Newbies first HTPC Build, warning large post with pictures

[poodletarmac]

Hi Guys,

Ok these are the details of my new HTPC build.

This is a large post and the opinions contained in it suit my build and may not in any way be suitable for you guys. I just thought it may help if I tell you what I wanted and why I chose a particular component.

I have spent a long time researching what I felt was the best solution for me. I wanted to build a dedicated media PC, meaning I didn't want to play games on it or use it like a PC with other application etc running on it. I did however want it to play Blu Ray, Be quiet, Be fast enough to cope with High Def, Fit nicely into my lounge (WAF approval), connect to the internet to update Windows and EPG and have the ability to show photo's, play music and play ALL kinds of video. I also wanted it to be able to view and record TV programs, although that will have to be an additional post. The idea is when it’s all done and dusted to not have a keyboard and mouse fitted and just to use the M$ Media Remote to control the whole thing. Only to use a keyboard and mouse if things go wrong or to update/install software programs.

Ok let’s start with the kit I chose. I actually made the decision to by the graphics card first. I figure the 3 most important parts of the HTPC to be, the graphics card, the MOBO and the tuner (my opinion, may differ from yours). I made my choice of graphics card first, and then the MOBO, I then chose the rest of the kit around that. I wanted to get the HTPC up and running before adding a TV tuner and I still haven't added one yet (has come down to Hauppauge HVR2200 or DNTV dual digital).

Anyway, first the graphics card. I wanted it to be passively cooled and fast. It must also output HDMI and output audio via HDMI. It needed to be smooth enough to run Blu Ray, not get too hot when decoding High Def and move a lot of the decoding off the CPU to help keep that cool. The new ATI cards, 3850 and 3870 seem to fit the bill. Reading the forum the ATI cards seemed to get a better write up than the NVIDIA cards for HTPC purposes at least. These cards also supported ATI Avivo for smooth High Def playback. The only issue I could see for the 3870 cards were that they took up 2 full slots and I couldn't find a passive cooled version. I went with:
Graphics Card

Sapphire HD3850 512MB Ultimate Heatpipe card.

It works like a dream. No problems at all.

Next I went for the MOBO. I didn't want to spend more money on DDR3 RAM at least double the price of DDR2 and of no benefit for a HTPC that I could see. I did however want a decent audio decoder on board the MOBO as I didn't want to add a different audio card. It also needed to be relatively future proof. I intended to run the audio via the HDMI graphics card. This meant that the current crop of X38 boards looked useful. The MOBO I went for was the Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS5. I preferred the ASUS boards P5E etc but the reason I went with the Gigabyte is it didn't have the Audio riser that the ASUS boards had and for me the layout of the Gigabyte was better. The sapphire card's heatpipe is big and blocks whatever slot is behind it. I want to add 2 PCIe x1 TV tuner cards and with the ASUS board one of them would have been blocked by the graphics heatpipe.

Motherboard

Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS5.

Next I needed a case to put it all in. Again thanks to the forums I decided I didn't want a VFD display (I did to start with) on the case. My HTPC is in a TV unit thing behind a closed door most of the time so the display is redundant, most of the forum posts will also tell you that once you get over the wow factor the VFD is all but useless anyway Can't see it from a distance etc. I couldn't justify the price of a touch screen either and I still haven't been able to work out the use of it??? The case though had to be of HTPC design (no tower) as it would need to fit into the TV cabinet and get WAF. I also wanted it to be big enough for air to circulate and have the ability to add lots of Hard Drives. I never thought I'd ever fill a 160GB disk let alone a 750GB but it's happened and I can't see the situation getting any better in the near term. The more storage capacity the case has the better I think. I went with.

HTPC Case

Silverstone LC-17 in black.

It's a great case. No display, the ability to fit 2 DVD drives if you want (mine only has one). Capacity to fit 6 HDD's. Well made looks good and has a minimalist front fascia, great for maximum WAF. It does have 2 very important features as well which are worth a mention. The first is the power supply is mounted not in the usual position as in most case designs near the CPU but at the opposite end. This means that the CPU has a dedicated vent for drawing in cool air as does the power supply. The power supply is able to draw in cool air via the side vent and expel the hot air straight out the back therefore not adding hot air into the case. Neat I thought. The second design feature to mention is that there is a grill on the underside of the case at the front which runs the full length of the front fascia. In the 2 drive bays of the case is the ability to fit additional fans (80mm or 92mm) to cool the HDD's or just to add further cooling of components or in my case to blow cool air onto the sapphire graphics card heatpipe. The additional case fan I fitted draws in cold air from this grill. The case is pretty cheap too as far as HTPC cases go since it's been around a while. I did fit the after market FP34 into the FDD bay because I want to be able to get my photo's from my media cards into the PC that way.

Next the power supply. The main consideration here for me was it had to be quiet. My other PC has a naff power supply in it working at almost max capacity all of the time and sounds like it's a bloody helicopter preparing to take off. I wanted a power supply that would not be maxed out all the time and have modular connections and be able to connect to a PCIe x16 graphics card. There are so many wires inside a PC these days that hiding the ones you need are enough of a problem rather than worrying about the ones you don't need. So the modular wire connections are a dream. The power supply I went with is:

Power Supply

Corsair HX-620

It is soooooo quiet and has all the grunt I need maybe too much, although it doesn't bat an eyelid and go into overdrive when I'm watching Blu Ray movies. It also runs pretty cool too and doesn't add to the overall heat of the system. I did consider the HX-520 but it came with one less SATA cable and wasn't too much cheaper so I went with the HX-620 instead.
Hope your all still with me?

Next came the CPU and RAM. I was never overly concerned about these 2 items since I reckoned anything would do? I went with an Intel E8200 since it was the latest (cheapish) Intel chip and was supposed to run cooler than the other Core 2 Duo processors around at the minute. No AMD for me I’m afraid all the forums and reviews just rate the Intel chips far above the AMD and with the latest 8000 series things are getting worse for AMD. Still they have the best graphics cards (for HTPC) after they bought out ATI. Again I think it's overkill but in terms of PC parts the latest will soon be outdated so if you get the best you can afford at the time (without spending silly money) then the PC should last that little bit longer before an upgrade is needed. I figured 2GB of RAM would be fine as I was going to run Vista Home Premium 32 bit and any more wouldn't be seen and could cause issues (see other peoples experience with adding 4GB) I wasn't going to run Aero or games, or Photoshop etc so 2GB is easy enough. The memory I got was Corsair 2GB DDR2 6400 C4. Just does the job enough said.

CPU and RAM

Intel E8200
Corsair DDR2 6400 C4.

Onto the DVD drive. Had to be a Blu Ray player. I didn't want to spend the cash on a Blu Ray burner just now. The media is too expensive and the drives are slow. This will change in time and maybe then I'll get a burner. No need to buy HD DVD now that this technology is now dead in the water, so the LG dual drives are pointless. I went with the standard choice of most people the Pioneer BDC-S02.

DVD Drive

Pioneer BDC-S02.

Again it does what is says on the box. Plays DVD's and Blu Ray. This is probably my most disappointing component. Not that it doesn't work, just that it's a bit more noisy than I would have liked. I may have to add AnyDVD to the mix and select Quiet and Slow for playback. I'll maybe ask the forum for advice later on. The drive is SATA though which is what I wanted. IDE is just too much cable.

So now how do I connect to the internet? Well I went with a Linksys WMP300N PCI card. Not that my router is draft N but it is backwards compatible with B/G so it works OK with my Linksys router. Having had D-Link in the past I avoided these at all cost. The aerial thing is a bit weird but it works and I can even hide it and still get a good reception and this is even with the HTPC being a fair distance from the router. Oh it did install and work straight out the box too. I would have liked to get an ASUS MOBO with wireless built in instead of a separate card but as I said the Gigabyte board had a better layout for me.

Wireless Connection

Linksys WMP300N PCI card.

Now it comes to trying to keep the whole thing cool and to try and keep the PC quiet as well. I decided to ditch the stock Intel cooler and go for something a lot better. I went for the Thermalright SI-128SE CPU cooler and yes it does just about fit. Don’t get the 120 extreme tower cooler for the Silverstone case because it doesn’t fit (Trust me I know) and I coupled that with a Noctua 120mm NF-P12. All I can say is that this is the best cooling system ever. The CPU cooler is extreme but it just keeps the CPU cool. In fact the cooler doesn’t even seem to get warm, that could be down to the excellent Noctua Fan. The heatpipe on the graphics card gets warm to touch, but the CPU cooler remains very cool. The Noctua fan is really quiet too, I mean really quiet. I also fitted another Noctua 92mm Fan the NF-B9 in the middle drive bay of the Silverstone case to blow cool air into the PC and over the graphics card heatpipe. The 2 fans come with resistor attachments and are labelled LNA and ULNA (low noise adapter and ultra LNA). These just have the effect of slowing the fans done below there stock RPM. I haven’t done it yet but I reckon I will definitely fit the LNA adapters and see how it goes as the PC is staying really cool at the minute and I may as well quieten it down even further. You can hear the overall sound from the PC up close (1-1.5M) but at normal viewing distance and inside my TV cabinet forget it. As I said before the loudest component of all is the DVD drive.

Cooling

Thermalright SI-128SE CPU cooler
Noctua 120mm NF-12P CPU fan
Noctua 92mm NF-B9 fan.

So only 2 things to go now.

The hard drive I’ve fitted so far is a western digital caviar 120GB SATA 2 drive. This will mainly just be for the OS. I intend to fit some more 750GB drives to store the music, photo’s and movies on. The 120GB is too big I would have preferred 80GB but I couldn’t get a SATA 2 80GB drive and it was pretty cheap anyway. I may partition the drive at some point and use to backup the OS image drive. That way a quick restore can occur if a driver install goes wrong in the future.

HDD

Western Digital 120GB Caviar SATA 2 drive.

That leaves the OS last which I went for Vista Home Premium 32 bit. The reason for 32 over 64 was more drivers are available for 32 bit and I only wanted 2GB of RAM so not much point in the 64 bit I thought, also it would be more costly for 64 bit and I didn’t think I needed it. The reason for Vista above XP MCE was I don’t think M$ is going to go backwards. They won’t drop Vista so I suppose it’s the future for now. The drivers and bugs are getting sorted and SP1 will be with us soon. I guess as it matures more then more and more improvements will be made and as people learn more about the way it operates further registry “hacks” will overcome the niggles. Search this site to find out what I mean. If you have an issue with Vista MCE chances are someone else has the same niggle and has probably fixed it for you.

OS

Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

And that’s it so far. As I said I am now ready to add a TV tuner (probably 2) and 1 maybe 2 large HDD to complete the picture. It’s all up a running and connected to my TV and playing Blu Ray beautifully. Sorry far such a long post but instead of just posting what I went for I thought it better to give an insight into why I chose things. If you agree then great, if you disagree then great too, that’s what a forum is for, advice and help and opinions. I reckon as long as you decide what you want your HTPC to do and build accordingly, then there are no wrong choices.

Any questions about any of the above just ask.

Pictures below. I can add more if you like?

Regards

/Poodletarmac

[sl0140]

thanks for the info mate.. sounds liek you put much thought into it.. What TV tuner did you decide to go for? also, can we see some pics of the front of the case? i am interested to see how it all looks..

again thanks for the hints and tips..

scotty

[logifuse]

Originally Posted by poodletarmac

Pictures below. I can add more if you like?

Put a couple in the gallery so that you can show more of the detail.

[nimrod77]

Nice post mate. It should help alot of people decide on what to do with their builds
Cheers,
Nimrod

[kieran45]

If you are interested in ways to make this case a bit quieter, I have just built a system using this one, and found a couple of easy ways to help a bit.

First, I soft mounted the hard drives. The stock mounting bolts straight into the cage, which bolts straight onto the chassis. Transmits a lot of vibrations to the case. I basically shoved some foam into the hard drive cage, in the shape of a "W" and wedged two HDD's into the gaps in the middle. It means you can only fit 2 HDD's in each cage instead of 3, but all HDD noise from vibrations is gone.

Second, I soft mounted the fans. I used some cheap rubber fan mounts and stuck the fans on with these, which again reduced the vibrations to the case. The wire grills aren't really necessary, and bolting fans straight to the case always makes them noisier.

I also undervolted the fans to 7V, which cut the noise right down.

The only issue I have with your setup in this case is that the CPU heatsink is so big that the fan is almost pressing on the top of the case (at least it looks that way from the picture.) If this is the case, the fan will not be able to get much air flowing through it, and will have to work harder to fight against the low airflow resistance. This wil probably make it noisier. Don't get me wrong, I think bigger is almost always better, but maybe not in this case.

The system I was building in this case was pretty much on the cheap, so I didn't fit an aftermarket HSF, I just used the stock intel one, and undervolted it to 7V. It only ever spins to about 900RPM under heavy load, and keeps the CPU way cool, when added to the back fans and side vent.

Doing this stuff cut the noise right down to pretty much silent from a couple of metres away, and only cost about $10

[gtaranto]

Sounds good Poodletarmac - sounds like you've really reseached this - can you build one for me?

How much?

[vlad]

Good post, I like your thinking Posts like this are very useful - they have a reason for getting components.

[Kwikas]

Originally posted by poodletarmac.
I did fit the after market FP34 into the FDD bay because I want to be able to get my photo's from my media cards into the PC that way.

Great post - thanks for putting in the time. Can you describe how you found the FP34 installation? I've read mixed reviews about how well this unit fits and as I'm thinking about putting one of these into my LC17, I would like to hear first hand from some one who's done it.

Cheers