Alternative to standard computer in a cab

[Boz]

I'm in the research and learning-from-others-mistakes/experiences mode, but I thought I would share some thoughts about hardware that I haven't seen in many newer cab ideas/builds.

If you stay in computers for any length of time, something eventually happens. It happens faster when you *do* computers for your job. You get tired of the excessive heat in that *one* room in the house; tired of the constant ambient noise of hard drives and case fans drowning out the silence of your last nerve; tired of 4000 tiny pieces/components it takes to build a computer just to check your email; tired of the monstrosity that attacks your your left knee every time you swivel in your office chair. These are all huge considerations for my someday cabinet (ne, for the future of my life outside of work).

With that, I'm considering the minimalist approach for computer hardware inside the cab. I know. I have a long way to go and an aweful lot of things to complete before I get to this final stage, but I think about this nevertheless.

How about a mini-ITX form factor with either a specially designed, integrated 1Ghz processor, or, if the games I choose need it, the same form factor with a P4 setup. They're hyper small, have all the hardware support you'll need (keyboard, monitor, mouse, memory, IDE port, sound, USB). Plus, you can find over-sized, 100% copper heat sinks that should keep them cool enough to function for hours and hours. You could probably build one if you needed to.

I don't wanna put it inside a computer case and just set it on the floor of the cabinet either. I'd rather mount it directly to one of the cab sides or a special mount (low and in the middle) with some kind of *very* flexible rubber material to keep it safe from the G-Forces of anyone becoming angry and kicking the cabinet, or the two or three times I move it. And, if I can figure out how to buy/build/power one, I'll have a 12-inch fan blade that rotates at 60 RPM and makes no noise at all just to keep a bit of air moving from the bottom of the cab to the vent on the top.

Instead of your standard hard drive, I'll use an IDE Compact Flash adapter and use a 2-4Gb flash card plugged right into the IDE port of the board. Heck, by the time I've done all the homework and am ready to put a computer in my someday completed cab, they'll be as big as 32Gb and cost only $200 USD. CF has a shorter shelf-life and, depending on your particular application, longer read times than an IDE HDD, but the trade-off seems worth it.

I know full-well that I will only use somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 roms on a regular basis (maybe more if I throw a "kegger"), and most of those roms will be of the "classics" variety requiring very little CPU horsepower.

Anyway, just a thought about my own personal vapormame cabinet. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Here's a couple of sites to check out as well.

http://www.mini-itx.com/
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=16#p2602
http://www.multigame.com/CF.html
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/0,10801,104582,00.html?SKC=storage

-In2

EDIT: Wrong forum! Dang!

[rugby1]

Check this post out....  this kind of setup would get rid of the computer and all the requirements that go with maintaining said PC, heat issues, noise issues etc.  only drawback is this cab setup only can run about 15 games.  The guy did a great job on this cab IMHO. 

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=36591.80

Andy

[Boz]

"...this kind of setup would get rid of the computer and all the requirements that go with maintaining said PC..."

It's a pretty clean design, though I might eventually develop back problems at 6'1" 

[rugby1]

LMAO   

Yeah, you might want a full size cab instead of the 4 year old version  hehehehe

[Skadar]

I'm just not getting it.  None of the reasons that you mentioned for avoiding a "standard" computer really apply if you're going to stick it in a cabinet.

They are certainly NOT difficult to build these days either.  Once you get your box from Newegg you can have your computer built in 30 minutes.  And you only need to order about 6 components that are all plug-and-play.

You won't be banging into the computer while it's inside the cabinet.  Noise shouldn't be an issue.  Heat is certainly not an issue.  Not sure why you wouldn't want to simply keep your computer in its case inside the cabinet.  You can certainly affix the case to the cabinet floor and side if desired.

I'm also not sure why you are looking to avoid using a hard drive.  Noise?  Failure is about the only reason I can see for ditching the hard drive.  But then again is failure of a MAME cabinet hard drive really the end of the world?

I guess I'm just not seeing a benefit for using less-than-optimal solutions, and paying more for them.

[Boz]

I guess I'm just not seeing a benefit for using less-than-optimal solutions, and paying more for them.

Those are good points, really.

However, I argue that If you build a standard PC and drop it inside the cabinet, you'll still hear it. It might not be as loud as the monster that sits next to the desk, but you'll still hear it.

And the heat issue: saw someone's signature in here that listed his cabinet computer hardware as all bleeding edge stuff, but that one of the games is still wicked slow. It's a cute signature, but I couldn't help but think about all the heat it probably generates and cooling it requires. Since I, and maybe most people,  will spend 90% of their time playing 1% of the roms that require very little hardware (even in emulation), the unnecessary horsepower adds unnecessary heat.

Good comments though. I'm not disputing what it takes to run a cabinet nor am I trying to compare the home computer with one that you drop in a cabinet. Yeah, they have different applications altogether. It's just that when you finally come to the realization that "normal" life doesn't have to include computer heat and noise (like back before every house had a computer in every room), the concept tends to make you question the necessity of running a "server" in your gaming cabinet as well.

This is just my opinion.

[rugby1]

Trust me, I know how you feel.... I work as a Helpdesk/Desktop Support technician, and after an 8 or 10 hour day of fixing incompetent users problems, the last thing I want to do is come home and work on my own machine all night. Most of the time I don't even want to check my email    I am considering building a cab similiar to the pacman cab I posted to you....   I also only have a handful of classic games that I want to play on a regular basis and I think that the K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple, Stupid) principle applies in my case big time.  I fully expect to spend a lot of time building my cabinet and making it pretty, but I don't want a full time job maintaining my cabinet after it is built.

Andy

[Skadar]

Okay... so heat and noise are what you want to eliminate.  I can definitely understand that.  There are a class of computers that seek to do just that.  Googling "silent computers" brings up a ton of possibilities as I'm sure you've already investigated.

I still don't find heat to be an issue at all.  I assume you are talking about ambient heat that would actually affect human comfort.  I'm a programmer and I've never noticed PCs altering ambient heat in any noticable way... except within the confines of an enclosed server room.  But not within an office space or a home.

Noise though, I can definitely agree with.  Fans are obviously the main offender.  CDROM/DVD spin-up would be second (sometimes first!), and hard drives third... at least in my experience.  My cabinet is not finished so I can't comment with any authority on how much noise actually escapes the confines of the cabinet... but I'm not expecting it to be much.

But regardless, this is an interesting topic.

[rugby1]

We'll, i'm not sure its just heat and noise (and I personally don't think that a pc inside a cab will get too hot or noisy) that you are trying to elimanate.  I personally am not concerned about heat and noise but maintanence time.... I would much rather be playing games on my cab than fixing hardware or constantly tweaking/loading/updating software.  I have seen so many posts about half finished cabs because people build the cab, install mame and roms and start playing and never get around to finishing the artwork and finishing touches. 

I also own an Indiana Jones Pinball machine and the maint. time and effort are alot greater than I ever imagined.  Don't want a MAME Cab to be the same.

But there are "silent PC's" out there.... we have Dell SX260 and SX270's at work that are not only very small (shoebox size) but are quiet and very cool for 'puters with a Pentium 4    2.6 Ghz processor and 512 Mb of RAM. 

[Skadar]

I also own an Indiana Jones Pinball machine

GASP!  My dream pinball machine.  Oh man how I love that game.

[paigeoliver]

Have you ever owned ANY game from Sega with the factory fan still attached?

Out Run, Turbo, etc, etc are all a heck of a lot louder than any computer I have ever owned. The fans in them actually have volume levels comparable to where I like the game sounds (I keep my games pretty low though).

I have had to unhook the fan in every Sega Game I have ever owned.

If you really want quiet then just buy a laptop with a bashered screen.

[rugby1]

Yeah it is a great machine.... just got it a little while ago....

[SirPeale]

I've been fortunate enough to find motherboards that have onboard sound/video that I can use in DOS (and therefore, no add-on cards necessary).

So my cabs are a one-board solution.  Except the hard drive, and in the future I could replace that with a flash card if I desire.

[Samstag]

I was originally building a cabinet with pretty much the same specs you're looking at (fanless ITX, fanless power supply, CF storage).

[Boz]

So I bought me a little case and a wireless controller and turned my ITX stuff into a nice portable emulation system:

That little box looks like it's the size of a pack of cigarettes. I haven't priced any of the equipment I wanted to use yet, was the board and CF flash expensive?

[rugby1]

That machine is tiny.  Is it encased in a Hard drive sled or CD ROM Case?

[Howard_Casto]

Let me just say that your conrens are unmerited......

As others have said size is not an issue at all... an empty cab is frikkin huge inside.  And for that very reason:

Noise and Heat aren't issues either. 

You can't hear a fan in an enclosed cabinet unless it's a monster of a fan or one of those cheap noisy ones.  Trust me I've been there.  Even if you can hear it, as I've said, the inside of a cabinet is frikkin huge.  Just soundproof the thing with some foam and/or ceiling tiles.  The vents in the back (or top) of the cab will not be enough to let any noticable amount of noise to escape. 

The only reason I could see using all in one speciality units or mini itx mbs is if you enjoy paying 2 to 3 times as much for the same, "regular" hardware.   

With that being said, motherboards with integrated nics, and sound make sense as they are usually cheaper and it saves space and hassle. 

[elvis]

I use Vantec Stealth fans and Spire WhisperRock Heatsink/Fan units in all my builds.  The noise levels are minimal (almos tinaudible with the cabinet closed) and heat is not an issue even here in Brisbane (pretty close to the Tropic of Capricorn, which means we have pretty damn hot summers).  They work fine for both my roomy standup cabs, and my space-constrained sitdown/cocktail cabs.

As for my desktop, I've recently scrapped all of my desktop machines.  I still have some high-power machines lying around for dedicated tasks, but they sit in my workstop (I'm an IT contractor by trade) and I access them remotely only when I need to do CPU-intensive tasks or network and cluster simulations.  For all other day-to-day PC usage, I'm going to move entirely to notebook computing and wireless access around the home.  Considering that the large majority of my job and non-gaming PC usage is network configuration, remote access, "paperwork" and communication, in this day and age of fast notebooks, I have no need for a loud, heavy and non-mobile desktop.

I currently have my eye on an Apple iBook.  I had one 12 months back supplied with a contract job, and loved it.

[Samstag]

So I bought me a little case and a wireless controller and turned my ITX stuff into a nice portable emulation system:

That little box looks like it's the size of a pack of cigarettes. I haven't priced any of the equipment I wanted to use yet, was the board and CF flash expensive?

It's bigger than it looks in that picture.

[gingerone]

I agree that these steps would be pointless in a cab, I did have a radeon card with a fan which was noisy as hell and I could just hear that when not playing a game, now I have and Arcadevga which is silent and my TV is louder than my pc!

[Boz]

Ok... all this feedback is good. I've kind of gotten the picture that the noise levels will be negligible with existing *standard* hardware selection. I suspected it *could* be relatively low depending on sound insulating and whether or not most openings in the cab are closed off with effective woodworking and design.

I  do, however, still have a question about the heat that's generated. I suppose it's common sense that the inside of a custom cabinet is quite roomy, but the circulation will be extremely limited if you design it with sound insulation in mind.

Has anyone found that there are over-heating problems [of the computer hardware] given potentially static air inside the cabinet?

Does an arcade monitor (of any size) generate enough heat to warrant some kind of fresh air current?

How about while the cabinet is sitting in your home and being played. Is there a lot of heat generated in a standard room?

In addition, it would seem that the additional cost of hardware, unless you go to eBay or find deals elsewhere, may be unwarranted. I must admit though, that I'm still turned on by the idea of using CF IDE device as a replacement for the moving parts of a hard drive. Sure, it's not like I'm going to be moving this thing (cab) around frequently, but it'd be nice not to have to worry about a sudden shock.

[Samstag]

Noise in a PC consists of two basic types:  vibration from fans and other mechanical devices (hard drives), and airflow noise.  You can take care of vibration using rubber mounting grommets for fans and hard drives, and mounting your PC case or enclosure on a rubber or foam pad.  You should also make sure all screws and panels are installed tightly.

Eliminating airflow noise can be done in a couple of ways.  If you have a large open area around your fan ports, you man not need to anything at all.  If you don't have space, covering the nearby surfaces with eggcrate-type foam with the eggcrate side facing the airflow will do a lot to eliminate the normal whoosh you expect to hear.

You can do all this with pretty cheap materials.  If you're willing to put the effort into it you can make common off-the-shelf parts almost totally silent in a cabinet without sacrificing much cooling.  As for the cooling, if you put vents in the top and bottom of your cabinet you shouldn't need cabinet fans.