shouldn't be a problem.  I'm surprised that your going for such an
> > > old model Via board.  They have new ones with dual cores and other good
> > > features. It has been suggest on this list that more recent version can
> > > do high definition.  That of course means using the vga port and not
> > > the s-video/composite.
> > >
> > > Paul
> >
> > ~$140 USD For the above board versus a semi-newer CN400-based at ~$210
> > USD or a ~$350 CN700.
> >
> > So, assuming the OP doesn't have the extra ~$70-$200 to throw around,
> > that's one reason I can think of especially because there is no
> > need/desire for HDTV (and waiting until they get other HDTV hardware
> > makes sense so that todays existing HDTV capable systems will then be
> > cheap and have their bugs worked out) according to their post.
> >
> > -Chad
>
> Money *is* a consideration, but I would rather have a system that
> works well. The main reasons I'm looking at the M10000 is that I have
> seen accounts of other people successfully using it, as well as
> assuming that the software support should be pretty good by now.
>
> I'm also thinking that one of these more powerful CPU's will require
> more cooling, resulting in more fan noise. Maybe I am wrong though.
>
> Thanks for the input. I'd be grateful for any more.

VIA have been putting out fast models with fans and slower version without 
fans based on the same generation of cpu.  The more recent version use 
smaller transistors sizes which reduces the heat.

I'd have a good look at there range and what support OpenChrome has before 
buying.  Better, fanless and maybe both are available for a few bucks more.  
$210 is cheap for HD now and saves replace the whole system later.

Anyway your choice,
Paul
-- 


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