Hullo all...well I finally got my HTPC bits and pieces and have built the box. I first joined the HTPC crowd in the latter half of last year, through this site, and built a trial box just with some old desktop pieces I had so I could get a feel for MCE and it's trials and tribulations. This forum helped me tremendously with that and I became a sponsor as thanks. Now, some months later after a move to the Sunshine Coast and a new job and finally having a little bit of spare cash, I've been able to gradually buy the pieces I need, aided tremendously by the fact I work as a technician attached to a computer shop so get all my parts at wholesale prices.
Building my first trial box really helped me focus onto what I actually needed in a HTPC. What I realised was I didn't need to go all out and try and create the best, fastest box I could find with p4 3+Ghz, 256MB vid card etc. I'd never be playing games on this, or video editting etc, I have a desktop PC to do that.
My HTPC's primary duty is simply to record and play TV, playback DVD's, music, photos, videos and any other media. It needed to do that quietly, not stand out like a sore thumb, and be networked to the rest of the PC's in the house. Having realised that, I could then look for suitable bits and pieces.
After a lot of research, I settled on this solution......
Case: Ahanix MCE301 (silver) with iMon VFD
http://www.ahanix.com/ahanix_product.asp?pid=26
This is a very pretty slimline case with drive bay and front panel connectors hidden behind a aluminium door. The case layout seems excellent, it takes a full size PSU and a micro ATX board, with room for one 5.25" drive and 2 hard drives. It has only one case fan on the side which sucks air from the hard drives. The fan is near silent and the airflow seems excellent through the rest of the case. Reviews I've read of it rate it well re sound and I cant hear it at all from the couch unless its night and the TV is off.
Mainboard: AOPEN I915GMm-HFS Intel915GM Socket479 Pentium M (mobile) board
http://asia.aopen.com.tw/products/mb/i915GMm-HFS.htm
A few raised eyebrows at this mATX board. It takes a Pentium M processor (see below for reasons). Due to my primary HTPC uses I really didn't need a seperate video card, just a board with good on board video and outputs. This board has it all. It has DVI, VGA, Svideo and HDTV outputs, along with 7.1 channel sound. 8 USB ports, dual gigabit LAN, DDR2 Memory, SATA etc round it out. And if I change my mind it has a PCIe x16 graphics port as well. It comes with a nice blue Aopen CPU heatsink and fan, as the Pentium M's, being primarily laptop CPU's, don't ship with either.
Unfortunately, I didn't quite research this board enough as the i915g video chipset isn't fully supported under MCE and I can't get TV out to work. I get to the desktop but when MCE launches i get a black screen. Other people report the same behaviour and some also with the HDTV (component) out. So unless drivers are created that support MCE, all those brilliant outputs are wasted. I had to put in a basic video card to get TV out to work.
Video Card: Gigabyte X300SE 128MB PCI-E.
http://www.gigabyte.com.au/VGA/Produ...-RX30S128D.htm
Cheap, cheerful, but plays back DVD, tv etc without a flaw. That's all it needs to do for me right now, when I have enough cash for a proper TV I'll upgrade to something with HD output.
Tuner: Avermedia A16A-B
Had a lot of trouble with this tuner originally as there seem to be so many similar versions, but i did get it running eventually last year. I found a new driver for it this week though which works a treat (A16A-R at
http://tinyurl.com/zpp75). Once the card is running its great, very fast channel changing. I'll probably change this to one of the new pci-e dual tuner cards due out next month or so.
PSU: Thermaltake TR2.
Very quiet. Probably a bit overkill for this case with the low power requirements of the Pentium M and it's wealth of connectors but it was free from work.
CPU: Intel Pentium M 740 Processor 2Mb Cache 1.73Ghz 533 FSB
Why the pentium M? Firstly, it's plenty fast enough for my needs. Secondly, it draws a lot less power and gets a lot less hot than a Pentium 4, so subsequently needs less cooling, so less noise. This is definately reflected in the quietness of the system. The heatsink stays quite cool, being only lukewarm to the touch. The CPU fan supplied with the mainboard looks cool (transparent blue fan) and is quiet.
Memory: 1 GB DDR2 in dual channel config
Plenty for the job. Say no more.
Storage: Two 200GB Western Digital SATA hard drives.
Got these for free from work - one of our suppliers chucks them in free with large orders. The case takes two drives; should these run out of space I'll replace them with the new 500GB drives.
Putting it all together was no real drama. As with all slimline cases they get a little cramped with cables, especially if you are using a good PSU as they come with a lot of connectors. But with some arranging the airflow remains good and its pretty neat. The hard drive cage is easily removable for screwing the drives into it, which also frees up a good amount of space to work on affixing the iMon VFD, just as well as it was a bit of a mission!
The iMon VFD is a great unit but doesn't fit easily in this case and modifying it is not for the faint hearted. I managed to affix it to the case after snapping some of the PCB off, cutting some of the mounting plate off, and using 4x10mm lengths of chupa chup sticks to space and screw the mounting plate to the VFD. Who says HTPC is high tech! The iMon started working as soon as i ran the driver CD, which was nice.
Installing MCE went without a hitch, usual install MCE, chipset drivers, ghost, vid card drivers (take an image), then windows update (take an image). I put rollup 2 on as standard. Install BRP, OZtivo, scan for services, assign channels to guide (take an image). 3rd party stuff (MCE weather, WebGuide3 etc). Did i mention take an image?
The next thing is the TV - it's still on the shopping list, we've just a crappy old one at the moment.
Photos to come when the camera gets home!
Re: Built at last! Ahanix MCE301 Pentium M HTPC
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