We are the number one store when it comes to Quiet HTPCs . Our objective is to build HTPCs based around three core components. They have to be: Powerful, Quiet and Stylish.

A bit of history behind this...

We love Home Theatre systems. When we looked at HTPCs in the market there was always a compromise. If it was powerful it was noisy, if it was silent it was ugly...and so on.

We build HTPCs without compromising on power, style and silence. However, this has meant that we have had to use some of best and quietest components in the market. In short, we realised the ideal machine comes at a price. Our HTPCs are often quite a bit more expensive than some of our competitors – that's only because of the quality components that goes in them.

We believe our HTPCs are extremely good value for money, especially when you consider what goes inside. If you want a silent HTPC that makes next to no noise then you have come to the right place.

This is how we built the ultimate quiet HTPC that is also powerful. Please note, we have only included the most important details here.

 

Case Sound Proofing

The first thing we do is insure the case absorbs as much internal noise as possible. We have often found that the nice looking well built cases are not always the quiet ones. So, we do a little bit of tinkering of our own.

We buy and use Acousti AcoustiPack Deluxe (v2) SE acoustic material kit. It's essentially a pack of sticky-back foam used to line the panels of the HTPC case. It comes in pre-cut packs for a small number of cases, but mostly we cut custom shapes and attach them to the case to make it absorb noise, as you can see in picture. The deluxe pack comes with two foam blocks that we insert into the 5.25-inch optical drive bays to reduce noise further.

 

 

Case Fans

We replace the 80mm fans that come standard with most Media Centre PC cases with quietest fans available in the market. We replace the two front fans and the two back fans with AcoustiFan DustPROOF 80mm fan, which comes with resistors to reduce the speed. We also turn the fans right down to 5v, which quietens them down further. We do this using a special adapter.

 

 

Power Supply

The oft-forgotten power supply unit (PSU) is a major contributor to PC noise. Most have one or even two fans whirring constantly inside them. The more powerful the PSU, the more cooling it requires, and the more noise it generates. You can buy PSUs that are specially designed to run quietly.

Particular brands are known for quality and silence, in particular Xilence range. Take in mind good PSUs are likely to be more expensive, but they come with the dual benefits of being quiet and much more reliable. Stable power means a stable machine. If your hardware has ever been a little bit flaky, there's a good chance a cheap PSU is at fault.

We use the Xilence 600W XP600-FL Semi-Fanless Power Supply. One of quietest PSU available on the market. Xilence have broken the mould with their newest power supply. The XP600.FL Semi-Fanless PSU is different to their early PSUs in two major ways. Firstly the new PSU is semi-fanless, which means the fan will only switch on when the internal temperature of the PSU reaches its threshold of 85° and this will only be achieved if you are using most of the 600 watts. Finally, the other Xilence PSUs we stock use a large 120mm fan, the new Semi-Fanless PSU uses a 70mm fan. If you manage to get the fan to switch on, you will still be hard pressed to hear it, because it is that quiet!

 

 

Processors and Fans

The biggest culprit of noise pollution is the heatsink and fan that cools a PC's central processing unit (CPU). Most computers ship with the standard heatsink designed by either Intel or AMD. These are designed to provide optimum cooling, but noise reduction isn't their forte. We use the Mini Ninja Heatpipe CPU Cooler. It is one of the most efficient heatsinks available for standard sized Media Centre PC cases.

The Ninja represents the holy grail of a quiet computer because it can be an entirely passive heatsink or with a fan at low speed. So from a noise point of view it is near silent. It manages this through its clever arrangement of a multiple-layer fin design, combined with no less than six heatpipes. Because of this, it is one of the most efficient heatsinks.

 

 

Graphics Card

Graphics Card and Noise – The graphics card is a major contributor of PC noise, arguably more so than the CPU. This is because they usually ship with tiny fans that whir incessantly. We use MSI NX8500GT Graphics Card which is passively cooled and based around Nvdia's 8500GT GPU. The standard cooling fan has been replaced with a fanless heatsink, so it's completely silent. Heat is dissipated over a set of heatpipes instead. The card concentrates on a feature of Nvidia's G8x architecture – Pure Video technology. It support for decrypting HD video and HDTV output, and HDMI.

If you decide to upgrade from the default Graphics Card we will install a Quiet VGA Cooler for the Graphics Card to keep it quiet. So, if you chose the ATi Radeon HD 3850 we would remove the standard fans/coller that comes with that Graphics Card and install a suitable Quiet Cooler like the Zalman VF1000-LED Quad Heatpipe VGA Cooler.

 

 

Hard Drives

There are no fans in hard drives or optical drives, but they do contain a load of moving parts that can make a racket. Whereas some drives are designed for high capacity, others, such as the WD WD1000FYPS 1000GB SATA-II GreenPower Hard Drive are designed for quietness.

To take out or minimise Hard Disk noise we use a minimum of two Hard Disks on most Media Centre PCs. We use a Samsum 250GB 2.5” Hard Disks (made for laptops) as the primary - where the Operating System is loaded. Laptop hard disks are always quieter than the normal 3.5” Hard Disks.

We believe Media Centre PCs should have plenty of storage, so if you required 3,000 GB (3TB)of disk space we would give you or use one 2.5” 250 GB HD and three 3.5” 1000 GB HD. In total you would get 3,250 GB Dis Space. The Operating System would be loaded onto the 2.5” drive. This would be the disk that would be spinning the most - every time information is retrieved from the Operating System. The 2.5” HD is ultra quiet, on top it sits within a HD silencer – which means that you should get next to no HD noise.

 

Sound Deadening Cases

Sound Deadening Cases – A silencer shrouds the disk except for the rear ports, which are still accessible. The enclosure acts as an enormous heatsink that channels heat away from the disk. They also come with a set of rubber mountings on either side, which absorb the vibrations of the disk drive. We place the 2.5” HD in a Scythe Quiet Drive 2.5 Internal HDD Silencer , which makes any 2.5" hard drive virtually silent. To give you plenty of storage space we use 3.5” 1,000 GB (1TB) GreenPower Hard Drive (3.5” HD allows a lot more capacity as the main storage). Currently the quietest hard drive on the market!

 

 

As you can see we build extremely quiet HTPCs – and we do it well. We spend about £550 per machine on silencing components alone. The table below will give you an idea what some of the silent components (excluding standard components) cost. This is based on an average ultra quiet HTPC like the Moneual Moncaso 932 series.

 

Component	Cost per Unit	Quantity per HTPC	Total Cost
Acousti AcoustiFan: DustPROOF 80mm fan	£15.98	4	£63.92
Acousti AcoustiPack Deluxe	£24.98	1	£24.98
Xilence 600W XP600-FL Semi-Fanless PSU	£119.99	1	£119.99
Scythe Mini Ninja Heatpipe CPU Cooler	£32.00	1	£32.00
Zalman VF1000-LED Quad Heatpipe VGA Cooler	£29.97	1	£29.97
WD WD1000FYPS 1000GB SATA-II GreenPower Hard Drive	£145.00	1	£145.00
Samsung Spinpoint HM250JI 250GB	£98.62	1	£98.62
Quiet Drive 3.5" Internal HD Silencer	£29.99	1	£29.99
Total			£544.47