I'm thinking of getting either a HP Prodesk 400 Mini (G5 or G6) or a Dell Optiplex Micro (3080 or 3070). Tiny little desktop machines with 9th or 10th generation lowish power intel 'T' series CPUs and an external power brick. I'll replace the stock fan with a passive cooler, and connect a USB DAC (probably also reinstall with linux).
Just wondering if anyone has tried these and found any issues (e.g. unusual amounts of electrical noise, or buzzing PSUs etc etc)?
Thanks,
Kev
Just wondering if anyone has tried these and found any issues (e.g. unusual amounts of electrical noise, or buzzing PSUs etc etc)?
Thanks,
Kev
Thanks, but yes; I was going to get a used one (there are quite a lot of these business machines sold off at attractive prices once they gain some age). I like their modest power requirements, because they're not difficult to cool passively, and yet they still use pretty capable processors.
I can highly recommend HP thin clients - like T620. Just add a larger SSD and install Linux. I had also CamillaDSP installed on it, but used it most of the time just in stereo. Other nice alternative is Intel NUC - it has a fan, but it is really silent. I have one ready to be used with CamillaDSP and Behringer UMC1820 for 4way stereo crossover, not a high priority at the moment, need to get some multichannel amps first.
I use an Elitedesk g2 800 as player atm. A bit noisy to my liking as is but hidden behind some acoustic obstacle it's ok. I run REW on it with a Soundcraft minidesk ( notepad5) as preamp for measurement duty and Audinate Dante to drive my dsp when used as a player ( stereo). Can use Dante to drive up to 8 chanel on my dsp and i'm thinking investing in 'hangloose convolver' to perform FIR on it and using the dsp as multichanel converters (with luxury eq as a bonus) only. Works nice.
I use a Dell Optiplex micro (3060) running ubuntu, connected to a USB DAC. Yes, there are occasional noises, and I can rectify these by cable placement.
I inject 5V from a linear power supply to the USB DAC card, as it is not designed to accept an external power source.
Not sure if you can replace the CPU fan in the Optiplex as the BIOS expects it in the POST. The fan is quite silent and barely audible when placed 3 feet away.
I inject 5V from a linear power supply to the USB DAC card, as it is not designed to accept an external power source.
Not sure if you can replace the CPU fan in the Optiplex as the BIOS expects it in the POST. The fan is quite silent and barely audible when placed 3 feet away.
HP thinclients work well. HP 610 Plus is particularly useful having PCIE slot for soundcards...mine runs an RME AIO and I use Ubuntu server + alsa-utils for ripping LPs.
Yes, it has a fan but it is inaudible and as it is only dual core and DDR3 I have set a Ram-drive to use memory for temporary storage and use Salas Linear power supply.
I have an HP 620 plus quad-core but these don't take full size PCIE cards.
Also have HP 630 quad-core with 24GB DDR4 ram. Lightning fast, USB out to DAC and no fan.
Latest is a Dell PC5000 fanless industrial server, Dual-core with 16GB DDR4 PCIE slot and runs very well.
All are run headless as dedicated players.
https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/
https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hp/
Yes, it has a fan but it is inaudible and as it is only dual core and DDR3 I have set a Ram-drive to use memory for temporary storage and use Salas Linear power supply.
I have an HP 620 plus quad-core but these don't take full size PCIE cards.
Also have HP 630 quad-core with 24GB DDR4 ram. Lightning fast, USB out to DAC and no fan.
Latest is a Dell PC5000 fanless industrial server, Dual-core with 16GB DDR4 PCIE slot and runs very well.
All are run headless as dedicated players.
https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/
https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hp/
Thanks for the thoughts everyone. Yes thin clients are another option I'm considering, but I wanted to explore a slightly higher performing alternative since it'll be used for modest general computing and web surfing too.
Though NUCs are probably comparable so thanks for that suggestion. Their mobile 'U' CPUs are also (of course) low power but aren't far behind on performance, plus they still have decent hardware codec support. They might have slightly more home-user friendly bios and more standard parts; some of the ex-corporate machines I've had in the past have had a few surprises in those respects.
Thanks again,
Kev
Though NUCs are probably comparable so thanks for that suggestion. Their mobile 'U' CPUs are also (of course) low power but aren't far behind on performance, plus they still have decent hardware codec support. They might have slightly more home-user friendly bios and more standard parts; some of the ex-corporate machines I've had in the past have had a few surprises in those respects.
Thanks again,
Kev
It might be worth looking at what is around with AMD processors. I wanted a new laptop for general use not for audio processing, I went for one that uses this processor
AMD Ryzen™ 7 5700U (up to 4.3 GHz max boost clock, 8 MB L3 cache, 8 cores, 16 threads)
All on a 45w PSU
Web performance reports? Not a fan but it doesn't do that bad on a £ basis and in real terms people don't know until they buy and use. They have done a range of processors but pass on what is around. I haven't used an AMD processor for rather a lot of years.
AMD Ryzen™ 7 5700U (up to 4.3 GHz max boost clock, 8 MB L3 cache, 8 cores, 16 threads)
All on a 45w PSU
Web performance reports? Not a fan but it doesn't do that bad on a £ basis and in real terms people don't know until they buy and use. They have done a range of processors but pass on what is around. I haven't used an AMD processor for rather a lot of years.
Well after a bit more research and pondering, I've decided to just build a passively cooled PC; probably based around a mini-ITX board. Simply because it offers the most flexibility for making what I would like. A fairly costly option obviously, but it should last many, many years to help offset that.
There are passive cases available for the NUC, but going that route seems reasonably expensive as well, and is usually more limited (e.g. to mobile CPUs etc). By comparison, the mini ex-corporate PCs (such as in the OP, with their low power desktop CPUs) seem better for performance and value, though still a bit harder to customise.
I think this means my plans have diverged. Instead of a compromise machine, I'm now more inclined to have a small 'normal' PC for general use, media playing, surfing etc. and an additional very low power cheap thin client (as pelanj and others have mentioned), for an 'always on' headless music server.
There are passive cases available for the NUC, but going that route seems reasonably expensive as well, and is usually more limited (e.g. to mobile CPUs etc). By comparison, the mini ex-corporate PCs (such as in the OP, with their low power desktop CPUs) seem better for performance and value, though still a bit harder to customise.
I think this means my plans have diverged. Instead of a compromise machine, I'm now more inclined to have a small 'normal' PC for general use, media playing, surfing etc. and an additional very low power cheap thin client (as pelanj and others have mentioned), for an 'always on' headless music server.
I use a Celeron N3150 based mini-itx motherboard @1.6 Ghz clock paired with a USB DAC and 2Tb SSD since many years. The power supply is a 12V 3A MeanWell. The passive cooling works well at this power level, the computer draws less power at idle than my home router. If you plan to use Windows, I suggest a passively cooled Intel Alder Lake based motherboard such as Asrock N100DC-ITX. I've already tried N95 and N100 processors as Windows productivity desktop machines, and they work just fine. The hdmi output is also very good. You can use it both as general computing PC and as audio/video playback device.
Good thinking.
"cheap thin client for an 'always on' headless music server" NAS.
Even a dual-core Passive cooled HP will do this easily. OpenMediaVault works very well and is easily installed and customised.
Only drawback with OMV is needing 2 drives, one for the OS and the other for the media.
I'd considered the NUC route but at the time couldn't justify the cost or the idea of leaving a pc running all day and felt my requirements for streaming and home pc weren't really compatible.
So I tried raspi2 found it to be acceptable and have been using raspi3 for music server and streaming duties without problems. Both sit tucked away in a corner, on 24x7, and have been happy with them for years. I've got another pi running Kodi/openelec for video.
Low power use, passively cooled. The server has a 2tb SSD on a usb port and runs minimserver, the streamer currently runs Moode into a schiit dac via a hat. If I want more streamers I've got a couple of spare pi I can use.
I control the streaming from my phone using bubbleupnp.
So I tried raspi2 found it to be acceptable and have been using raspi3 for music server and streaming duties without problems. Both sit tucked away in a corner, on 24x7, and have been happy with them for years. I've got another pi running Kodi/openelec for video.
Low power use, passively cooled. The server has a 2tb SSD on a usb port and runs minimserver, the streamer currently runs Moode into a schiit dac via a hat. If I want more streamers I've got a couple of spare pi I can use.
I control the streaming from my phone using bubbleupnp.