Project "Sexy HTPC"

Well I've finished the media PC build I've been working on over christmas - nice :)

Think this is the right place to put this :confused: If not please move :Oops:

Project AIMS:

The aim of the project was set out initially in this thread. I have changed my mind a few times but here's basically what I wanted to do:

Have a Media PC that ran on the main TV in the flat for browsing, DVD-Revording, DVD-Playing, Music playing and recording Sky. This has to look good below a TV, be reasonably quiet and be easy to use.

Project Specs

These have changed somewhat, as I was intially going to do P4 + Win XP 64. I changed this due to some cheap hardware and P4's being so hot you can cook eggs ;)

Specs are as follows:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 Venice 3000+
Motherboard: Optronix OP-k9M200G-MLF - s939 + ATI express x300 onboard
Cooling: Stock Cooler from an AMD X2 4400+
RAM 1gb OCZ Plat Rev 2 TCCD
HDD: WD 250gb SATA 7200rpm
DVD-RW: Sony DVD-RW
TV Card: Hauppague WinTV PVR 150 MCE MediaCenter
Graphics: Onboard x300
Sound: Onboard 6ch
Wireless Network Card: Belkin 6001 Wireless network card
PSU: Silverstone 300w
Case: Silverstone SST-LC11 Silver Case
Keyboard/Input Device: Widows MCE IR Keyboard + Remote
OS: windows MCE + Ubuntu Linux 5.10 (installing soon)

Pics:

Work in Progress Shot:

I had to do a lot of work to get the damn thing up and running so my gaming rig was turned into a mini test-lab :D

http://upload.rubbishrubbishrubbishr...66 (Large).JPG

Internals:

http://upload.rubbishrubbishrubbishr...3/DSCF0157.JPG

http://upload.rubbishrubbishrubbishr...3/DSCF0159.JPG

http://upload.rubbishrubbishrubbishr...3/DSCF0161.JPG

This project was very hard to build in and required several crude (only a knife to cut metal with ;)) mods to it.

The main problem I had was that the case was designed to AGP specs and so the PCI cards didn't fit in the external slots too well. I had to strip down the hauppage card with no backplate, and mod the case and the wireless cards backplate to fit. I would take pics but its all tucked neatly away now ;)

The money shots:

http://upload.rubbishrubbishrubbishr...%20(Large).JPG

During this project my parents bought a 40" LCD TV and so I managed to get given their 32" Panasonic TV. w00t!! :worship:

http://upload.rubbishrubbishrubbishr...71 (Large).JPG

Its all up and running and fairly quiet for a PC below your TV. Once the 5.1 surround is on you don't hear it at all - unlike my gaming rig ;)

So what dya all think? :D

Very nice little rig. You may find it a good idea to put a little dual-core 3800+ in there. I find dual-cores to be very nice for multi-media stuff because of their multitasking abilities. I use X2's in my highend MCE machines.

Good job there!:thumbsup:

Yeah I would have done but this was done on a fairly tight budget and the Venice was got off Hexus for £70 ;)

My X2 4400+ @ 2.8GHz will do anything strenuous that I really need some power for :)

Thanks though mate - I like it and even the missus thinks it looks good although she keeps complaining about the money (and the fact that I WILL get a PS3 or Xbox 360 once I've seen both) :)

Very, very nice!

I can't stand the black version of that case - the fake wood ruins it imo. The silver one is however very good looking.

I've got the MCE remote myself, but how do you find the keyboard? - I might get this soon, but know no one who has one.

Yeah the keyboard is pretty good. The "pointer" thing is not amazingly easy to use but you do get used to it and I just dont want a mouse as its not practicle at all on my sofa.

I actually really like the MS accessories a lot and dread to think what happens if M$ decide to get more into hardware as they seem to do it very well :)

And yeah - fake wood - :crazy:

kempez - here's a neat trick you might want to try...it works perfectly for my MCE remote, so should work equally for the MCE keyboard (where did you get yours ? - I've seen it for £99 in John Lewis, which is a rip as you need the remote receiver. I've seen it for ~£35 online thou).

Enter BIOS, and ensure you have S3 power state enabled. Then ensure the "Wake from S3 by USB" (or similar) option is enabled.

Go into windows. Open notepad, and copy-paste the text below...



Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usb]
"USBBIOSHACKS"=dword:00000000
"USBBIOSx"=dword:00000000


...Now save this as something you can relate to (mine is S3_MCE_Reghack), and then change the file extension from .txt to .reg - once this is done, double-click it, and the registry will be updated. Restart your PC. Now, when you press the standby button on the remote (or keyboard I suppose) your PC will power down into S3 state, AND awake again into MCE as you left it (such as an open webpages, or Office docs). Ensure your receiver is plugged into a USB port on the machine - a hub might not be OK.

Use at your own risk - but it's cool to effectively start your PC in 3 secs from "cold". MCE will also apparently start up, record, and switch off automatically when this is enabled. The only power being used is that going to the RAM, so very eco too.

Hi Mate

My PC sleeps itself and thats enough for me tbh. I've heard a load of problems with S/3 and this mobo is a PITA tbh so don't think I'll bother - though I will keep it in mind :)

And yeah SCAN SCAN'd me up with pretty much all this PC - muchas savings ensued :D

That case really looks the part.

/me drools..

lol thanks mate - I saw it and thought:
"I must have it"

Its a bit of a tight squeeze and fairly hard to work with tho :o

Ah well it was worth it :)

Its F@H as much as possible (missus keeps turning it off tho :mad:) and the CPU loads up at 28-30*C which is pretty damn smart imo :D

Nice! I have to get one of those cases... only problem is that I'm using a prescott for my media centre *Burn*

Doesn't that case use 2 x 60mm case fans? I wish they'd work out how to use some thin 120mm in the top or something...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kempez815

Hi Mate

My PC sleeps itself and thats enough for me tbh. I've heard a load of problems with S/3 and this mobo is a PITA tbh so don't think I'll bother - though I will keep it in mind :)

And yeah SCAN SCAN'd me up with pretty much all this PC - muchas savings ensued :D

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How does it sleep itself? - can it wake on itself as well? - if you're referring to S1 - don't you have fans spinning continuously? - just wondering.
As for Scan, I've come back to them, as ebuyer keeps messing me about. Scan are better now than they were 3 yrs ago, imo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rack

Nice! I have to get one of those cases... only problem is that I'm using a prescott for my media centre *Burn*

Doesn't that case use 2 x 60mm case fans? I wish they'd work out how to use some thin 120mm in the top or something...

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Just a quick one - I've got the same case and it uses 3 x 80mm fans - one intake, one exhaust by the CPU and one exhaust in the PSU (slim line). They were all too loud for my liking (and you couldn't control the speed of all of them) so I've replaced them in mine - got them all running ~ 1000 rpm and you can't hear them at all from a comfortable viewing distance (even without any background noise)... Having said that I'm only running a Pentium M so that may not be good enough for anything else (apart from an A64 running cool n quiet or whatever AMD call it)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stud

Scan are better now than they were 3 yrs ago, imo.

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Couldn't agree more - had some nightmares with them a few years ago - but they're great these days. The scan forum here helps a lot.

Its got a sleep button which I just press if I want it sleeping and press if I want it awake. Its only S1 so it doesn't spin down but it aint that loud really :)

SCAN are awesome nowadays :D

Not that i have actually checked, but I though microsoft only allowed windows MCE to be sold on pre built boxes?
If you can buy i separately i think a HTPC will be built :D.

Well when you buy hardware from a place like SCAN they put it on the page saying that as you've bought hardware you can buy an OEM copy of MCE

It works fine :)

Is there any chance of a photo of the back of the case with your mod? I was considering the Silverstone 11M but I noticed it wouldn't support my MSI micro-ATX board as i have a pci-e x1 slot beside the pci-e x16. Is this the same problem as you? I think I considered your board but ruled it out as nowhere had them in stock at the time. If its not too hard to do i might get one and a dremel and see what happens :)

Nick

Yeah I don't have one at the moment mate but it was easy enough to do. I bought a PCI-E riser, then cut the holder for ojne of the PCI slots to allow the card to fit. Also had to mod the cards so that they fit in too.

Get it mate - with a dremel it would be easy to fit it in :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kempez815

Yeah I don't have one at the moment mate but it was easy enough to do. I bought a PCI-E riser, then cut the holder for ojne of the PCI slots to allow the card to fit. Also had to mod the cards so that they fit in too.

Get it mate - with a dremel it would be easy to fit it in :)

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I'm just a little paranoid that I'll ruin the case as its not cheap if it all goes wrong. I can't remember if this was mentioned but how loud is the system? I'll be pondering which case all weekend as I'm tempted by the LC16M, which should be easy to silence compared to a smaller case. (Watercooled anyone :) )

Nick

The fans are fairly quiet and I never hear it over the TV - even when its quiet. BUT in a quiet room you can hear it.

I expect if it bothered you you could very easily replace the fans with quieter ones :) For me the CPU fan was the very loudest thing in the whole system - a stock X2 one.

And yeah I had to take off the backplate holder on the Hauppage card to get it to fit + cut a smaqll piece off of the bit of metal that hold the PCI card into place. Putting a PCI-E card wasn't a problem though - fitted fine.

The case is certainly very tight to work in the area of the PCI slots but I squeezed it all in in the end :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kempez815

The case is certainly very tight to work in the area of the PCI slots but I squeezed it all in in the end :)

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I've just ordered the LC16M but thanks for the ideas... I'll see if i get squeeze watercooling into that case instead :)

Nick

can you turn it into the equivalent of a TiVo?

Well yeah kinda

MCE has a listings for all of the sky channels so I choose what I want to record and set sky to auto-on the program

Then just leave them both on (I think you can get it to wake-on for recording but I didn't) and yep - you have a recorded program :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stud

Very, very nice!

I can't stand the black version of that case - the fake wood ruins it imo. The silver one is however very good looking.

I've got the MCE remote myself, but how do you find the keyboard? - I might get this soon, but know no one who has one.

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Agreed, the silver case is really decent - finish looks great on. Good job, and I'm bitterly jealous of the amount of hardware you've got floating around kempez :)

And yeah the kb was £99 in John Lewis but I saw it on clearance last weekend for 50 I think. Looks better quality than I thought when I manhandled the (stupidly small) box it comes in!