Silent Portable Case for Lab Computer

[artkingjw]

Hi all, 

 

I'm at a university and our research group might need a silent yet (semi-)portable computer for data acquisition. Does anyone have case recommendations for such a build? 

 

It needs to have space for at least 2, but ideally 4 PCIEx4 single slot cards because our scientific cameras are picky and will only work with the specified PCIE cards. The lab environment we're working in is noise sensitive, so we'll need to make reasonable effort at noise reduction, bringing the PC as close to silent as possible. Thankfully the only job his PC has is data acquisition so power and heat are of minimal concern. 

 

For portability I'm hoping for something like a handle, or at least something that does not weigh too much so it's easy to move around the lab. Castors won't work for various reasons.  

 

Any suggestions welcome. Cheers. 

 

EDIT: The PCIE cards come with an option for a short PCIE bracket, presumably for server racks. 

Edited May 19, 2021 by artkingjw
Extra detail

[jaslion]

A silverstone milo ml08 or bitfenix prodigy would do the trick.

 

However the smaller you go the harder cooling gets and thus silence suffers.

 

What specs would it need to be to do the data acquisition as in got a reference pc that can do it now no problem? That way I can base if of that and get something as efficient as possible.

[artkingjw]

5 hours ago, jaslion said:

A silverstone milo ml08 or bitfenix prodigy would do the trick.

 

However the smaller you go the harder cooling gets and thus silence suffers.

 

What specs would it need to be to do the data acquisition as in got a reference pc that can do it now no problem? That way I can base if of that and get something as efficient as possible.

Thanks for the suggestions. Yea I was worried about small + cooling as smaller fans tend to be higher revving and therefore noisier. 

 

We're still new to these cameras, but the machine we're testing them on at the moment is using dual Xeon E5-2620 V2s quite a few 860 EVO's plugged in (non-RAID) and 32 GB of RAM. It's basically a tower server. It's been performing well enough in preliminary testing, but we haven't stressed tested it with thousands of images yet. 

 

As far as I can tell, as long as we don't do major image processing work on this machine (which we should not), then anything decently powerful enough to run Windows + storage spaces + VNC with some overhead will suit. The bottlenecks are with RAM and SSD capacity+speed. The acquisition software pre-allocates RAM, but tries to fill the target SSD first. Theoretical maximum data rate per camera is around 300 megabytes/second (3 X 100 megabyte images per second); we currently have a pair of these cameras, but may move up to 4 cameras in the future.

[jaslion]

3 minutes ago, artkingjw said:

Thanks for the suggestions. Yea I was worried about small + cooling as smaller fans tend to be higher revving and therefore noisier. 

 

We're still new to these cameras, but the machine we're testing them on at the moment is using dual Xeon E5-2620 V2s quite a few 860 EVO's plugged in (non-RAID) and 32 GB of RAM. It's basically a tower server. It's been performing well enough in preliminary testing, but we haven't stressed tested it with thousands of images yet. 

 

As far as I can tell, as long as we don't do major image processing work on this machine (which we should not), then anything decently powerful enough to run Windows + storage spaces with some overhead will suit. The bottlenecks are with RAM and SSD capacity+speed. The acquisition software pre-allocates RAM, but tries to fill the target SSD first. Theoretical maximum data rate per camera is around 300 megabytes/second (3 X 100 megabyte images per second); we currently have a pair of these cameras, but may move up to 4 cameras in the future.

Then I would actually maybe get a ryzen 5000 series setup or a intel 11th gen setup if you wish to stick to a pure integrated graphics setup as they have pcie 4.0 and you have one of the few cases where a pcie 4.0 drive will be useful. As for size would a bitfenix prodigy sized case work? It has handles and is a good size that it can have a decent size tower cooler. I'm basically trying to think how I can cram as much cooling as possible into a small box :p. There are very small micro atx cases too and that will allow you to add more ram to it since there will be 4 ram slots which may actually be a really nice thing to do. Those cases would also be the size of well the bitfenix prodigy.

[artkingjw]

10 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Then I would actually maybe get a ryzen 5000 series setup or a intel 11th gen setup if you wish to stick to a pure integrated graphics setup as they have pcie 4.0 and you have one of the few cases where a pcie 4.0 drive will be useful. As for size would a bitfenix prodigy sized case work? It has handles and is a good size that it can have a decent size tower cooler. I'm basically trying to think how I can cram as much cooling as possible into a small box :p. There are very small micro atx cases too and that will allow you to add more ram to it since there will be 4 ram slots which may actually be a really nice thing to do. Those cases would also be the size of well the bitfenix prodigy.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm thinking of reserving system RAM for the cameras as much as possible, while running one of those passively cooled GPU's. In theory this would reduce heat output on the CPU side too, allowing me to maybe run a fan-less, or at least 0-rpm fan tuning? I remember seeing a fan-less aircooler on SPCR a few years ago. 

Looks like two votes for the Prodigy so far. Although it seems to have 2 PCIE slots only, which isn't a deal breaker. 

[jaslion]

Just now, artkingjw said:

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm thinking of reserving system RAM for the cameras as much as possible, while running one of those passively cooled GPU's. In theory this would reduce heat output on the CPU side too, allowing me to maybe run a fan-less, or at least 0-rpm fan tuning? I remember seeing a fan-less aircooler on SPCR a few years ago. 

Looks like two votes for the Prodigy so far. 

I was using the prodigy as a example for size. The matx version would offer you a lot more options in terms of hardware for being a bit bigger. There are of course other options out there just used that one because it is well known.

 

Any reason for a gpu? I would not get a passive gpu as that means case airflow is needed which in itx systems often isn't great or actually not there at all.

[artkingjw]

11 hours ago, jaslion said:

I was using the prodigy as a example for size. The matx version would offer you a lot more options in terms of hardware for being a bit bigger. There are of course other options out there just used that one because it is well known.

 

Any reason for a gpu? I would not get a passive gpu as that means case airflow is needed which in itx systems often isn't great or actually not there at all.

RE the Prodigy M - gotcha. 

 

GPU is only to display something, nothing fancy.

 

Thanks for pointing out airflow. After thinking about it, it seems this might be the optimal route. A small RAM and thermal sacrifice on the CPU side, but an extra free PCIE slot, and one less fan (or set of fans) to worry about. It seems there is a way to limit the vram allocation in bios. 

 

Thanks

[jaslion]

8 hours ago, artkingjw said:

RE the Prodigy M - gotcha. 

 

GPU is only to display something, nothing fancy.

 

Thanks for pointing out airflow. After thinking about it, it seems this might be the optimal route. A small RAM and thermal sacrifice on the CPU side, but an extra free PCIE slot, and one less fan (or set of fans) to worry about. It seems there is a way to limit the vram allocation in bios. 

 

Thanks

Now that we have a better idea here is a suggested parts list (case is changeable as well there are MANY other options part from the bitfenix that are similar in size).

 

Since no gpu is needed SFF cases become an option like the inwin BK series. They also have atx versions that are just thicker and that is the only difference. I chose a random bitfenix just to put it in the list.

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LBGCht

 

Not sure about ram needed or storage so put in a placeholder for storage (the fast 980pro) and 32gb of commonly available ram. The speed is higher than what the 11400 will run it at but that is fine as you can set the speed in the bios if it doesn't automatically set it to what it can run at.

 

 

Another option is to literally buy a sff computer from Hp, dell, lenovo,... as well for all intents and purposes that will work just fine. Just not 100% sure about noise as they are whisper quiet when not doing too much but can get noisier over time.

[artkingjw]

On 5/20/2021 at 7:04 PM, jaslion said:

Now that we have a better idea here is a suggested parts list (case is changeable as well there are MANY other options part from the bitfenix that are similar in size).

 

Since no gpu is needed SFF cases become an option like the inwin BK series. They also have atx versions that are just thicker and that is the only difference. I chose a random bitfenix just to put it in the list.

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LBGCht

 

Not sure about ram needed or storage so put in a placeholder for storage (the fast 980pro) and 32gb of commonly available ram. The speed is higher than what the 11400 will run it at but that is fine as you can set the speed in the bios if it doesn't automatically set it to what it can run at.

 

 

Another option is to literally buy a sff computer from Hp, dell, lenovo,... as well for all intents and purposes that will work just fine. Just not 100% sure about noise as they are whisper quiet when not doing too much but can get noisier over time.

Thanks for the help, I think I've got a good head start now. There is also the idea of building the system in a more conventional silence optimized case, but making our own straps/handles for ergonomic transport. This way we should have larger Mobo sizes available to us, with more flexibility on PCIE slot numbers. But that's an ongoing discussion. For now, further testing has shown that we can proceed in the short term with a ghetto workaround without getting a new computer. 

 

Not really keen on prebuilts, we have loads of these older machines lying around (being a university) and they also sound louder than we'd want. For starters they seem to have a PSU with an always on fan + a small whinny CPU fan. The more recent units we have are also too small to have PCIE slots. 

 

Cheers 

[jaslion]

21 hours ago, artkingjw said:

Thanks for the help, I think I've got a good head start now. There is also the idea of building the system in a more conventional silence optimized case, but making our own straps/handles for ergonomic transport. This way we should have larger Mobo sizes available to us, with more flexibility on PCIE slot numbers. But that's an ongoing discussion. For now, further testing has shown that we can proceed in the short term with a ghetto workaround without getting a new computer. 

 

Not really keen on prebuilts, we have loads of these older machines lying around (being a university) and they also sound louder than we'd want. For starters they seem to have a PSU with an always on fan + a small whinny CPU fan. The more recent units we have are also too small to have PCIE slots. 

 

Cheers 

Just a heads up but those silent focused cases are mostly a relic from the past where fans just werent quiet so that was the only solution. It is now usually worse to get one compared to a normal mesh case due to airflow restrictions.

 

If you are going bigger then well ust get any mesh case + some of the new artic p fans and a sycthe ninja 5 cpu cooler would probably allow you to run it passively even then.