Silverstone LaScala LC04 series

[SteveCliff]

Has anybody got any real-life experience of this home theatre style case from Silverstone?

I am limited to the height of the case I can fit in (145mm is pretty much the max and that leaves virtually no air flow below/above the case) so the LC04 seemed quite a good fit. Also seems to have a lot of fairly decent reviews about it too, but I'm worried about fitting a cool enough motherboard/CPU mix with onboard graphics (as the LC04 can get very tight with seperate graphics card and capture card!).

Any help/guidance/abuse appreciated

[cwl999]

Have a look at the following review.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article183-page1.html

What are you intending to put into it???

When I built my HTPC it was one of the choices I had to make. Ended up with a ASUS Pundit-R.

[SteveCliff]

What are you intending to put into it???

At the moment - the design of the system is a blank page - unfortunately I'm on a bit of a budget. I want to set up a basic "play only" system at first and then move to a "live recording" system at a later date (when I've saved up some more money!)

I already have my server set up with 4 x 250Gb RAID 5 drives - this should hold all my 100's of TV episodes and films I have :-)

From what I've read AMD seems to be the cooler way to go - so I guess I'm after a Sempron based motherboard (don't think I can stretch to an Athlon system) that will fit in the LC04 case with onboard network, sound and video (presumable an Nforce 4 chipset).

At a later date I can then squeeze in an analogue capture card (ATI Wonder?) to sort out the recording from my standard Sky box.

I am a picky devil though and really want a nice quiet system

Thnx for the review - I'll have a read when I get home

[cwl999]

My media center is exclusively attached to my TV.

The mobo gfx (IGP9100) is perfect for TV and I've built a VGA to RGB SCART to get great pictures. There's also 2 DVB-T tuners in the only 2 PCI slots. The CPU is a Celeron D320. OS is MCE2K5. Big HD and DVD-RW

I've had no problems with the hardware and believe I could have used a less powerful system. I can easily watch some downloaded shows and record on both tuners without taxing the CPU.

I've modified some things to make airflow better and embedded the remote receiever into the case.

[SteveCliff]

Oh God - can't believe I've just done this - but gone ahead and bought the Silverstone case, Athlon 64 3500+, 1Gb memory, WinTV PVR 150 capture card and one of the remote keyboard things from MS.

I am so *so* broke ....... :-(

Hope it all works !!!

[DavidM]

Very nice cases indeed... I am very tempted...

[cwl999]

Good luck in your build.

[SteveCliff]

Well, it's kind of working

I am *very* impressed with the case so far - looks really smart and the 300w power supply and cables etc. fit the motherboard a treat.

What doesn't fit thought, is the PCI capture card - well, at least not in the right place!
I went for a Gigabyte AMD based motherboard - unfortunately (stupid I know!) I forgot to double check that the 1st available PCI slot on the board was in the correct position for the LC04 case. So in order to actually plug the card in, I've got to track down a PCI riser card with a ribbon cable on it (the PCI riser shipped with the case only works when the PCI card is just to the right of the keyboard socket (I.E. usually the 2nd slot along).

However, I've gone ahead and built it with MCE2005 on and I am very impressed! The MCE2005 seems actually very well designed (not necessarily what I was expecting from dear old Micro$oft!). Nice one!

Need to sort out another hard drive though (this is an older one I had left over from another project and is a little noisy) and a quieter fan on the CPU (running the stock Athlon fan at the moment).

So in summary - not there yet, but getting damn close!

And if anyone knows where to get a PCI riser card ribbon cable for <£16 (the cheapest I've found so far!) *please* let me know

[cwl999]

Have a look at http://linitx.com/index.php?cPath=26_122
They have all sorts.

Why only one TV card? And why an analogue card?

I've got dual DVB-T and my wife's always recording the soaps whilst watching the earlier episodes (whilst I want to record the other channels)

[SteveCliff]

Have a look at http://linitx.com/index.php?cPath=26_122
They have all sorts.

Lol! That's the only place I've found too. Wish they did CPU coolers as well then I could place a single order. Looks like postage x 2 though

Why only one TV card? And why an analogue card?

I only have a standard Sky box so an analgoue card (I presume!) is the correct one - I don't intend to upgrade to a SKy HD box for quite a while (still running my 29" CRT telly from a *long* while ago!) ... and I've run out of budget

I've got dual DVB-T and my wife's always recording the soaps whilst watching the earlier episodes (whilst I want to record the other channels)

That sounds nice to have though ! When I come to upgrade the telly etc. late next year (ish!) then I'll have to sort something like this out I think.

[cwl999]

Like I said earlier, I had to choose between the Pundit-R and LC04. Originally I wanted to put my NF7-S mobo into the LC04 with a 9500pro modded with a Zalman and 2 USB DVT-B tuners modded to fit internal. Unfortunately, it became obvious that the NF7-S couldn't support AGP + PCI in the LC04 and that there isn't exactly a lot of space left it I were to install a ATX mobo.

[SteveCliff]

Oh dear - I think I've just realised I've made a big mistake

The motherboard, although having hard accelerated onboard graphics including hardware MPEG2 decoder does not have TV out. I had presumed I would use the WinTV PVR150 card I have bought to play through the SVHS socket - but I think I've just found out that the SVHS is "in" only ......

So all is fine - apart from me not actually being able to actually see anything

Anybody confirm or deny the use of the WinTV PVR please ?

[pak000]

unfortunately you are correct, the pvr 150 only has inputs, the pvr350 has an mpeg decoder and tv-out i believe

[cwl999]

Oops, looks like you'll need to by a gfx card to go inside as well. Since you were already decided on mobo gfx, an equiv AGP should be fairly cheep cheep.

You can always build a VGA to SCART cable. It's easy on an ATI gfx chipset but more involved on anything else. Picture quality is so much better than composite of s-video.

[SteveCliff]

Serves me right in ordering late at night when I'm tired! Figured out where I went wrong - the motherboard I'd originally decided on (after reading various reviews) was designed as a HPTC motherboard with onboard graphics. I then dived on to Scan, searched for the motherboard and ordered it. I really should have checked the (stupid!) Gigabyte motherboard name more closely - I ordered the wrong one, I.E. without onboard SVHS.

Ordered the correct one last night along with a ribbon PCI riser and another CPU cooler (to replace the stock one).

Crossing fingers again!

[SteveCliff]

You can always build a VGA to SCART cable

Lol! with my soldering expertise I'm not sure it would so simple for me!