Fan-less PC solutions.

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drtechno

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I've been looking into building a couple of small DAW workstations and I'm looking to try out a fan-less industrial computer since most of them look like they are using laptop CPUs and others are using Intel Xeon types.
The interface I'm going to try on it is a MBOX Studio with Pro-tools. Another one will be running Dante DVS with Wavelab. Another will be FL with Dante DVS.
I've been looking at these computers with dc power inputs so I can place them on one big nice power supply and house them all in one rack.
Suggestions?
 
Have a look at PC/104 boards. They are silent and fan-free, and powerful.
 
Both of these look like they would work very well. On the second link, I would go for at least 16, 32 if you can afford it. Not sure why you would need a GPU, there is not much graphics work if it is just for DAW work and some movie streaming. Gaming or graphics, that is another matter. But these look like nice finds, price isn't too bad either.

Any reason for not using a laptop?
 
I notice people seem to be using KVM (?) systems when they have multiple individual PCs, so anyone can access any PC from anywhere. I like the idea of using centralised computers, and allowing everyone to share. Being able to drive cubase, adobe and special software from any computer would be really great.
 
rob aylestone said:
I notice people seem to be using KVM (?) systems when they have multiple individual PCs, so anyone can access any PC from anywhere. I like the idea of using centralised computers, and allowing everyone to share. Being able to drive cubase, adobe and special software from any computer would be really great.
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Yea, that gets a little harder when you need hardware to run things. I use KVM on large enterprise software, but if you need something like CAD, we have to hook up a hardware machine for people to remote into it for the graphics. Just one example. If you stay inside the box, those work very well.
 
I know little about them - how exactly do they work? A little app that sort of works like when scammers take control of your computer? Your computer just duplicates screen, keyboard and mouse from one, on another. I assume there's no actual software on each machine - just a simple multi-machine screen sharing?
 
It is a large data center and the host creates the OS (Windows or Linux) on the machine and allocates X amount of resources (RAM, CPU and storage), then it shares those resources to compute. Then you can just RDP (software that allows you to connect to the host) and install or use applications on the virtual machine.

There are lots of different options. One option is to create a virtual machine on your computer (that is the pre-version of cloud computing) and install an OS and applications and run the OS inside the host machine. Virtual Box That concept is the same as a cloud based machine, but it runs on your computer. If your computer is powerful enough, you can have several different OSes on the same computer. The trick is to interact with the hardware, so routing sound input (like an audio box), configuring for intensive GPU usage (like CAD), becomes more problematic as that software talks directly to the hardware (like ASIO which bypasses most of Windows OS audio services).

It can be useful, I have used them (or had them setup) to demonstrate special manufacturing systems (simulating the hardware), developer systems so all of the required "tools" are on a machine and that way you just require the contractor to have a way to access the virtual machine (RDP/VPN into the machine) or if you need to run an enterprise machine and you put all of the software on the virtual machine, and the company accesses it (like ERP systems). That way, the company's IT department doesn't have to worry about disaster recovery. This last example is what happened to Delta Airlines and a few other airline companies who was using Microsoft's cloud services.

If you haven't already heard of it, these are the huge data centers that are going into rural communities to "suck up" their local resources (electrical grid).
 
DM60 said:
Both of these look like they would work very well. On the second link, I would go for at least 16, 32 if you can afford it. Not sure why you would need a GPU, there is not much graphics work if it is just for DAW work and some movie streaming. Gaming or graphics, that is another matter. But these look like nice finds, price isn't too bad either.

Any reason for not using a laptop?
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I'm shooting for a total fan-less system. I noticed that over the years the DAWs from AAvid and Stienburg needing a 3D card and some of the plugins do too. But I hope that this can do the job and if the plugin load needs more GPU I would pop in a Nvidia Tesla card (or equiv.).

I don't want to use a laptop because most of them are engineered flimsy to begin with and their power supply isn't the best power supply to use with audio.
 
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DM60 said:
Both of these look like they would work very well. On the second link, I would go for at least 16, 32 if you can afford it. Not sure why you would need a GPU, there is not much graphics work if it is just for DAW work and some movie streaming. Gaming or graphics, that is another matter. But these look like nice finds, price isn't too bad either.
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The 3d acceleration is baked into DAWs. That is why even wavelab wants an AMD R or RX series and later or NVIDIA Series 700 and later. What I gathered from computer hardware engineers is that the CPUs are incapable of the parallel processing in real time and the only hardware that is capable to do it is in the video card. So I was thinking about shooting an e-mail to Steinburg and also AAvid and asking them about 3D video and plugins. I have notice before plugins sound better or behave a little different at 96K than they do at 48K which I wonder what that is all about as well. I still wonder why there is pro audio gear made with sampling rate limitations other than gouging or making planned obsolescence.
 
Nvidia 7 series is a pretty low bar, 10 years old IIRC, but even at that those are the recommended specs.
The minimum is listed as "Graphics card with native Windows 10 support".
I'd take from that that, as with most DAWs, it's going to run just fine on a CPU's integrated graphics.

If a daw allows video import and playback for syncing that might be different, I'm not sure, but certainly for audio work there's no need to have a minimum GPU threshold these days.

Their requirements reads, to me, like "integrated is fine but if you've got a dedicated GPU that's even better".
 
drtechno said:
What I gathered from computer hardware engineers is that the CPUs are incapable of the parallel processing in real time and the only hardware that is capable to do it is in the video card.
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Multi-core processors will run tasks in parallel, and rely on their own Caches. They will then share the interface to RAM and Video and other stuff.
Audio processing (DSP) is largely tight repetative algorithms, which is suited to multi-cores.
 
I know nothing about fanless, but this has been interesting reading.
 
mbsmike said:
I know nothing about fanless, but this has been interesting reading.
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Not only gaining an advantage of no fan noise in the control room, it also gives me the opportunity to remove the instance of switching power supply noise by using a linear power supply.
 
Back to basics, while CPUs have a capability, the software has to be written to take advantage of that capability. An example of this is 32 vs 64 bit processing. While software early on would run under 64 bit processing, it didn't mean it took advantage of it. In order to do that, the entire code would have to be re-written. Software that had been updated over 10-15 years has a lot of code in it.

This begins the fundamentals of Apple's strategy (not a fan boy, just facts), when they wanted to move into the next level of technology, they stated, your old stuff has to be written new. MS kept most of the legacy function in place. That was one of the reasons (not the only) why MS was so unstable and Apple OS was more stable (not perfect, but better).

So, going a bit deeper into the DAW software is also important. If the software will take advantage of the hardware (AKA GPU processing), then it is worth it. But if it doesn't you just have a 1000 HP motor that can't go faster than 55 MPH/80 KPH.

Like is often stated here, it is the complete chain and it is only as good as the weakest link.
 
DM, by this time, Microsoft has also abandoned the old 16 and 32 bit code. I've got numerous programs that simply won't run under Win 10 or 11. I used to use Lotus SmartSuite 2000. It doesn't work anymore. My old version of Photoshop, which was more than I could ever use, refuses to install.

I actually built up an old system and put Win XP on it just so I could run a few of my old games and programs.

Pretty much anything written in the past 5 to 10 years is designed to run with multiple cores and threads. The biggest difference is that Apple controlled all the hardware that could be used. With PC/Windows, you have 100 different network cards, 200 different video cards, 100 different sound cards. Neither the PC maker nor MS had control over any of that equipment, so you could build a video card and get a driver written for it, and it might work on 75% of the systems, but cause problems on 25%. That doesn't make the PC/MS system bad, it means the card builder did a sloppy job and gave everything a bad rep.

RE: fanless systems:

I don't get all that worked up about a fan. The minimal noise can be dealt with. If nothing else, put the computers themselves in a separate room ( which should be the norm for any half decent studio anyway ).
 
Steenamaroo said:
You can still activate XP over the phone. :ROFLMAO:
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I tried that back in March. The helpful Indian tech rep said XP was no longer supported and could not be activated and that was that. No joy.
 
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You took a wrong turn!
I did the same thing. He was confused as all hell but on the second attempt I got to the right place and got the code needed.
I'm afraid I can't remember the specifics of the menu options but If you end up talking to a human, you went off road.
 
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