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Equipment Needed:
- Thermaltake CLP0527 92mm CPU Cooler – $43.89
- Seagate Momentus 250GB 2.5” Drive – $40.60
- picoPSU-150-XT + 102W Adapter Power Kit – $84.96
- Four Beers (Optional as always)
The total for this upgrade was $169.45 and that includes 9.75% California tax!
Check out the selection of PICO sized parts at Mini-Box.com. They have some really cool parts for not too much dough! They even have touchscreens in the CAR PC section!
The parts are all new, high quality and were bought on sale.
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I had to take the whole HTPC apart since the new cooling solution connected from behind the motherboard.
Goodbye loud PSU. No idea if I will ever have a reason to reuse you. Bummer.
The new cooling solution is rated at less than 20 dB. I also had to find a cooler with a height that was low enough to fit in the HTPC case.
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To the junkyard for you. Goodbye Intel fan. I always hated those cheap plastic parts. Really Intel? Is that the best you can do?
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Pretty copper. One line of thermal paste, not an X. Old dogs can be taught new tricks.
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The only installation requirement for the PICO-type PSU (laptop brick) was to drill a hole in the case so the DC-Jack would be secure.
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I bought this grating mesh at home Depot for $9. It comes in a 25 foot roll so I have enough to either do this 149 more times or enough to finally cover up the attic vent holes.
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I just traced over the hole with a Sharpie and then used aviation snips to cut it.
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Two hard drive screws worked perfect to holding the mesh in place. I had to remove the top one later when I put the case top back on. I would use flat head screws next time.
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The new Seagate laptop drive bolts to the top of the mounting bracket. It uses about 1/3 of the wattage of the recycled server 3.5” drive I had in the HTPC before.
Nice upgrade Tim, thanks.
TIM – I'm really missing the "Let's set this pig on fire". BTW, good move on listing the sleeping wife lower than Dave McCabe's voice.
DVN pointed out that I'm louder than a dishwasher 🙁
i love those pico psu 1 have a couple of them already they help alot.
my next pico psu will be going into my HP EX470 what do you think? good idea
What wattage draw do you get from your EX470? I would only suggest changing PSUs if you had one that was bad. Or of course you wanted to just play! 😉
i forget, i would have to throw the killa watt on it again.
The pico i like using is the 150 with the 150 block.
i changed the factory psu once already, it died after the first year.
but in the name of (DRP) i might just give it a try 🙂
I would think that the Pico type PSU would be a viable alternative to finding a replacement PSU on the EX series. I am not sure if you could remove the old PSU, as it seems integrated into the mounting on the EX series. I guess you could just unplug it and leave it under the mobo. I would also see if the 150 rating is the actual output of the Pico.
Tim – a few useful – official Sound references (IT) you may wish to review :
http://silent.se/iso-9296.php
When we had our PCs tested the (very official) results were staggering :
ISO7779 (clause 6.10) LWA = 27.3
A weighted Power Level
This converts to approx 13.5dB @ 1M The sound pressure @ 1M
(Domestic 'sound meters' tend to start to work around >30dBA – so are useless in the sound zone we work in – an interesting point – when I attended some of the chamber tests, it was not only weird but painful, as the test chambers are near zero dBA – that means your ear drums actually move 'out' as typically they are always 'under ambient pressure) – causing pain (so much for silence is golden)
Measuring sound is always going to difficult outside of ETL. We have a complete Acoustic Noise Test Procedure where I work. While I am not an engineer, I do appreciate all of the work that goes into testing the equipment. They pump down with gas and calibrate the consoles and microphones with amazing accuracy to the microbar level. The little cheapie meter I bought was just to try out and I was not even being consistent with the measured distance. Did I mention the beverages?
I am surprised they let you in the chamber during testing (must be different testing of course) but I bet it was cool to feel complete silence!
so much for hearing ringing in my ears
haha