QuietPC D.Vine Media Center kit

System and styling

The D.Vine certainly looks the part, although you can’t really go wrong with matt black. The chassis will undoubtedly sit comfortably alongside your hi-fi separates, hiding the fact that it’s actually a PC.

The big giveaway will be the SoundGraph iMON VFD, however. This provides useful information including the currently recording program, and its duration. Quiet PC has also modded the VFD for you to include the MCE IR sensor, so you don’t need the external USB dongle usually found with MCE systems. Instead, you have to squeeze this inside the chassis, which does make the interior a little cramped.

The optical drive (with matching black fascia) is hidden under a flap with the Ahanix MCE301. But the alternative MCE302 chassis requires the replacement of the drive’s faceplate – which Quiet PC’s instructions describe in detail. Either option looks neat, although the MCE301 hides more of the ‘PC-ness’ away, as the flap also covers the front USB, FireWire and audio connections. Once built, the system is a little busy inside, mostly due to having the MCE USB IR receiver within the chassis. But your PVR is not a PC you’ll be upgrading regularly anyway.

This is the system as you'd assemble it. As you’d hope for a system from a company calling itself Quiet PC, the D.Vine is also unbelievably silent. In fact, it’s bordering on entirely inaudible, despite the 40mm heat sink fan. We found that even overclocked, this didn’t kick in loudly, particularly at the suggested BIOS smartfan settings. The QTechnology power supply is also remarkably quiet. This is one of the D.Vine’s greatest strengths; you’ll be hard pressed to find a ready-built MCE system which is quite so silent.