MythTV: The Quest For a Quiet PC

MythTV, if you follow the design principle, is best constructed with multiple machines. This separates your BackEnd (BE) server process from your FrontEnd (FE) server process and allows for the entire setup to be completely client/server based over a network.

Not sure of what I mean? Well, the idea is relatively simple:

  1. Set up one big, fat, noisy machine as your BackEnd. Allow for plenty of expandibility because, in the future, who know what you might want to have MythTV do. Also, because it is a BackEnd (BE), you don’t care too much about how it looks or how noisy the drives and fans are because this system will be stuffed in a corner or in a closet for no one to see or hear. (Be sure it is a place with adequate cooling, though!)
  2. Set up any number of sleek, pretty, and quiet machines throughout your house (with network access, of course) as you FrontEnd (FE) systems connected to some displays.

Now, nearly everyone who is playing around with their own Tivo-like homebrew setup is probably very familiar with the first machine (the BE). But, the other machine(s) (the FE) are a whole different ball game. Simple things can get expensive here, and the more silent you wish to have your FE, the more expensive it will get. People can go nuts over this (take a look at SilentPCReview.com), and for good reason: you don’t want a noisy machine ruining your viewing experience.

The real question that you have to ask yourself is: How quiet is quiet enough? And remember, Quiet is not equal to Silent. Silent is equal to very expensive. Quiet is equal to not as expensive. I can only go by my tastes, but I tried out a couple of different cases before I got to one that I felt was acceptable.

overtureii.jpgFirst, I bought the Antec Overture II case. It’s a nice looking case with a sharp Piano Black finish and is very quiet. However, right after I got it, I realized that it is just plain HUGE. It’s like taking a full-sized ATX case and laying it on its side. The airflow in the unit is awesome and it has bays for everything. Unfortunately, that is not what I wanted. I wanted a small system that would be, well, for all intents and purposes, nearly bare-bones. I mean, everything was going to be on the server, so I didn’t need something capable of holding terabytes of data at the frontend.

Ultra MicroFlyAfter selling that on eBay, I bought a smaller case off of TigerDirect.com. I picked up
an Ultra MicroFly case with a supposedly quiet 400Watt power supply. Now, when it comes to bargain stuff, I usually take the words “quiet” and “near silent” to be worthless marketing buzzword bingo. And, yes, this goes for the MicroFly. “Quiet” is a relative term, and, in MicroFly, “Quiet” can be defined as: Being less noisy than a tower system.

shuttle_sk21g.jpgBeing dissatisfied with this purchase, I sold it on ebay and tried out a Shuttle SK21G from Newegg.com. No, I wasn’t all that happy that the case was silver. I’m a “black-entertainment-center-equipment” type of person, but, I was somewhat tied to the AMD64 754 socket since I had two processors of that design laying around. I also wasn’t all that thrilled with getting a custom case with a custom motherboard, but I figured that if I didn’t like it, I could re-sell it on ebay, too.

However, after the quick assembly, the SilenX + ICE setup that the Shuttle has, the system is very quiet and cool.  The assembly process really isn’t much since the motherboard is already in place, but you still have to be careful and take your time.  I realized that the cabling was already run for 1 SATA device (a hard drive) and 1 IDE device (an optical drive).  Since I only had IDE drives, I was forced to use the IDE cable and not install an optical drive.  I figure that I won’t be using the system as a DVD player just yet anyhow.

With this case, there is no processor fan.   This case comes with what they call SilentX and ICE, which is really a water cooled system for the processor.  With that in mind, you have to figure that will impact the price of the system, but, when you compare it with comparable systems, you’re really not paying all that much more.  Because of the water cooled system, there is a large radiator at the back of the case (inside) which has a smart (variable speed) fan strategically placed to cool it off.

My main fear with a Shuttle system was that they would run much hotter than a normal system.  I quickly discovered that this was not the case since the processor ran around 37°C and the case fan speed hung around 950RPM.

The system’s physical size and overall looks made it ideal for my purposes.  It fits right in to most entertainment centers and can be easily hidden away.  It doesn’t pull much power, especially since I am using AMD’s Cool-n-Quiet technology with Fedora Core 64, which happily slows the clock speed down and speeds it back up on demand.  This translates in to the system running cooler, so the case fan runs slower, and, hence, quieter.  That coupled with the liquid cooling really makes this system comfortably quiet.

I’m satisfied with this case as a good choice for me.  It wasn’t until after I set the case up that I discovered that Shuttle has an ebay store where they sell refurbished units.  The cost of a refurbished unit was a lot lower than NewEgg‘s price on a new unit, and, since I don’t mind having a factory refurbished system, I bought my other two cases from them.

Keep in mind that the noise level of any given case is also directly dependent upon the other items in the case: hard drive, optical drive (not so much since it isn’t constantly running), and video card.  Because of the application I am using these systems for, I had to use nVidia cards, and I noticed the sound difference between my PNY 6200 with the bun-fan on it versus the fanless XFX 6200 I have.  I also noticed an immediate difference between an older hard drive that I had versus a new Hitachi DeskStar drive I just picked up (the Hitachi is dead quiet).

ebay: How do they “triple dip”, keep increasing charges, and still attract sellers?

In my inbox today, I had a nice little letter from Bill Cobb, President of eBay NA. In it, they listed another pricing increase (they did one about this time last year).

Fee Type Item Price New Fee Current Fee
Insertion Fee Starting Price:
$1.00 – $9.99
$0.40 $0.35
Final Value Fee Selling Price:
$25.01 – $1000.00
3.25% 3%

As you can see, the listing price increased by $0.05 for the lowest priced items. Percentage-wise, that’s huge: 5% for a $1 item. The kicker, however, is the final value fee increase of .25%. That $25 – $1000 range is their big money maker.. that’s the equivalent of increasing taxes on the middle class.

When I first started selling stuff on eBay back in 1999, I was surprised that such a horribly designed sight could have that much exposure. I was successful at selling off a lot of the older computer related equipment that I had collected over the years (due to my profession), but continually marveled at the problems with the site (poor support for non-IE browsers, frequent page-loading problems, etc) and their lack of impact on the site’s growth.

What really got under my skin was the fact that they “double-dipped” in the whole on-line auction business. And, for those unfamiliar with the selling side, I mean that they charge you once to list the item (this charge is based upon the starting price of the item) and then they charge you once the listing has sold (a percentage based upon the selling price of the item).

With that alone, they were raking in the money.

I specifically used Paypal from early on because it was not eBay’s Billpoint (or whatever it was called). What I mean is that it was another company.

Then eBay bought Paypal. eBay then invented the “triple dip”. They now not only charge you for the (1) listing of the item and (2) the sale of the item, but they now charge a percentage when you accept payment for the item. As a side note, eBay doesn’t really like other on-line method payment methods, either. For example, Google Checkout is not an approved payment method with ebay.

Anyhow, I am sure that you would think that it is totally insane, but they do it and people put up with it. Plainly, if you want to sell used items on the web, the place to do it is on eBay. That is where you get the most exposure.

eBay has a history of increasing their prices and really giving back absolutely nothing. I believe, in this case, that this is the 2nd year in a row that they have increased their pricing. The main result is that it prevents a lot of the small sellers from selling on eBay and it increases the fees paid by most of their selling community. What has also happened is that a lot of the small sellers have turned around and adjusted their listing pricing and shipping/handling pricing to compensate for the cut that eBay is taking.

You’ve seen it. You see an item listed for $4.99, which is an outright bargain, but when you look at the $15.95 shipping/handling costs, you think to your self “What a rip! That should only cost $4.95 to ship. They are definitely not reputable.”

Well, on the eBay forums, you find that there are a lot of complaints about this practice. In fact, they have a policy where, if they (ebay) feel that the shipping/handling is too high, they will cancel the listing and issue the seller a warning. Enough warnings, and the ban the seller entirely.

If you really look at the situation, it is entirely of eBay’s making. As they raise the prices.. as they nickel-n-dime the seller.. the more this situation will happen.

And it isn’t like the seller.. or anyone, for that matter.. is getting anything back for the increases in prices. Nothing.

The best thing for everyone would be some good competition. But, like the Ma Bell (AT&T) of the past, there just isn’t anyone else in the same ballpark. Like the cable companies, we’ll just be forced to continue to pay the pig. Man, and I haven’t even mentioned anything about the Paypal transaction fee increases…

Solaris 10 Tip: How To Change Your IP

Solaris 10 is an entirely different animal than any of the preceeding versions. So much comes pre-installed now making it a heck of a lot easier for an Admin go bounce from Linux to Solaris without having to consider what platform he/she is truly on.

One of the difficulties I recently encountered was changing the IP of an interface on Solaris 10. Now, this is usually not a difficult task, so I was surprised when a simple edit of /etc/hosts and /etc/nodename, and /etc/hostname.ipge0 didn’t have the normal impact upon rebooting.

After some digging around, it seems that Solaris 10 relies on /etc/inet/ipnodes rather than /etc/hosts. Yes, you should update both, but the important one for interface specifics is /etc/ipnodes.