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Hi
I'm currently thinking about making myself a standalone FTP server.
The main problem I'm trying to get around is the noise. I can't
afford to get all special quiet add ons so was thinking of getting an
old 486 and sticking it in the cupboard.
It's asking for trouble to place any system in an enclosed area. You
didn't make clear that the cupboard is enclosed, but thought I'd go ahead
and mention it.
Today the choices for quiet systems, providing you don't use something
post-Athlon era, are many. Today's dirt-cheap low-end socket A coolers,
when paired with a very low RPM fan (whether it be a different than stock
fan or on a fan controller, an adapter to reduce voltage or 7 or 5V, or
whatever the method) can be an inaudible way to cool anything socket 7 or
370, up to a Tualatin 1.5GHz... it is not necessary to go with such an old
system that due to it's age the reliability is questionable, the
performance quite low (including network performance, drive performance
and size support, memory capacity, etc, etc). IMHO, the sweet spot for
such a system would be a Pentium 3 700, in a Via 694X motherboard. It
gives modern enough support for fast networking, over a GB of memory,
ATA66 to 100, and some have 48LBA support for large drives, plus USB, AGP
Universal slot, etc. Alternatively there's the Via Eden and similar
platforms, also low heat and many need no heatsink fan.
- From my memory the 486 had no computer fan apart from the power
supply and so should be quieter. As the 486 BIOS will not accept a
80 Gig harddrive I'm looking at getting a USB 2 PCI card and using an
external case for it.
Quiet isn't necessarily about number of fans, but how fast you run each
fan and the type of fan. For example, a Panaflo L1A (in whichever size
the application calls for) is very quiet to start with but certainly
inaudbile at 7V. A simple, low-part count system that doesn't use a lot
of power, create a lot of heat, can also have a Panaflo fan used in the
power supply. In other words, a Tualatin 1.5GHz (or other Via, or
Coppermine based Intel Celeron or P3) based system with an undervolted
Panaflo on the heatsink and another Panaflo in the power supply, can
easily be quieter than a 486 box with only the original fan in the power
supply.
486 boxes do not have PCI 2.1 support for USB2 cards, the performance
should be incredibly poor if it works at all. The external enclosuer, if
providing adequate cooling for the drive, may also create a significant
amount of noise. Given that the system will be on, presumably 24/7, the
long-term effects of high temp might be more pronounced, or rather, the
lifespan limitation from elevated temps is sooner reached. IMHO, the last
part you want to fail is the hard drive unless you're also making regular
backups, which of course you should but it doesn't always happen as we
see time and time again from various posts.
Any one got any experience on installing a PCI USB card on a 486
computer? Someone has mentioned to me that a lot of 486 used an old
version of the PCI format and so USB 2 card maynot work???
LOL, I should read ahead more often.
I do have a spare AMD 850 but its noisy as hell and I do not want to
leave my quiet laptop on all the time.
Most any box can be quiet enough to be inaudible providing you start out
with something creating only modest heat, use medium to large CPU
heatsink, low-powered video card, and the right fans.
Other good candidates for low noise:
K6-2 or -3 underclocked (& undervolted if possible)
Celeron 300-400, PII-400, Celeron 900 (Tualatin), Celeron 533-800
(Coppermine)
Integrated Video
ATI Rage Pro Video (doesn't even need a heatsink on GPU).
Liquid-bearing hard drives
IMHO, your target platform should be at least new enough to support AGP
video... even if you don't want/need AGP video, that is a time when OTHER
features like PCI support, UATA, USB, larger memory support, etc, were
implemented and matured enough to be viable.... even if you did end up
adding a USB2 or PCI ATA card. Also keep in mind that with ACPI OS
support the CPU will run pretty cool, the peak power and heat radiation as
per manufacturer specs will be greatly reduced while CPU is sitting idle,
as it would be over 90% of the time. A Celeron 566 would not need a fan
on the heatsink at all in this 90% idle situation, for example, but it
would be good to put the very low RPM fan on the 'sink just in case a
problem arose, like an OS error that puts CPU in a busy loop.
