HTPC up and running like a charm !!

[g8ina]

Sweet !

My media PC was finished yesterday and has so far only failed to, play one film properly - a HD version of Kingdom of Heaven. I suspect it was a duff copy anyway, but it was 24Mbps, so could just be out of the PC's reach. See my other post lower down for the specs and Scan codes.

The Zen case is fantastic, but the fans are noisy, and the mobo doesn't appear to allow Speedfan to control the CPU or case fans, so a hardware fan controller is needed.

However, temps are already looking very cool even without the case fans running - at 100% duty cycle the cpu is showing a max of 40 C, and the GPU is showing 57 C. Airflow in the case looks to be about as good as it can get, when both front and back fans are running I'm expecting another couple of degrees drop all round.

Plenty of room for more HDDs as and when £ allows, but the 2x512MB RAM will need to be swapped out for 2x1GB later, as there are only 2 slots.

Sound output is only stereo at the moment, as there are no optical or coax outputs, so a new sound card is on it's way.

vlc is proving to be all I need, except for the odd WMV9 film, which appears still to need MP.

Even the other half was impressed with HD movies ! I wonder if she will now make a contribution to the costs of the PC build

Pics to follow.

[Steve B]

good to hear you finally got this sorted dude, make sure you post some pics

[g8ina]

http://www.g8ina.enta.net/htpc/htpc.htm

Photos now up on my home site. Extra burglar alarms and security also now fitted

[Steve B]

yeeha

[menthel]

That is great news! I am glad it all worked out so well.

[adam1701]

nice setup!

[Hades]

Nice one. I'm about to embark on a similar project so it's good to hear from others who have got everything working

[g8ina]

The rest of the upgrade stuff (1st round) is on order.

* Akasa Jr black front fan controller - I'm hoping this will be able to run behind the top 5.25" flap, maybe I'll have to saw the knobs off !

* Extension cables for the mouse & keyboard.

* Terratec 5.1 sound card with optical out.

Later I'll change the DVDR front, or the whole unit to black, maybe get a DVDRW. Much later - RAM up to 2GB, more HDDs.

It's been a very enjoyable weekend watching the few HD movies I have, even the missus could see the difference

[g8ina]

and now fitted.

The Terratec card is very nice, with a good optical output.

The fan controller has allowed me to drop the fan speeds for the CPU & case down to about 1000rpm, thus dropping the noise to a mere whisper. I managed to push the 3.5" wide unit back in the floppy bay so that after setting the speeds on the 3 knobs, I was able to refit the blank cover and completely hide it. I did need to trail the tacho wires from the rear case fan and CPU so I could monitor the actual rpm but that was all the fiddling about I had to do

Silence is golden.

[djphatic]

Nice setup

I see you are using a Tagan PSU, ive had one for a year or two now (maybe longer) and its started to make abit of noise, it sounds like something is inside the fan rattling and is rather annoying.

Does your PSU make much noise. Its most noticeable when you put your ear up close to the PSU.

[g8ina]

Nope, it's as quiet as anything else in the system. I now have two 480-U01s, and both are excellent. The other one is over 2 years old now too.

[djphatic]

hmmmm, im not sure what model mine is but the fans are definitely the the loudest thing on my PC due to the grinding like noise. I think this is has only come about recently though, maybe time for a replacement.

[g8ina]

Hmmmm, turns out the Terratec card will only give stereo via the optical

I did try another card with Dolby Live on optical, but that budder kept crashing the PC (yeah, you told me so in another thread), so I reverted back to the Terratec and am now using 6 channel jack-phono outputs direct to the Denon 1803, and it now even works with DTS

I *think* that's about it for now. Final mods for now :
* Carpet tiles stuck to side plates.
* 5.1 analogue outputs.

Just the wireless mouse/kbd to go later.

[RECOiL™]

I wonder why you didnt choose to go with a desktop htpc ? They seem to fit in more with home theatre setups, rather than having tower next to tv.

I am thinking of building something to replace my xbox+xbmc / freeview box. I dont have a hdtv yet tho

*wimper*

[g8ina]

Purely on cost. The Zen was £30, a decent desktop HTPC case is £60 (or the only one I really liked was anyway)

[AGxM]

Congrats mate.

All my bits are hopefully going to be here Monday (Thanks to advice here and Scan) so I'm praying my build is as successful as yours.

Linking mine to a Yammy 650 amp, Mordaunt Short speakers, Sky box, and a Panny E90 recorder.......with a 32" LCD to follow shortly