Fanless HD-PLEX Music Server

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  • cosmindaniel12
    Junior Member
    • Sep 2010
    • 16

    Fanless HD-PLEX Music Server

    Hello guys,

    I built a fanless media server/player, and I am very impressed of the result, so I thought I'll share it with you.

    I used the following components:

    HD-Plex H5S fanless pc case
    Magic Power 80W Fanless Open Frame Power Supply
    Asus P8H67-I Motherboard
    Intel Pentium G850 CPU
    4GB DDR3 Kingston Memory
    Asus Xonar STX Sound Card
    Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB hard drive.

    The hard drive will be replaced soon by a 3TB Caviar Green and a Samsung 840 Pro SSD.

    So the story is like this: I tried about 8-10 "silent" PC-HTPC cases. I was never really satisfied with the results, I was too cheap to buy a fanless case to start with, so I ended up spending more money changing various cases, coolers and fans, than I would have if I would have just bought a fanless case from the start.
    I got fairly decent results with an Antec Fusion Remote and a Scythe Ninja Mini, with 2 Noctua Fans. The case was, however, too deep and pretty tall. I replaced it with a Silverstone GD05. Better cooling, as silent as the Antec, and a depth of only 32cm. But still not silent enough...
    Than I tried going smaller, with a mITX motherboard, and various cases/coolers combinations. I think the worst case was the Thermaltake Element Q. Impossible to turn into a silent case!
    I finally decided to buy a fanless case. I checked out the offers, and the best ones I could find and suited my taste/needs were the HDPlex H5S and the Streacom FC5 WS. The Streacom is a copy of the HD-Plex case, is only offered with a PicoPSU power supply, while the HD-Plex is offered either with a PicoPSU, or an internal fanless PSU. The cooling also seems better on the HD-Plex case. Plus the HD-Plex case, with the fanless PSU, IR sensor and remote, a PCI-Ex X1 flexible riser and shipping, costs a bit less than the Streacom "naked". And the Streacom has thinner panels, and a thinner faceplate (10mm vs 15mm, and the HD-Plex weights as much as a Streacom and a half). So HD-Plex it was.
    I placed the order, and the case arrived in pristine condition. Delivery took a bit longer than expected, because I asked for longer heatpipes, to suit my motherboard better (on the mITX motherboards, the CPU socket is closer to the PCI-Ex slot -so farther away from the case walls- than on a regular mATX motherboard). The case was double boxed, very well packed, with accesories in separate small boxes. The package contained every screw I could possibly need, an Allen Wrench, Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste, and a "tool" to apply the thermal paste with.
    The assembly took longer than expected (about 3 hours!), because it's a bit different than a standard PC case. I needed to use a file on the 3 pin plug of the PSU, since it wouldn't get into the socket, but beside that small issue, everything was fairly easy.
    I must say the case looks and feels as a very high quality product. It's built completely out of aluminium, the front panel is a solid lump, 15mm thick, the side radiators seem to be built from a single piece of aluminium (vs 2 on the Streacom), and the top, bottom, and rear panels are BY FAR the thickest panels I have ever seen in a computer case. The CPU cooler base is a really solid, hefty lump of cooper, very well machined, with an aluminium top with fins. 6 6mm heatpipes go from the CPU block to the side panel, in unpainted grooves.
    The open frame fanless PSU just oozes quality! It was designed to power medical equipment, and has a 130.000 hours MTBF!
    I started the PC and I couldn't believe how silent it is. I can barely hear my noisy HDD, while in other cases, sometimes it was louder than the fans! I guess the solid bottom panel and the excelent silicone grommets really do their job!
    The CPU goes to 62 Celsius after 2-3 hours of Prime, the side panel on which the PSU is mounted barely gets warm, and the CPU side panel gets pretty hot. In regular use, the CPU stays about 20-25 degrees above the ambient (I usually get 42-45 Celsius). The PC is really stable, I have never experienced any crash. So the PSU is up to the task, altough my Xonar STX needs quite a bit of power, especially at the start.
    A couple of assembly tips: start the assembly with the front USB port mounting (it's difficult to mount it after you put the motherboard in), and make sure you tight the cpu cooler screws evenly, for optimal contact.
    Anyway, I am really satisfied with the case and the PSU, and I really recommend them. I am placing some phone pictures, but they really don't do the case justice. You can find beeter pictures on their website:
    HDPLEX H5.S Fanless Computer Case - HDPLEX INC





    Last edited by cosmindaniel12; 21 March 2013, 04:47 Thursday.
  • Kevin P
    Member
    • Aug 2000
    • 10809

    #2
    Nice case! With a SSD it could be completely silent.

    62C seems a tad high to me, but I guess that's par for the course when going fanless, and that took 3 hours of maxing things out to get it that warm. I wonder how it'll do in the summer heat.

    What OS/software are you running on it?

    Comment

    • aud19
      Twin Moderator Emeritus
      • Aug 2003
      • 16706

      #3
      Nice work!

      Love fan-less/low noise stuff. I can never bring myself to go completely fan-less myself. Always have to have at least one quiet 120mm case fan just to avoid the issues Kevin referred to but I admire the efforts!
      Jason

      Comment

      • cosmindaniel12
        Junior Member
        • Sep 2010
        • 16

        #4
        The sistem is running Windows 7, with no front-end software. I like using my PC as a PC.
        I'm not worried about the summer. In normal use, the CPU has about 45C. And the A/C will keep the ambiental temp low enough not to be an issue.

        Comment

        • wkhanna
          Grumpy Old Super Moderator Emeritus
          • Jan 2006
          • 5673

          #5
          V nice looking unit!
          What playback / management software are you using?
          _


          Bill

          Practicing Curmudgeon & Audio Snob
          ....just an "ON" switch, Please!

          FinleyAudio

          Comment

          • PewterTA
            Moderator
            • Nov 2004
            • 2901

            #6
            I have an audiophile-centered Win8 .iso if you'd like to use it on that thing. It's Win8 stripped down to the bare essentials and optimized for JRiver & Foobar on it. Of course it's a regular release of win8, so you'd need to get a license after the few days of demoing. Also JRiver is in demo mode and would need a license for that as well. If you hook this up to a touch screen or use a tablet to access it then you can use it just the way Win8 was meant to be used.

            If you'd like it, it's out there on bittorrents, but 'hidden' and I can send you the tracker for it. Like I said, this isn't a pirated/hacked copy of the OS, nor software on it. Just a modified version of windows the guys over at computeraudiophile put together. I have not installed it yet and used it. But I'm thinking about doing it here soon and moving my foobar custom setup over to it.

            From what I've gathered, people said it's getting very good reviews for the sound quality of this thing with any unnecessary processes removed. Only down side is the wireless services have all been shut off, so it's made for being a wired PC. Of course once can just change the services needed...but from the sounds of it there was some sound quality degredation when enabled, so it's all been disabled.
            Digital Audio makes me Happy.
            -Dan

            Comment

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