athlon xp1700 for file server?

[oog]

i would like to build a new file server with RAID 1 or 5 for redundancy. i have an extra athlon xp1700+ which i can use as a processor for this machine, but what i'm wondering is what other parts i can match with it to keep it both quiet and low power. i don't mind underclocking it--my main goals are to reduce power consumption and have something that is quiet.

any suggestions? would i be better off just building a different machine without this processor?

 

[wetcat007]

Run it with a 100MHZ FSB, get a thermalright copper heatsink and quiet fan. I have one running at stock plenty quiet in a file server along with 4 HDD's. A good HSF will do all you plenty for keeping that quiet.

 

[cleverhandle]

It's not really the "ultimate quiet processor", but unless you've got the ears of a dog you'll probably be fine. Like wetcat007 suggested, just get a decent heat sink and fan and underclock/undervolt to the extent the board and chip will let you. A file server isn't going to using the CPU much anyway, so it's not going to be generating a lot of heat to dissipate. I also have a file server built an XP1700 - it's not silent, but it's pretty darn quiet and it's not worth it to me to buy a bunch of specialized parts for the sake of a few dB.

If you're really obsessive about silence, then check out silentpcreview.com for lots and lots of tips. Server-wise, you can do some pretty nice things with a heavily undervolted Sempron 754, but it requires buying a bunch of specific parts.