Asus Terminator users please respond

[Rhy]

Asus Terminator users please respond

[Rhy]

Hi there!

I was totally all into Shuttle Barebones lately, having 2xSV24, SS40, SS50 and at the end of this week SS51.

But I get sick of tweaking the boxes for lower noise levels while Shuttle should have done that themselves (no offence Odie!). I'm especially referring to the SV24/SV25 series. I use those things as Linux servers and they just have to be silent! That brings me to what I would like to know ... noiselevel of Asus Terminator barebone. I've read the noiselevels are lower.

Should I go for a Tualatin Terminator or the K7 Terminator? Let me rephrase ... is there any reason, performance and price wise to go for a Tualatin? Is the Tualatin quiter than the K7 cause of lower temps and therefore lesser cooling?

[ansalmo]

I've responded on the noise issue on the thread here.

I was looking for 2 things other than the size reduction - a reduction in noise and a reduction in heat production compared with my existing server.  The Tualatin seemed to fit the bill for me better than the Athlon/Duron since it has around half the power consumption and still has a relatively good performance.  Also, the Tualatin Terminator was much cheaper for me to buy than the K7 version (a saving of around 30 ukp).

I guess that the main noise difference between the Tualatin and K7 varieties will be down to the choice of CPU fan, and be aware here that there's not a huge amount of room above the CPU (around 6cm at a guess), and there are capacitors close to the socket.  This isn't so much of a problem with the Tualatin as it can probably get away with a smaller hs/fan than the Athlon due to its lower power consumption.

All IMHO of course.

[Bitgod]

I have an older version of the ASUS Terminator, the pre-Tualatin version, and it's nice and quiet.  I needed another small and quiet system and just got a sv24 yesterday, I have to say I'm pretty bummed out.  Not quiet at all, and I'm not in the mood to go modding stuff.  At this point I might not keep it, might go hunting for another Terminator.

[Stokles]

I think the Tualatin Terminator would be the way to go. I have built all three. I have found, because the intel fan is so quiet that the tualatin term. is the best for all around quietness. It does get loud when the 80 mm ( I think thats the size) spins up. Why wouldn't you go with the P4 terminator?  

[ansalmo]

Just measured mine - it's a 90mm case fan.  Thought it looked bigger than the usual 80mm ones.

[ansalmo]

<< I think the Tualatin Terminator would be the way to go. I have built all three. I have found, because the intel fan is so quiet that the tualatin term. is the best for all around quietness. It does get loud when the 80 mm ( I think thats the size) spins up. Why wouldn't you go with the P4 terminator? >>



Stokles, what temperatures are you getting in the BIOS on the Tualatin Terminator?

[Stokles]

Sorry Anselmo, we sold out of those a long time ago. I dont know what the temps are.

[Rhy]

*bump*

I'm building my Terminator K7 right now as replacement for my totally 7V modded SV24. And the noise is terrible ... using Coolermaster 6j11c for CPU cooling and standard 90x90mm fan. Even when I mod those to 7V as well I don't think I'll get a lower noiselevel than the SV24.

Am I doing something wrong?!

[Odie]

Not so easy, is it? =P

The fact of the matter is that we use the slowest and quietest fans possible to assure sufficient cooling and reliability. The SS51's exhaust/heat pipe fan, for example, must supply at least 40CFM at full speed, use double ball bearings for reliability, and make less than 35DBA of noise. You'll find that the Sunon we used is the only 80mm fan that fits this requirement.

You can always put in a slower fan, but remember we have to design for the worst case scenario, 3GHz P4's and ATI 9700's, etc.

[adrianhall]

I've got a Tualatin Termi, temps for mobo & CPU n the mid 40's, HDD low-mid 30's.  I've reversed the rear fan so it blows in and I use Speedfan to take the edge off the Intel fan on my Celery 1.3.  The machine is pretty quiet - it's in the front room next to the telly and my wife would let me know if it wasn't

[therainmaker]

I have a K7 Terminator. It is slightly noisier than my SS51G but not too much noisier.

[Rhy]

<< I have a K7 Terminator. It is slightly noisier than my SS51G but not too much noisier. >>



what kind of CPU cooler do you use?


Oh and Odie ... I do not agree with your/shuttle's decision to take Sunon fans. You should have use Panaflo or Pabst. Or wasn't that possible?

[Odie]

There is no Pabst or Panflo 80mm fan that uses ball bearings, capable of supplying 40CFM.

Most Pabst/Panflo fans are sleave bearing, which is much less reliable and would create a large failure problem.

[ansalmo]

In my Tualatin Terminator, I'm using a Globalwin CBK58 cooler.  Uber-quiet.  I believe it's compatible with socket-A too, so you could use it in the K7 Terminator.  And I have to say that my Termi is far quieter than my SS51G.

[Rhy]

hmm ok then I said nothing Odie And Vantec?

k7 might be quieter than ss51. But I need something to sleep next to
Modding the SV24 takes a lot of time and I was under the impression the K7 non-modded was supposed to be quieter. How wrong I was ... anyway those assumptions are based on testlab (at work) testing. I still need to get the K7 to my bedroom

[ansalmo]

Rhy, is the Terminator main fan on full or low?  It's quite noisy when it spins up to full speed, but quiet otherwise.  If your CPU and system temperatures are too high, it'll always run in "noisy mode".

My Termi is comparable in noise to the SGI Indy that sits next to it, and that's nearly silent.

What you guys fail to remember, and I mean you "it has to be silent" guys, is that not everyone CARES as much as you do...  So should Shuttle go through the trouble of making ALL boxes so silent?  Heck no...  YOU are the ones wanting the silence, so YOU should have to mod it a little to get it, besides, "silent" is purely subjective unless you're talking about 100% lack of ANY noise, pure silence...  What's "silent" or "noisy" to you, may not be the same to me or to the next guy...  Don't get me wrong, there's no anger here and I'm not really tryin to bust balls, I just get so tired of hearing so many people not only whining about the "noise", but bashing Shuttle for "not doing anything about it".  As the old saying goes:

You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time...

Or something like that =)

[Rhy]

No the issue at stake here is that Shuttle with every new barebone release listened to it's customers. They really did a great job with that EXCEPT for the noise issue involved.  The fans in the Shuttle XPC barebones haven't changed over the last 3-4. Yet we all know the noise issue can be improved bigtime.
We -- as diehard/ tweaking Shuttle XPC freaks -- just want some proof why Shuttle did what. And Odie mostly provides that curiousity with great answers.

And you do sound a little frustrated to me which is OK though, cause I've got that a lot too lately concerning all the crazy topics

Yet this topic was actually about the Asus Terminator and modding it to be quiet. Modding is a quest, not an out-of-box feature  

[Nake]

Among the other PC's in my house, I've got an Asus Tualatin Terminator -- I LOVE IT!

It's small and has the two external 5 1/4" drive bays that the Shuttle SFF's lack.

Too bad I don't have the P4 version of it...  The Tualatin Terminator is, well, a little old right now...

But it's quiet. I'd recommend it in a heart-beat.  I use it for VPN access to my office and for all of the development tools I need to do the things that they give me a paycheck for...

[ansalmo]

Well said, Pinthea.

I wish though that Asus would bring out a P4 version with an AGP slot - that would be my desktop machine sorted then, as well as my server.