Rated: 98.33% (12 votes)
Loading ...Building a Small Low Powered Machine, part 4
plingboot
The soft focus glamour shot
Finished. It powered up silently except for the Seagate ST3200822A drive which has a tendency to noisily send the heads for a wander around if sat idle for too long. I later discovered this was it’s own cooling mechanism, clever but still a very annoying click click click, clack clack clacking noise - My dreams of a completely silent PC dashed! And with them any hopes of beautiful serene nights in - dinner for two if you like… with the PC in a dress - now gone as the PC effectively farted every 5 minutes without fail.
As I’d lost the complete silence I was aiming for with the project (and as I’d forgot to drill any air holes into the case) I thought I might as well play it safe and… add a fan! I know, I know, this would totally ruin my kudos winning ‘fan-less PC’ concept. But what the hell, if I kept it quiet enough I could always lie.
The slower the fan the quieter it’d run, so wiring an old 486 cpu fan up to the +5 and +12v points of the molex power connector I could run it at 7v, less than the recommended 12 but I wanted even slower. Connecting to a 5v supply and with a couple of diodes in series to push it even lower, I could run it almost silently.
I installed Ubuntu, surely the Ikea of all distros, it was a painless install working first time without any problems. I’m using it headless as a web server, file server, a general torrent downloads machine, connected to the hi-fi to play mp3s and occasionally hooking up to a TV to play the odd DivX (Epia5000 board only just about manages this). As it’s low power, I feel happy leaving it on for weeks on end downloading podcasts and other bits and pieces. The LCD, powered by LCD4Linux, now shows the date/ time, current upload/download rate and the latest downloaded podcast thanks to a home-made plugin (details of which may be posted sometime in the future)
It’s been running for months now without any problems and has pride of place under the TV in the living room. I’ve since drilled a few air holes in the base to help with air flow and now that the PC is busy doing its thing the noisy click click clicking when idle has stopped. I’ve added a LIRC remote which allows me to select and scroll through my collection of mp3s via the LCD screen.
Parts List
VIA EPIA 5000
512MB RAM
200GB Seagate Barracuda ST3200822A
60W PSU
Blue / White HD44780 LCD
Blue LED - Maplin
Port Extender - Maplin
Hi there - nice looking mod, and well written too. Can you drop me a line? We’d be up for featuring it in Reader’s Drives in the mag! Cheers, Alex (alex [at] custompc [DOT] co [DOT] uk)
must admit this mod is what i come on this site for
well made and well constructed and nicly written with some funny bits too!
well done and i do hope this is featured in the mag 
Nice mod, i hope to make something along these lines when i have some spare cash (as if).
Id just like to say - if you connected a fan between the -5v and +12v connectors that would give a potential difference of 17v (12 - (-5) = 17), and would probably burn out the fan rather than slowing it down… not to mention making it sound like a jet engine. If you wired it between +5 and +12 it would give you a 7v output.
Also why use diodes to slow the fan down, surely a resistor is a lot more effective…
Great mod tho, hope to se it in the mag.
Thanks Rowan, a silly mistake, fixed now.
Won’t be in the mag as I decided I was far too camera shy.
As for resistors, that ohm’s law scares me. I remember thinking it was easier to just stick diodes in for a 0.7v? drop on each. Although I’m probably wrong.
About to start a new mod soon, watch this space!
This is terrific - I just posted on the forum to see if anyone had any ideas about this sort of thing and here is the finished article! Do you think you could have got a micro atx board in there or was it tight enough already!
Cheers,
That box is 21cm wide so think a micro atx would’ve been a bit too big for it.
The 17×17 mini was a bit of a tight fit but looking back I’m sure I could’ve saved some space if I’d moved the psu and drive about.
Your right about the .7v drop across a diode. Ohms law isn’t that scary, there are much worse ones you have to remember for physics and maths A levels :(.
I calculated for my system that i needed a 220 ohm resistor to take a 120mm fan down to 7v from 12v.
Do you know about how much power the system actually draws? I’m interested in making a low power computer as a server…
I haven’t actually measured it but the board is supposed to take around 10w and a bit less when idle. The LCD next to nothing I presume, HDD around 30w? And there’s nothing else in it. Doesn’t seem all that low, I could’ve got it lower with a laptop drive maybe? but compared to my 500w desktop machine it’s tiny amount. The epia 5000 I used is quite an old board, maybe the newer mobos are more efficient.
I think the Hard drive will take less than 30w - i just calculated it for an old 40gb western digital hard drive and that (if im right) draws a maximum of 13w.
Sure beats my gaming computer that drinks about 450w when overclocked and at 100% load.
You’re right, 13w for the hdd. Just checked the seagate site. Dunno where I plucked 30w from, think it might’ve been one of those web based psu calculators, rubbish.