 3in1 |
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Food |
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| Crock Pot Receipes |
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| Humor |
| Grandma's Driving |
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HTPC |
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| Kathy, Alex and Mark |
| Pictures |
| Video Clips |
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| Anniversary
Pix |
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| Mark
"In The News" |
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General
Pics with Mark |
| Mark & USS Enterprise |
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| Miscellaneous Activities |
| Motorcycle Mama |
Kawasaki klr
KLR 650 klr650 valve valves horn upgrade pictures procedures lift
easy tips tricks adjust check log maintenance repair motorcycle
bike corbin saddle mt wash washington fork oil tube safety switch
shim shims storage table tables torque value brace superbrace
super throttle lock vista-cruise vista cruise idler shaft lever
doohickey horn wiring tuned for performance demand driven |
HTPC |
Home Theatre Personal Computer |
The parts list at the bottom of the page is the result of hours of online research. I knew how I wanted to use the HTPC; the goal was to find the parts that would best suit my requirements and not cost a fortune. At the time of purchase, I paid around $900 for the items listed below, extended warranties on a few of the items and shipping. I am exceptionally happy with the completed computer. |
Tour of the Case |
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I specifically looked for a case of this design.It's simple and has all the features that you could possibly want. There are other models with "doors" that hide the DVD drive, but in reading the reviews I found that there were issues with alignment & functionality more often than not. The power and reset buttons are slightly recessed, so there is no worry about them getting accidentally pushed or damaged. There are two USB ports, one audio and one microphone. |
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The case top secures at the back with 3 screws and easily slides forward to be removed. It takes a full size ATX power supply and can handle 4 expansion cards up to 11" in length. Note the black "cage" above the various ports; drilled at the corners for fan screws, it provides the option of installing up to two additional fans, or can be used as simple ventilation. |
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The case comes with 3 120mm case fans. I never used them, opting for Scythe Gentle Typhoon fans instead. The placement is perfect - these two fans are in alignment with the CPU and memory. As you can see, they cover most of the case. I have these two blowing in for cooling. |
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This is another Scythe Gentle Typhoon fan. This one is being used to exhaust. |
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They really did a great job of laying out this case. In addition to the 120mm fans and the possibility for additional optional fans at the rear, they have thoughtfully placed venting, such as in the top cover above the expansion card slots. |
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I've never built anything other than a fullsize desktop and have never needed to be all that concerned about cable management beyond making sure there was good air flow. With this smaller case, I was looking at air flow and component installation & accessability. |
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Laying out the cables, trying to figure out what is going where... |
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I'm happy with my choice of power supply, but didn't correctly understand how they work. I'm assuming that this HTPC will be running most of the time, so power consumption is a consideration. I chose a 550 watt power supply (PSU) thinking that it would be a reasonable compromise. That should be more than enough to power everything and not cost a fortune in electricity bills. That's true, but here's the thing: they don't don't run at their rating all the time, as I thought. In this case, (and I hope that I'm not wording this badly), the PSU can provide up to 550 watts of power if needed, but may only be putting out 200 or 300 if the system isn't especially busy recording TV, watching movies, etc. The smallest modular PSU that I could find with good ratings was 750 watts. If I knew how they worked before I purchased, I would definitely have bought the modular. I figured it out in the end, but there was a lot of cabling that I had to organize and clean up that I'll never use in this system. To be honest, I half thought about cutting off the cables that I don't need, but could easily see that coming back to bite me somehow. I just wrapped them up and zip-tied them down to the thoughtfully provided tie-down loops all over the case floor. |
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The optical drive (DVD) will go in this over the CPU. Note how the two fans blow right across the CPU and memory. (The memory is the two sticks with the red heatsinks in the black banks near the CPU.) I've got the cabling in this area bundled up and organized as best I can. The fan wires are running under the fans, then are bundled in their power source from the PSU and tie-wrapped down the loops on the case floor. |
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This is showing the optical drive installed, with it's data and power cables connected. I'm not great with the camera, as you're already seen: the huge bundle of unnecessary PSU cables at the lower left corner in front of the fan are actually nicely bundled and tied down the loops in the case floor, along with the wiring from the various front panel connectors, (USB, power & reset, LED, etc.) |
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I used some spiral wrap stuff for cable management that I had laying around. Each of the PSU cables has a bunch of different connectors, so I had to deal with the extras that I didn't need. The case top slides along and sits on the middle support bar that runs front-to-back of the case. There are rubber nubs to help prevent metal on metal noise, and they stand up just far enough that I could use small tie-wraps and not interfere with the case going on or off. The two PSU cables that you see here are going to provide power to the optical drive, and the other along the back of the case and down to the motherboard for the CPU power. |
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Using the spiral wrap and tie-wraps to the center support bars allowed me to get these cables our of the way, and more importantly, up above the fans so that they won't disrupt the air flow. |
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This is the case with almost everything assembled and the top ready to go on. There is one 750GB harddrive installed now, on which I've installed Windows 7 Ultimate. That drive will be for the OS, TV recordings and my music & pictures. I have a 1TB drive now for movies that's currently in use in another system. I'm thinking about a 2TB Western Digital "green" drive to use instead, but time will tell on that. Note the yellow "washers" on the left bay. 4 on top at the rear, and there are 4 on the sides where the harddrive is now installed. These are for sound damping and seem to be doing the job nicely. |
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I didn't use the Zalman cooler that I bought. I noticed in the booklet that came with the AMD CPU that they wrote in 3 or 4 different places that you were on your own if the CPU failed while you were using another cooler. I looked at this stock one and it seems to be more than adaquate for the job and decided to go ahead and use this, at least until the warranty has expired. Then - if it actually FITS - I may swap it out for the Zalman. |
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This is what my MSI 890GXM-G65 motherboard provides for ports. As you would expect, the opening in the back of any case is of a standard size. The motherboard comes with the backplate for whatever ports the motherboard is built to provide. This one really has all that you could want for an HTPC, including HDMI and eSATA. I included the PVR card in this picture so that you could get an idea of the options. Note that the upper two coax connectors are for Analog and Digital TV. I don't have a set-top box for TV, so I use the Analog connection. This card also has the same connectors as the Hauppauge PVR-350, which I used in another computer to convert our old VHS tapes to digital. I don't need that functionality anymore, but it's nice to have the option. (As an option, I bought a cable from Cables-To-Go that had RCA on one end for the VCR and SVIDEO-Audio on the other for the PVR-350.) |
Notes and Parts List |
- CPU Cooler: I bought the Zalman cooler, (and thermal paste for it), but haven't used it due to CPU warranty concerns. Once the warranty expires, I may swap it in. - Case Fans: the scythe case fans are fantastic, but since I never tried the included case fans, I wonder if they would have been any good or not. Maybe I could have saved around $50 and just used the stock fans. - PSU: a modular power supply would have made my cable-management life easier. With a modular PSU, you only plug in the power cables that you actually need, instead of using only some of the ones on a regular PSU and having to deal with the extras. - Cables: HDMI. Don't let Best Buy (or whoever) talk you into spending $50 on a 3-foot HDMI cable! See my link under Amazon; 10ft category 2 cables from a respected source for $11 each! (If you need shorter or longer, the price is just as reasonable.) NETWORK. Wireless has it's place, but nobody will ever convince me that it's suitable for home theatre (or VPN) use. I just don't think that wireless is fast enough or stable enough. I normally make my own cables from standard tan, but wanted all the home theatre equipment to use a distinctive color. I bought the blue CAT 5e cables to make identification easier. (Be careful of the difference; you don't want plain CAT 5 - look for the CAT 5e.) - Overclocking: although this motherboard and associated hardware is apparently able to be easily overclocked, I'm holding off on that. The system is scoring in the 7's on the Windows 7 User Experience rating with things at the defaults - and it feels really snappy. (More so than my 2 year old Alienware!) I don't see the point right now in messing with success. Additional Systems - Blu-Ray: I haven't pulled the trigger on this yet. I briefly thought about a BD drive for this HTPC, instead of the standard DVD reader-burner that I bought. For just a little more than the cost of a high end BD drive, or player, I can get the Sony PS3 slim with 120GB drive. It continues to be top rated in Blu-Ray playback and has the added advantages of being a game console, supports NetFlix streaming, etc. The hold up at this point is that in-depth reviews are few and far between, and I'm concerned about heat issues that consoles seem to have. - Audio: I haven't purchased an audio system yet, either, but unless things change for some unexpected reason, I'll go with the Yamaha YHT-693BL 5.1 Channel 525 Watt HTiB System. I thought about their 7.1 system, but my TV room isn't large and I think that it would be wasted. - TV: the search for a flatscreen TV continues to be a nightmare. All I know at this point is that I'll buy a 46" Samsung. I was ready to pull the trigger on one of their LED LCD's, and then read that there were uniformity issues with LED TVs. (Too light around the edges on dark screens due to the edge-lighting technology currently used by LED.) Now 3D is the big thing, but those are LED and the technology is immature & there is almost no content. It seems like that brings me back to standard LCD, but the current LED models have some appealing features. Eventually, I'll get sick of all this research and fooling around and just purchase by the "eeny, meeny, miney, moe" method. |
- Newegg - Case: PVR: Thermal Grease - (Bought, did not need) CAT5e 25ft Network Cable (4): - Amazon - Category 2 HDMI Cables (4) – Amazon: |