I'm lazy can you spec me a HTPC

[nick_1]

Hey Nick1

What do you think of the Hiper uATX Media Chassis? There looks like theres 2 cd drive slots. Any chance of fitting a vfd or some other display on the left hand side?

Its only got space for one slimline cd drive, the other side is a cover for the usb ports. My plan is to remove that and place in a nice vfd as you suggest or maybe mount one a little lower down. I'm also planning to mount a slimline 40mm fan at the air intake on the right hand side to ensure good airflow through the case as I'm not convinced the airflow is optimised in the normal configration. The only problem is that the only place I've found with one small enough wants almost £10 for the fan (way overpriced in my opinion).

There are some decent photos here (http://www.ozcasemodz.com/reviews.ph...=review&id=16).

If I go ahead with it I'll try to take photos and put them on my website for all to see.

edit: Did someone steal all of the fans from the link i posted earlier? No sign of my cooler yet and its hard to build a system without it

Nick

[colincliff]

I think this case would look excellent with a nice VFD.

Hope you manage to build it and get good cooling out of it,

let us know how it goes.

Colin

[nick_1]

I think this case would look excellent with a nice VFD.

Hope you manage to build it and get good cooling out of it,

let us know how it goes.

Colin

I've got the basic system built and running and its working quite well. I'm still tempted to get a larger case as there are some design flaws on the Hiper Media case. The main annoying one is that the PSU fan is mounted too close to the side panel which causes a loud whining sound. Ideally they should have mounted it about 1mm or more away from the side or redesigned the slots the air must flow through. The cooling of the rest of the system is fine and the temps are as follows:

CPU core idle 32C
CPU core load 42C
Hard disk 41C
Case temp 38C

Not too shabby at all. Notice the CPU idle temperature, this is because air is drawn in directly from the outside through a grill, so the idle cpu temperate is actually cooler than the rest of the case.

As the case was under £50 I'm tempted to get hacking to see what I can do but work has been so busy recently I haven't had enough time. Also adding a VFD or LCD panel has turned out harder than I expected as there are few displays which are suitable and don't cost a fortune (a £90 VFD in a £50 case seems a waste). Has anyone else tried anything similar as I'm fed up of using the RS website (which must be the worst one around!).

I'm also going to be replacing the hard disk as it seems to have a fault

Nick

[nick_1]

Just a quick update on the progress of my little project. I've actually given up adding the vfd as the 50mm psu fan is causing me all sorts of trouble with noise.

I'm now looking at getting a new case, either go the other direction and get a huge Silverstone LC16M although with psu and new dvd drive it will cost me about £280 (depending on if scan charge me for delivery as I haven't been very active recently). Otherwise I'm considering a D.Vine MCE601 as thats only £200 from quietpc with a vfd. There is an amazing slim case coming out from DIGN which looks like the hiper media case that includes a place for a vfd but its going to cost over £200 without the vfd! (source: http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/...cat=162&page=1)

Any thoughts/comments?

Nick