Looking at the archives I noticed a few people have (or had!) a MSI MS-6215. I'm curious as to whether you have found the performance adequate (I have a 1 GHz PIII) and noise level satisfactory. How can noise be reduced? (I am not very hardwarily inclined) Is it possible somehow to soft-off the machine and wake it up at a pre-determined time with linvdr or another package - the BIOS appears to support.
I noticed that a few people have removed their floppy drives. Is this due to heat problems with mounting a HD in the intended position above the CPU? If there is no problem can anyone suggest where I can obtain the HD bracket since I got my barebones machine without one.
Has anyone tried making the power supply external to minimise heat?
Finally, does anyone have any good ideas to minimise dust entry to the machine other than putting the machine inside a cabinet.
Thanks for any help,
Andrew
On Wed, 23 Mar 2005, xzzyx@hotmail.com () wrote:
somehow to soft-off the machine and wake it up at a pre-determined time with linvdr or another package - the BIOS appears to support.
yes, it is possible. With nvram-wakeup, for example.
Since I had this MSI box as I started writing nvram-wakeup, it should work without extra configuration files.
Homepage: http://sf.net/projects/nvram-wakeup
c ya Sergei
xzzyx@hotmail.com a écrit :
Looking at the archives I noticed a few people have (or had!) a MSI MS-6215. I'm curious as to whether you have found the performance adequate (I have a 1 GHz PIII) and noise level satisfactory. How can noise be reduced? (I am not very hardwarily inclined)
I have an MSI case the generation before this one, and didn't ever reduced it's noise. It is really awful. What I would suggest : * external power supply (the fan inside the PS might be really noisy) : search for DC-DC converters with AC-DC power blocks (meant for Via EPIA motherboards, but should be powerful enought for your PIII). The DC-DC converter has a high efficiency, thus low heat output, and the power bloc is external to the case * get the biggest heatsink as possible for your processor, and underclock it (cf. www.silentpcreview.com) * get out everything that is not needed (floppy, cables, etc.) to maximize airflow You can go farther if you can cut metal sheets...
Has anyone tried making the power supply external to minimise heat?
The heat sources are the processor, the HDD and the DVB card (more if it is a full-featured one). The noise sources are the power supply (because this is the only one to the air out of the case) and the heatsink on th processor. The bigger the fans, the better. The slower the fans, the better. Thus try to fit 8cm fans with a resistance in series to reduce speed (cf. www.silentpcreview.com)
Finally, does anyone have any good ideas to minimise dust entry to the machine other than putting the machine inside a cabinet.
Minimize fan speed -> minimize heat generation -> underclock the processor and take great care about the HDD you choose (rule of thumb : the lower the power requirements of the HDD, the lower the heat + the lower the rotational speed of the HDD, the lower the heat)
Thanks for any help,
Starting from a case like this one, you will have a lot of work to make it silent enough. The cabinet sould help !
Andrew
xzzyx@hotmail.com 23.03.05 20:29
Looking at the archives I noticed a few people have (or had!) a MSI MS-6215. I'm curious as to whether you have found the performance adequate (I have a 1 GHz PIII) and noise level satisfactory.
Upto the last hot summer i had a Celeron 1GHz in such a box.
Maybe i reduced the fan speed too much, but that summer (2004) the CPU died. (or the heat conductive was not good) That that time a new coppermine CPU was hard to get and should cost almost 100 Euro! Newer, faster but cheaper CPU did not fit into teh V1.0 board, and needed a lot more power.
OTH i found that the case is too small to be silently ventitlated. So i decided to buy a cheap asockboard+AMDduron and underclock it.
The powerdispation was disappointing high: 70W(!) or ober 100W (@ nom.freq and 4 FF-DVB-S boards) The MSI had 40W IIRC. That makes per years approx 50 Euro energy costs! (So the 99 Euro for the "low power" CPU would have been OK)
(Stupid: the 1GHZzis not really required, and i have a 700MHz Celeron in my office PC, already swapped once to check what's better. I assume the 700MHz would still live :-( )
How can noise be reduced? (I am not very hardwarily inclined)
Forget it. If you want a nice and silent box buy a CURRENT bare bone.
Is it possible somehow to soft-off the machine and wake it up at a pre-determined time with linvdr or another package - the BIOS appears to support.
Yes, no problem.
I noticed that a few people have removed their floppy drives. Is this due to heat problems with mounting a HD in the intended position above the CPU?
No. Why should i waste energy and money for the floppy which i NEVER need, as long as i can boot of CD?
Too you can't use 2 full size cards and the intended HD carrier. Simply place the HDD into the floppy frame. I think that's the main reason.
If there is no problem can anyone suggest where I can obtain the HD bracket since I got my barebones machine without one.
Has anyone tried making the power supply external to minimise heat?
No. the 90W power supply was suffiecient for the 40W power consumption. I wired the supply fan for 7V, but added further 40mm fans to cool the 2 Full Feature cards. The box got warm, but not hot. But maybe the CPU ran too hot or the heat compaund was not good (i could only find clear oily film above the CPU dye (and some smoke) and the white where all outside.)
BTW: The video out is crap! It's not usable to watch TV nor to configure the BIOS.
Finally, does anyone have any good ideas to minimise dust entry to the machine other than putting the machine inside a cabinet.
Stop smoking!