On 2003/01/07 15:15, Shachar Shemesh wrote: > The major advantage the sofaware/check point S-Box has over a linux > computer (and, for that matter, all integrated solutions) is the lack of > a rotating cooling device. This can be worth the money and lack of > control if you happen to host your internet lab in the same room your > bed resides in. > > If you think that this is still too much to pay (both ideoligically and > monetary), I would suggest getting a computer that is as old as > possible. From my experience, the older the computer, the quieter it is > (after oiling the CPU's fan, that is).
For all it's worth, for a couple of years my firewall/NAT/MP3-server was an old 486 DX/66 (more than sufficient) running Linux, with both power supply FAN and CPU fans disabled. I glued a couple of additional heatsinks to the side of the 486 native hitsink, with one of them thermally connected to the thick metal PC case (beat *that* as a heat radiator). To add insult to injury, I dampened the HDD noise by putting it in a nearly soundproof box (the metal carcass of a defunct 5.25" CD-ROM, glued over with silicon to create an acoustic maze). Sitting in a well-ventilated room, it worked like a charm until decomissioned for unrelated reasons (I monitored the CPU and HDD temperatures throughout the first summer -- never exceeded the specs). Damn close to silent. Needless to say, I wouldn't try it with hardware I'd care to loose. Your milage may vary. A more modern CPU would probably need to be underclocked, and those 400W power supplies don't look sympathetic to this kind of stuff. Also you'd better find a 5400RPM disk; 7200RPM runs too hot. If you do need fans, a cheap way to get quiet ones is the voltage reduction trick (connect a standard 12V case fan to the 7V between the +12V and +5V power supply lines). Of course, you can get the same effect for a few hundred dollars, but then you lose having the ultimate test of computer hardware competency: explaining the above and observing the Voight-Kampff response. Eran ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
