[mythtvnz] Quiet Frontend?

[Andrew Ruthven]

Gidday,

On Mon, 2006-04-24 at 22:13 +1200, Toby Mills wrote:
> >Does anyone have advice on building a quiet frontend?
> 
> Put your noisy beast out in your garage as your backend and buy a shiny new
> shuttle and use it as your frontend...
> http://www.ascent.co.nz/search.aspx?T1=shuttle&D1=All+Categories

I know people who have had ... issues with Shuttles.  Also consider that
the motherboard is a funny shape so if it fails you need to buy another
shuttle motherboard or throw out the case.

> It doesn't need much horsepower as your box in the garage will do all the
> grunter work.
> 
> Minimal noise and nice size.
> There are other home brew cases around that might cost a bit more but look
> just like a component in your av system but they probably won't be much
> quieter than a shuttle.
> 
> Even better, boot over the network from your backend to make your frontend
> diskless.

I have a seperate frontent and backend system.  The backend is a noisy
old PIII sitting in the study with the encoders in it and is pretty
boring.

The frontend is much more interesting.  I'm using an Via Epia 1GHz
machine which has mostly done the job (the latest Debian modular X.org
upgrade has caused some issues though).

I've taken an old CD player, gutted it and shoved the motherboard and a
DVD ROM in there.  No HDD, as I'm using network boot.  Warning: My
motherboard has issues with network booting about 1 in 5 times and needs
to power reset to boot correctly.

I'm using a DC-DC power brick and a 120mm fan in the top of the case for
cooling.  It looks the part in the stereo cabinet and when the fan speed
is turned down is super quiet.  However, my fan seems a bit dodgy and
has a bit of a habit of stalling at low speeds.  When the motherboard
overheats all sorts of funny things happen to the video output!  I think
I need to drill some ventilation holes in the side of the case - I think
there are issues with air flow.

I can put some pictures of what the box looks like (including part of
the building phase) if people are interested.

Cheers!

-- 
Andrew Ruthven
Wellington, New Zealand
At home: andrew@etc.gen.nz       |  This space intentionally
                                 |        left blank.