I built my own last PC, and though it isn't RF-quiet, it's pretty close, but partially by serendipity. The only thing "noisy" about it are the ethernet ports, and some big snap-on chokes have greatly mitigated that problem.
The way I stumbled upon a fairly quiet PC has to do with some design motives that I had. What I wanted was an audibly-quiet PC that used very minimal power. Quite by accident this also resulted in an RF-quiet PC. Here's what I bought: a horzontally-oriented "home theater PC" case from Antec; these are designed to contain audible noise well, and they're also quite sturdy, and, more importantly for us, metal all the way around. The exact case I bought is no longer on the market, but there is probably an equivalent successor to it. Mine is an "NSK2400". In this case I mounted a micro-ATX Intel motherboard. They only make a few micro-ATX boards, and you sacrifice a little bit of raw processing speed and expansion slots for a compact form factor and, more importantly, lower power consumption. The good news is that their recent micro-ATX boards have a ton of USB slots, so although you have fewer PCI slots, you also don't need many, especially if you can get by with the integrated video. I'm not much of a gamer, so I just use the on-board video, and it is fine for everything I've ever wanted to do. It would probably not be that great for playing a full-motion first-person shooter game, but it'll run HRD or FlDigi/FlRig just fine. The motherboard I'm using is an Intel DQ67SW, though it is now several years old, and something newer/better is probably available by now. After a while, I blew the power supply that came with the motherboard, and at that time I replaced it with a "green" Antec power supply. These have higher efficiency, and, it seems, less noise. They also seem to be grounded properly. So my suggestion would be to build a "home theater PC" or look for one pre-built in a nice steel case. It's a bit more work to build your own, but if you built a K3, putting a PC together should be totally doable... and this way you get to be choosy about your components. Then get one of the many USB-to-DB9 cables available out in the wild for your serial ports, or get one of the PCI serial port boards to put in. I doubt you'll have a very easy time finding any motherboards these days that still have DB9 headers or connectors. Of course the big downside to building your own PC is that you have to buy a copy of Windows if you want to use it, though OEM versions are available online for a bit less than what the consumer versions cost if you don't or won't require Microsoft support. Hope this helps, Nick On 10 August 2013 05:59, Goldtr8 (KD8NNU) <[email protected]> wrote: > Gents, > > I wish to get a new computer for the shack and want to have one that is RF > quiet and has real serial ports. > > I am guessing that others have purchased some PC’s recently and would have > some suggestions on some that are HAM friendly with a K3. > > I use a K3, KAT500, W2 and HRD for rig control. > > Any thoughts suggestions before I purchase something would be greatly > appreciated. > > > ~73 > Don > KD8NNU > -.- -.. ---.. -. -. ..- > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[email protected] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html -- *N6OL* Saying something doesn't make it true. Belief in something doesn't make it real. And if you have to lie to support a position, that position is not worth supporting. ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
