QOTW: Do you have a PC in your living room?

[jefCon]

Have used a PC as the main TV source since Windows MCE came out.

Currently running an older i5 based Dell 980 SFF modified to take an SDD + large SATA drive, ASUS sound card and AMD 6450 video - use it to watch DVb-T live TV, store music/video/pictures/stream media from (plex)/NowTV/Spotify etc. and generally use it as a server/NAS. Small and quiet, hidden in a ventilated cupboard.

interested to see your mods on that Dell 980. got the same one and want to use it for media server and could do with a similar setup.

Hi, firstly remove the internal slim line DVD drive and get a replacement caddy for a 2.5" SSD (you'll need a SATA power splitter as well to share with the main drive), add in a low profile video card for hdmi and low profile sound card for optical out and then everything else is USB-2 connected - external bluray, PCTV tuner, Bluetooth keyboard/mouse - I also use a "magic eye" type infrared setup as my hi-fi kit is in the cupboard too and I like to use the old school MCE remote sometimes :-)

[naturbo2000]

2 in the living room:

i7-4785T as an ex-MCE Win7 Kodi HTPC and NAS box (stealthed in a CM260 case - my 2 year old hasn't discovered it yet, even though it's mostly for playing Disney and Peppa)
i5-4570K + 760GTX as a gaming rig (hiding in an InWin 901). Was headless for Steam streaming to the HTPC and my laptop, though it's now hooked into a projector as well.

Do they work well? Yep! Windows power management and sleep is a constant source of pain, but the HTPC has always been wife-friendly and the gaming rig matches my 1080p needs. I'm expecting to upgrade the GPU anytime soon.

If you were in my living room, would you notice/find them? Nope. :-)

[andreipoe]

I don't. I could see some potential use for one, but I can't really justify the cost right now.

[loyal986]

I have an old PC that works well for my MOM and DAD. Second Floor Laptop 2 of them one for me and one for my Wife. The PC is Core2Duo 2.4Ghz, 2Gb ram, Geforce 6600 256, 80Gb HardDrive. Windows 7 HomePremium licensed, windows 10 reservated hopefully it works on this PC, it doesent find any compatibility issues on windows 10 reservation app. My Laptop Asus 17" Core i3, 6Gb Ram and SSD, the other is Netbook PC. My gaming rig is at work. I am the owner of my PC Service workshop, It's Xeon... thats other story...

[Stu C]

No

I wonder how the answer to this QOTW differs across demographics (family, bachelor, age, etc.)

As a family of 5, taking over the living room for long gaming sessions is somewhat selfish, so the PC is in the "study". We have a microserver hidden away that streams all movies and music to TVs and other devices throughout the house. In fact, we don't even have a DVD player in the living room anymore, because they are all on the server and delivered via Plex.

[Bluecube]

My HTPC is in my lounge. It sits on the other side of my TV and balances out the subwoofer on the opposite side so blends in very well indeed. I use it for Steam games, Plex and also have iTunes set to run on start so I can remote control it from my iPad. Steam boots into Big Picture mode from which I can choose games, Plex, whatever to start up using an Xbox controller. It works even better than I thought it would!

Tech wise, it runs on a cheapo Asus board with 8Gb memory and an i5 4440. Storage is a 120Gb SSD for boot and apps with an additional 480Gb SSD for Steam. Graphics are handled by a 280x which also pumps out the sound via HDMI straight into the AV amp.

[DJX366]

Not in the living room per say, but I do have my old core2 Q6600 gaming rig hooked up to the telly for streaming.