One of the greatest deficencies of a typical media center PC is the noise.
The low background hum of a PC in the living room is not something to be looked upon lightly. The sound of a spinning fan in the background will result in a low level of noise. If you have never experienced it it is, to say the least unpleasant, constantly urging you to switch the machine off.
The Windbox promises if not to iliminate , at least reduce the background noise down to a very low level, something which we can already see in the MSI Wind NetTop D130.
The newly released Wind NetTop D130 is also touted to be ultra quiet utilizing the same technology as the Windbox with a specially designed chipset which doesn’t require a fan. So far all reports point to a winner here too generating only 30dB of operating noise which is most likely quieter than your average living room.
Just to give you an idea of how quiet this is heres a simple comparison:
Normal breathing -10dB
a whisper in a quiet library. -30dB
Normal conversation – 60dB
Busy traffic – 70dB
Average factory -80dB
Niagara Falls -90dB
Quiet isn’t it?
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price?
While the chipset doesn’t require a fan, this one has a chassis fan which sounds like a jet engine / vacuum cleaner. It is grossly overcooled and sadly no fan control apps work either. This is unusable as a media station / living room server, noise is simply unbearable. Avoid, if you don’t want to modify it.
Have to agree on this but to be honest the later models are alot quieter.