Making a silent, tiny, diskless PC

January 7th, 2003  |  Published in hardware, linux  |  22 Comments

For a while I’ve wanted a home PC that I can leave on all the time without the noise bugging me – I’ve become quite sensitive to machine noise over years of working with computers. I’d use it to play MP3s off my network, then I’d think up other projects. It wouldn’t need a monitor or a keyboard. It would just sit attached to the network, appliance-style, in the manner of a slimp3 but with the flexibility of a full linux system. Now the off-the-shelf hardware I need to make such a thing is available.


The Via Eden ME6000 motherboard is full of integrated components (TV output, network, firewire, 5.1 sound with digital out, etc) and has a fairly powerful processor that needs no fan on its heatsink. Combined with a stick of memory and a Morex 55W fanless external power supply, and booted diskless off the network, this system has no moving parts.

The bits arrived yesterday and after a bit of setup I got it booting Debian off the network and playing its first MP3 by the end of the evening. It’s all-but-silent; the DC-DC converter makes a very slight high-pitched noise, a little like the noise a TV makes with the sound off. It’ll be easily muffled inside some sort of box. The motherboard makes no noise at all. Playing MP3s with mpg123 takes about 7% CPU according to top.

Here’s a picture:

Responses

  1. steve says:

    February 7th, 2003 at 10:08 am (#)

    Cool! can you run this off a battery? where did you get the DC-DC converter?

  2. Matt Biddulph says:

    February 7th, 2003 at 10:39 am (#)

    The DC-DC converter is part of the Morex 55W PSU kit from mini-itx.com – see the picture at http://www.mini-itx.com/store/images/psukitL.jpg

    I haven’t tried running it off a battery, but it should be possible. The laptop-style PSU brick outputs 12v so I presume the DC-DC passes that through directly while also stepping it down to 5v for the other power lines. From my basic knowledge of battery technology, I understand that 12v is a nice easy voltage to supply.

  3. Sreekanth says:

    March 14th, 2003 at 6:19 am (#)

    i need more info abt diskless linux pcs…kindly revert back

  4. Jeremy says:

    April 6th, 2003 at 9:53 pm (#)

    Where can I find one of these kits for less than $100?

  5. Jens Vetter says:

    April 14th, 2003 at 12:29 pm (#)

    Hi.

    I want to learn more about this linux mp3 player.

    what kind of configuration do you have?

    I would be very happy, if you could help me.

    Greetings,
    Jens Vetter.

  6. Lekan says:

    April 21st, 2003 at 2:31 pm (#)

    did u boot onto linux with pxe?

  7. Lekan says:

    April 21st, 2003 at 2:41 pm (#)

    Hi,

    How much did the VIA Eden ME6000 motherboard cost?

  8. JAMES says:

    April 28th, 2003 at 12:24 am (#)

    Alright Matt,

    Just wondering as I am building my own same sort of thing, except its matx. Going to build some sort of customised shell for it as the casing…Anyway to cut to the chase Can you tell me are you able to run a DVD player off the Morex 55watt?

    Most appreciated if you can give me an answer
    James

  9. ip address says:

    May 4th, 2003 at 8:56 am (#)

    ;)

  10. Carsten Otte says:

    May 7th, 2003 at 1:07 am (#)

    I’ve used the EPIA ME 6000 as an apliance, too. I built it into a Morex Cubid 2699 micro case along with a slime line dvd rom and a seagate barracuda 120G silent drive. I am still a little bit concerned about the heat inside the case but the system runs smooth with more than a month uptime now. I use ipcop on it, an internet-gateway with dhcp, proxy, vpn support, mldonkey client and such…

  11. x0r says:

    May 13th, 2003 at 11:47 am (#)

    James: I own an Epia 800, and the morex psu arent a match for a regular cdrom/dvdrom, but works fine with a slimline, as they use much less power.

    I run my Epia800 in a Cubid case, without cpufan (only the 1 cm passive cooller) and without casefan.

    This runs rocksolid, but the heatsink gets HOT when the cpu is used alot :)

    current uptime: 57 days

  12. postal code says:

    July 24th, 2003 at 2:39 pm (#)

    So quiet lately. More comment please.

  13. Brad says:

    September 23rd, 2003 at 7:15 am (#)

    Hi ..I dont have alot of knowlege about creating your own hardware…just wondering if anyone can recommend me to a forum or school…

  14. Brad says:

    September 23rd, 2003 at 7:25 am (#)

    Ive searched the internet and find thousands of links to crappy webpages,…dated bbs and forum posts…I would like to hear from someone who has been there…

  15. jins jose says:

    September 30th, 2003 at 7:49 am (#)

    thanikkonnum vere paniyille thayoly

  16. phliar says:

    November 21st, 2003 at 10:50 pm (#)

    Did you plug in an ethernet card with boot PROM into the PCI socket, or can the on-board ethernet controller boot off the network?

    And you write “… then I’d think up other projects.” How about a status report, almost a year later? Any cool projects?

  17. Matt Biddulph says:

    November 24th, 2003 at 5:19 pm (#)

    I used the builtin ethernet which is capable of PXE netbooting.

    I haven’t updated the information on this page because I fried the PSU for the board while moving flats. I’m hoping to get it up and running again before too long.

  18. phliar says:

    November 25th, 2003 at 3:14 am (#)

    I assume you used Peter Anvin’s PXELINUX package… did you have to set up a PXE server, or did DHCP/TFTP work?

    I’ve ordered the EPIA 5000 and PSU. I’ll let you know how it goes!

  19. Jens Vetter says:

    December 16th, 2003 at 9:20 am (#)

    Hi.

    I want to learn more about this linux mp3 player.

    what kind of configuration do you have?

    I would be very happy, if you could help me.

    Greetings,
    Jens Vetter.

  20. HGH says:

    December 17th, 2003 at 10:22 am (#)

    Thank you, I just wanted to give a greeting and tell you I like your website very much.

  21. jerry says:

    December 22nd, 2003 at 3:46 am (#)

    Alright Matt,

    Just wondering as I am building my own same sort of thing, except its matx. Going to build some sort of customised shell for it as the casing…Anyway to cut to the chase Can you tell me are you able to run a DVD player off the Morex 55watt?

    Most appreciated if you can give me an answer
    James

  22. Matt Biddulph says:

    December 22nd, 2003 at 11:12 am (#)

    The mini-itx online store has several slimline DVD drives at http://www.mini-itx.com/store/default.asp?c=5 which they recommend for use with the Morex Cubid 3677 and 3688 cases. I believe those cases use the 55W power supply.