Changing PVR setup

[big3b69]

I saw this on tigerdirect.com:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...E=WEM1628C

The reason that I am thinking of getting this is with my current setup the CPU gets up to 60 on hot days, which from what I understand, AMD Athlons run hotter and as it is I shut the system off at night. The problem is when I go on vacation it needs to run all the time. It looks like my graphics card and tuner cards will work, but is it worth the money? Maybe I should first try and modify my case to get more air to the system, like cut a hole in the side panel and add a screen and possibly another fan?

Any thoughts?
Matt B.

[Captcol]

With my media centre i put an after market cooler on for about $50NZ and that solved alot of my heat problems, especially when i rotated it to blow the hot air out of one of the side holes.

I still want to add another fan on to push more room temperature air into the case, I figure it will find its way out on its own, but "silent" fans aren't that expensive.

120mm fans are quieter for the amount of air they move - lower rpm (typically quieter I mean)

Another thing could be to check there is enough room around the computer for it to "breath" 1 system I had the computer was too close to the wall so the warm air from the psu was getting sucked back into the computer.

[fluffykeith]

A decent cooler will be more effective than a different box.
However, the new AM2 processors do run a lot cooler than the older ones. I have the low power version with a large heat pipe cooler and the fan on it is redundent.
In terms of cost effective, a cooler is first choice followed by more efficient processor. Maybe you already came to that conclusion and a new processor doesn't fit you MB hence a new system.

Be careful with the "silent" fans - they often don't push as much air. So a bigger size is better. PSU with 120mm fan is good too.

[Deusxmachina]

If memory serves, and also from a quick look around the internet just now, 60C isn't that big a deal for that CPU anyway. 85 is its burn point. If it hasn't already errored or shut off by itself or something at some point while that hot, then I wouldn't worry about it.

So many people say chips are too hot if they're over some ridiculously-low temperature. If you want to worry about it, though, just get a fancy heatsink/fan for the CPU and make sure the case fans are up to snuff. Most people don't need more than one fan in the front of the case to pull air in and one fan in the back to push air out. If you take the side of the case off and the temp drops more than, say, five degrees, you definitely need better fan flow.

[big3b69]

One thing I was also thinking about was the case itself. I do have a fan in the front, pulling in, and a fan in the back, pushing out. It seams to me that there needs to be more holes in the front to draw more air in. I have had this case for about 8-10 years so an update might be the answer. I might buy a media center case or find an old, non-working stereo and convert it to a case. I have been wanting a different case anyway, something that will look nice near the tv. Thanks everyone.
Matt B.

[gazoo]

Since you guys are on this heat topic, what is a "safe" hard drive temp range? I've seen 46C on my NAS drives while their spun up, and about the same on my HTPC. Are these OK?

The only reason I ask is because about 2-3 years ago I had a series of hard drive failures that I incorrectly attributed to the Western Digital brand when in fact it was heat related. I had two drives about 2 inches apart from each other above each other in a tower. The top one was the C: drive and it kept dying until I put an HD cooler between them. I guess the heat from the bottom one was flowing up to the top one.

[pBS]

yea, 46c is too hot for a hard drive...while it will run, it will severely shorten it's life...plus heat up everything else in the system...

those tiny hd cooler fans are the bomb,now i use them as much as possible, and not a single failure in 4 years...nice thing is they work even with bad case airflow...

all my drives are now room temp. or cool to the touch...and can't even hear them...

best 7$ insurance plan ever!

oh and i usually have to enlarge the holes up front on cases, they tend to cover the holes so tight that dust clogs instantly...
plus used drier sheets are great dust filters..

[Pob]

I saw this on tigerdirect.com:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...E=WEM1628C

I would go for the new hardware - looks a good deal.
I had exactly the same issues you are having with my Athlon XP2600 system. Over the years I spent a lot of money trying to make it quieter and cooler - A Zalman replacement GPU cooler, a Speeze 80mm CPU cooler, a new PSU with 120mm fan, and new case 120mm case fans (I had to modify the case with a Black & Decker to install them!). But although less noisy it is still distracting, and there is no way you could sleep with it on.
So just yesterday I took delivery of new hardware not too dissimilar to the Tiger deal - an AM2 MATX mobo, new MATX case, HD, Athlon X2 5600 CPU and an Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 cooler. I cannot believe how much quieter the new kit is! I have to look to see if the fans are spinning, to see if it is still on!
I would check the CPU specs - the newer Athlon X2 cpu's are 65nm & 65w, so they run cooler. Paired with the AMD cool 'n quiet feature on the AM2 boards, which adjusts the fan speed according to the temp, they make an ideal HTPC.
So don't throw money on your old kit like I did - get the new stuff!
Pob

[Captcol]

strange that is is sold without a cooling fan on the cpu ...

anyways ...

At the end of the day it comes down to how much money you want to spend. looking closer at the mobo specs it says it has a agp slot which doesn't sound right for an am2 board ... opps its not a am2 board

AGP Support
The K8M800 Micro provides one 8X AGP slot. AGP 8x (AGP 3.0) the new generation VGA interface specification, this platform delivers enhanced graphics performance with high bandwidth speed up to 2.12GB/s. Allowing users to have a more realistic graphics experiences while gaming or movie watching.


...

There are lots of media centre style motherboards out there now that feature on board vga that is capable of all the flash stuff. My next upgrade will look something like this

am2 processor - 5200+ or above
am2 mobo - onboard hdmi capable of 1080p
2gig ddr2 800 generic ram
more hdd space

or I will swap the mobo for a mobo with pci-e and use a 9600gt as i have a big lcd tv that I won so hdmi is where it is at for me.

Hope that helps in some way, another thing I didn't consider is how comfortable you are at physically putting a pc together

[Flipper]

With a single 120mm case fan (running on low so you can barely hear it even with your ear next to it), the power supply's built-in fan, and a fanless cpu cooler, mine quietly runs below 30. At idle, CPU temp drops to 20, which is room temperature these days. Having a low-power processor (45w for mine), built-in graphics, and a well-vented case works wonders. Specs in sig.