I have always bought my computers from dell, hp, and apple. But now I find my self down a computer because of a crash. And with a few old desk tops lying around I was wondering if it would be easy enough for me to update one of the older dell xps machines??? I've never opened a computer up but like most people on this board I'm willing to try anything. I would like to use what i can from the old computer. I presume I will need to update the Motherboard, RAM, Hard drive, and chipset. Is this feasible? I would like to build a low power machine that will be left on all the time. Does anyone know of a good place to start to learn how to build and what parts to use for a low power draw machine?
Want to build a low power computer..
- Thread starter phenix
- Start date
Depending on how much processing power you need, an Atom Based system might be the way to go:
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/boxd94...CFQOcFQodsErqAw
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/boxd94...CFQOcFQodsErqAw
Ya I noticed that all the low power pcs use the atom. I just want to be able to run CQC on it. I will have my storage for media on a separate NAS type device.
Say I were to use that board how do I know what is compatible with it? I would like to use SSD for stability. How do you chose a power supply?
Hey phenix:
I just built a miniITX with a board we just released. Check out the specs here:
D945GSEJT
This board is ultra low profile, gigabit lan, wireless PCI slot for an Intel Wifi Card, two onboard serial port headers, passively cooled for near silent operation, and even has an integrated 12V DC power jack so no power supply needed. It has it's own! I installed it in a Morex 5677 wall mount chassis. As for solid state, its accepts one without issue. I'm using the Intel 32GB SSD which is all I need since I use it strictly for CQC.
Runs CQC like a champ. Good luck!
Jay Adkins
I just built a miniITX with a board we just released. Check out the specs here:
D945GSEJT
This board is ultra low profile, gigabit lan, wireless PCI slot for an Intel Wifi Card, two onboard serial port headers, passively cooled for near silent operation, and even has an integrated 12V DC power jack so no power supply needed. It has it's own! I installed it in a Morex 5677 wall mount chassis. As for solid state, its accepts one without issue. I'm using the Intel 32GB SSD which is all I need since I use it strictly for CQC.
Runs CQC like a champ. Good luck!
Jay Adkins
If you are looking at an Atom system, you should consider the ION platform. Both Jetway and Zotac have mini-ITX boards out with the chipset. The ION has much better video performance than the Intel based Atoms with no impact on power consumption. The Jetway has a MB with the integrated power jack, which is pretty cool.
AutomatedOutlet
Senior Member
I've normally found it cheaper to buy a new computer than updating all of the parts.......
roussell
Active Member
My "new" HA computer is a HP t5720 thin client that came with XP Embedded. I removed the 1Gb flash drive and replaced it with a 60GB ide laptop drive and installed XP Pro.
t5720 1GB Ram, 1GHz Processor, 1GB flash card with XPE -- $120 from ebay
6 inch female to female 44 pin cable (the MB header for the drive is male) - $6 for 2 from ebay
60 GB drive waiting in the parts bin -- Free
So, about $126 'cause I already had the drive and I've got a quite wall-mountable small PC that does everything I need. It has Housebot, Winamp, and a few c# programs running on it full time and also has Sun VirtualBox running a virtual Linux server for a ssh/OpenVPN entrypoint and a few python scripts along with an apache server and a MYSQL database. I use remote desktop to manage the XP box and the virtual Linux (when it's running a GUI). VirtualBox has an option to manage it virtual guests through an RDP interface just like Windows.
Even with all of that running I am only using a little over 512 MB of the ram. The Kill-a-watt show 17-19 watts of power usage. I will eventually move to a SSD drive once th4e prices come down a little more or when I can catch a good sale, but the laptop drive is servicing my needs now and is virtually silent.
Terry
t5720 1GB Ram, 1GHz Processor, 1GB flash card with XPE -- $120 from ebay
6 inch female to female 44 pin cable (the MB header for the drive is male) - $6 for 2 from ebay
60 GB drive waiting in the parts bin -- Free
So, about $126 'cause I already had the drive and I've got a quite wall-mountable small PC that does everything I need. It has Housebot, Winamp, and a few c# programs running on it full time and also has Sun VirtualBox running a virtual Linux server for a ssh/OpenVPN entrypoint and a few python scripts along with an apache server and a MYSQL database. I use remote desktop to manage the XP box and the virtual Linux (when it's running a GUI). VirtualBox has an option to manage it virtual guests through an RDP interface just like Windows.
Even with all of that running I am only using a little over 512 MB of the ram. The Kill-a-watt show 17-19 watts of power usage. I will eventually move to a SSD drive once th4e prices come down a little more or when I can catch a good sale, but the laptop drive is servicing my needs now and is virtually silent.
Terry
I'm more or less in the same line, attempting to build a relatively low power and relatively silent home server. However, I want it to have space for growth (physically and in terms of performance). I also want hardware support for virtualization as I might want to avoid building another server unless absolutely necessary. This rules out the Atom processor (and its tiny motherboards). Actually, the hardware virtualization requirement rules out almost all the low power options, including Sempron and VIA. And, as I have read, there does not seem to be too much difference in performance per watt (except probably for the C2D and i5 processors, but those have a poor power per dollar). In other words, the low power processes use more or less the same energy as many bigger processors would it use at a similar clock rate).
For cost reasons I'm looking at AMD. Specifically the newer Athlon II X2 series (240, 245 and 250). These are 65W processors, but the 45W Athlon 64 X2 5050e processors are too difficult to find. I'm thinking about pairing it with an ATX motherboard supporting over/underclocking. The ATX form factor is because I want freedom to expand in the future (extra NIC, USB3.0, SATA, Voip adapter, serial, tuner, etc).
So for now it will be only a headless NAS and internet gateway running Linux (CentOS) but it the future it could by anything. My idea is to undervoltage/underclock the CPU as most as possible and increase the power as needed in the future.
As for motherboards, I'm discarding server versions because they usually are too expensinve, and because I"m not aware of them supporting extreme underclocking. I want durability, and all the temperature sensors/fan controls on the HTPC, to be able to rev down the fan when max speed is not necessary. I hate the extreme fan noise, but fanless is not an option with these components. For durability I'm looking to motherboards featuring all solid capacitors.
As of now, I have closed into these ATX motherboards supporting the 785 chipset. I'm discarding the 790 chipset because it the graphics core run at 700MHz (and the 785 runs at 500MHz), in addition to the higher price. These are the boards:
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO
GIGABYTE GA-MA785G-UD3H
ASRock M3A785GXH/128M
In term of feastures, the boards are very similar. Gigabyte is $10 cheaper. Other factors that are important to me are Linux friendliness (drivers, support), general support accessibility (fast bios/firmware updates, warranty), community support (many forums to make questions, like this one), and general product quality.
The Gigabyte is $10 cheaper, and the ASRock does not seem to have so much community (only 2 reviews in Newegg). Is there any other reason to select one of these cards vs. the others? Do you have any other recommendation on how to achieve my objective of a relatively low power server with space for growth?
For cost reasons I'm looking at AMD. Specifically the newer Athlon II X2 series (240, 245 and 250). These are 65W processors, but the 45W Athlon 64 X2 5050e processors are too difficult to find. I'm thinking about pairing it with an ATX motherboard supporting over/underclocking. The ATX form factor is because I want freedom to expand in the future (extra NIC, USB3.0, SATA, Voip adapter, serial, tuner, etc).
So for now it will be only a headless NAS and internet gateway running Linux (CentOS) but it the future it could by anything. My idea is to undervoltage/underclock the CPU as most as possible and increase the power as needed in the future.
As for motherboards, I'm discarding server versions because they usually are too expensinve, and because I"m not aware of them supporting extreme underclocking. I want durability, and all the temperature sensors/fan controls on the HTPC, to be able to rev down the fan when max speed is not necessary. I hate the extreme fan noise, but fanless is not an option with these components. For durability I'm looking to motherboards featuring all solid capacitors.
As of now, I have closed into these ATX motherboards supporting the 785 chipset. I'm discarding the 790 chipset because it the graphics core run at 700MHz (and the 785 runs at 500MHz), in addition to the higher price. These are the boards:
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO
GIGABYTE GA-MA785G-UD3H
ASRock M3A785GXH/128M
In term of feastures, the boards are very similar. Gigabyte is $10 cheaper. Other factors that are important to me are Linux friendliness (drivers, support), general support accessibility (fast bios/firmware updates, warranty), community support (many forums to make questions, like this one), and general product quality.
The Gigabyte is $10 cheaper, and the ASRock does not seem to have so much community (only 2 reviews in Newegg). Is there any other reason to select one of these cards vs. the others? Do you have any other recommendation on how to achieve my objective of a relatively low power server with space for growth?
What's your thoughts on the mino monitor???
