Relocating the PC

[Chromatischism]

Can I suggest my alternative option, since it may help some users here.

If you need it to be out of the way, not seen, and certainly not heard.....
Why not use an older Wifi Router which supports OpenWRT or one of the many Thin Client PC's on eBay??


I actually have a Netgear WNDR3700 I never got rid of from many years ago which was given to me for free from my housemates at the time since something related to the Wifi stopped working and nobody could connect to it, but it worked fine wired and otherwise. This unit has a single USB 2.0 port; I use it to connect a bus powered DAC since probably 5 years now and run MPD on the OpenWRT OS.

You can use any MPD client to connect and control the device.

Simply turn off all radios in OpenWRT.

My music library is hosted via a USB SSD which is attached to my main router.

Very simple setup; the router shares the Music directory to the OpenWRT device, the OpenWRT device has this directory mounted to where MPD can see it, MPD cycles through my albums indefinitely as I've configured it to do and I can sign in from any browser or mobile phone app to change my song / album / settings.

Before OpenWRT was sophisticated with package management, it would have been a big pain to set this up. In those days I previously used a HP Thin Client, with some kind of Atom or Celeron CPU, which consumed a low amount of power, like 25-30W. But the Wifi Router with all radios disabled only consumes maybe 7W, and the DAC is not even consuming 100mA, and the SSD should not be consuming much power either so it's a very efficient setup.


With that said...
If you're the kind of person who needs this PC to be a desktop substitute, well obviously a repurposed wifi router isn't it. But if it needs to do music playback ONLY, and do so reliably and without noise or cooling, and you aren't scared of a little command line for setup, I think it's a great choice that is hard to beat in terms of efficiency, customization potential and reliability.

I've heard of this before. What is MPD?

It's an interesting solution, but it sounds more like a replacement for the NAS rather than a relocation of the PC.

 

[ZolaIII]

I've heard of this before. What is MPD?

It's an interesting solution, but it sounds more like a replacement for the NAS rather than a relocation of the PC.

Think he refers to Media Player Demon.
There are of course much better rooters today. Yesterday I read about Asus Tuf-ax5400 as a very interesting one regarding both fast USB and bridge mode for two Gbit ports for Nas that suport such and of course media server for both. It's very interesting for the price and this Brodcom SoC is on pair with Intel ones if not better, only 2.4 GHz band WiFi 4 performance whose a relative letdown.

 

[Chrise36]

Maybe a quiet rack could help like this from Tripp Lite:

 

[Chrise36]

I mean you can have one made if you cant find a cheap one

 

[Chromatischism]

Maybe a quiet rack could help like this from Tripp Lite:

View attachment 201309

Looks nice, but I can build a quiet PC the next upgrade cycle so while it's an issue now, it won't always be. The biggest issue with having the PC in the room is the added heat to the room. This is worth 1-3°F. When you add another 1-3°F for the home theater when in use, including bodies, it really adds up. I can't control the temperature of rooms independently with central air so I end up with a 1st floor at 70 degrees and a media room at 78, for example.

Moving the PC outside the room is the most obvious fix. Ideally it is still close enough that I can get HDMI to the AVR and Thunderbolt to my TB4 dock. Those will likely need to both be optical cables due to the distances.

This maintains all functionality of the system while solving heat and noise, and avoids network bottlenecks if I were to play very high bitrate video to the AVR. Instead of sending it over Wi-Fi to a rendering device, it's rendered by the PC and just played via HDMI. That's the holy grail.

 

[Digby]

Surely the plasma TV and other electronics are outputting much more heat than a low wattage PC. I'd be staggered if a PC added 3F to room temps, unless it is inside a literal cupboard.

What you have is a problem that doesn't look like it will be fixed by moving the PC out of the room.

 

[Chrise36]

Looks nice, but I can build a quiet PC the next upgrade cycle so while it's an issue now, it won't always be. The biggest issue with having the PC in the room is the added heat to the room. This is worth 1-3°F. When you add another 1-3°F for the home theater when in use, including bodies, it really adds up. I can't control the temperature of rooms independently with central air so I end up with a 1st floor at 70 degrees and a media room at 78, for example.

Moving the PC outside the room is the most obvious fix. Ideally it is still close enough that I can get HDMI to the AVR and Thunderbolt to my TB4 dock. Those will likely need to both be optical cables due to the distances.

This maintains all functionality of the system while solving heat and noise, and avoids network bottlenecks if I were to play very high bitrate video to the AVR. Instead of sending it over Wi-Fi to a rendering device, it's rendered by the PC and just played via HDMI. That's the holy grail.

Most of the heat should be absorbed in the case if you can't or don' t want to put an ac unit but i think the main problem is the plasma... My pioneer is acting like a heating unit.

 

[Chromatischism]

Most of the heat should be absorbed in the case if ycan't or don' t want to put an ac unit but i think the main problem is the plasma... My pioneer is acting like a heatingunit.you

It all contributes. Any electronic device is a heat source and 100% of it is dissipated to the room over time.

And yeah, the plasma is one of the sources as are the amplifiers in the AVR. Add in some bodies, and half way through the movie it's a few degrees warmer in the room.

 

[Chromatischism]

Surely the plasma TV and other electronics are outputting much more heat than a low wattage PC. I'd be staggered if a PC added 3F to room temps, unless it is inside a literal cupboard.

My numbers are accurate. I'm sitting here with both monitors on and it's about 3 degrees. When I'm not using the system and they are off, it's closer to 1.

What you have is a problem that doesn't look like it will be fixed by moving the PC out of the room.

Why do you say that?

 

[Digby]

Because it seems to be an AC/ventilation problem.

I think you need to be more precise about when and how the problem is occurring. When you are in the room on your own, PC on, TV off, is it too hot then? Is it only when x amount (x being which number) of people are there watching movies on TV...if so, then you won't be using photoshop while everyone else is watching movies - do the PC monitors need to be on at all then and do you need the usual PC running for media duties?

There are probably lower wattage PCs available that will easily serve the high res video files you need, maybe they consume about 1/5 of the power the PC does, but will this help if the plasma TV is using 300 or 400 watts, amplifiers using 100+ and all that heat is going into the room.

Maybe you'd benefit from some tower/ceiling fans?

If I was you, I'd go round with a one of those watt measuring plugs, identify all heat sources, switch off what can be off, then decide whether any change will actually be helpful to heat problem (paragraph 3).

 

[Chromatischism]

I'm well aware of everything that is in the room so I don't need to do an inventory. I have a ceiling fan. The fact is this is one heat and noise source from behind my listening chair that can be removed from the room, so this thread explored different ways to do that. We got really off topic, though.

The other reason is my desire to eliminate my Synology NAS and centralize everything in the PC for performance reasons and ease of backup, which was discussed earlier in the thread. I back up the PC to an 8 TB HDD then put it inside a sealed anti-static bag in a closet. Using the NAS as my backup destination was not ideal because it's always online, and then it too needs to be backed up to another disk. Plus, it simply can't push the data rates over the network that my PC can. My backup speeds went from 80 MB/s to the NAS to 1500 MB/s to the Seagate HDD in a dock with USB 3.1. With a Chromecast rendering video streams, it couldn't play 1080P movie clips from some Blu-rays without stuttering. Playing directly from the PC with HDMI is a much better experience and affords me Atmos audio to my 7.1.4 system. Doing incremental backups from the PC are a piece of cake now and are offline and protected from various unpredictable events.

The other big heat source that can be moved is the AVR, but that gets complicated with cabling. All sources like PlayStations, etc need to stay near it due to HDMI cable length so you would have to walk out of the room to put in a Blu-ray. Then there's setting up a remote extender and not being able to see the display on the unit. Anything is possible but I'm not traveling down that road yet.

So the solution to consolidating my backups, making them faster and more protected, and improving the performance of media playback, is to move the NAS functions to the PC. The solution to the heat and noise from said PC is to relocate it outside the room and run all of my peripherals with my Thunderbolt 4 dock. Yes, bodies and monitors will still produce heat but there is nothing I can do about that. I will instead work on issues that I have control over.

 

[Digby]

OK, this explains a lot more about your situation. I think as much information as possible in the first post about exactly what you need and what you don't want can save people posting stuff that isn't suitable (or you having to wade through it).

The fact that the PC is behind your chair explains a lot about wanting to move it (heat & sound wise). I agree that a NAS is probably superfluous. Are you wedded to this particular PC? I wonder if you've tried a new Ryzen 5 processor mini pc, they have far better graphics than Intel (re Photoshop performance) and are available in very small/quiet forms. Might not need to be moved out the room then, could be hidden somewhere else (vesa mount behind TV?). Killing two birds with one stone (noise & direct heat).

I think the $400 or so for a Thunderbolt cable is what had people offering several other solutions. It is a lot of money for a cable (and little gain?).

I don't want to offer advice you have no interest in, but other possible options not much more than $400:

Sell TV and replace with low heat producing unit OLED (might be expensive, depending on specs)
Buy a self install, standalone AC unit for room and fit to wall, don't know price over there or how easily available this is (there are some here without piping to install, just bore some holes in wall, not sure about noise specs).

I'm pretty sure you have enough info to make a decision on what is best for you.