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I built this as a development MCE Server. I am looking to build new tools for MCE and integrate Home Automation/Security/Surveillance.
My Specs are;
SilverStone Full Size Case SST-TJ06
SilverStone 600W Power Supply ST60F
Intel D955XBK Extreme Motherboard with integrated Dual SATA, RAID, 7.1 Audio
- SigmaTel Audio
- TI 1394 Bus
- 82801 GB SATA Bus
Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz Dual Core
1GB RAM
ATI Radion X800 256MB
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE Dual Receiver
SATA0 Channel (Striped)
Seagate 300GB O/S, Photos, Music Library
Seagate 300GB DVD Archive
Seagate 300GB DVD Archive
Seagate 300GB DVD Archive
SATA1 Channel (Striped)
Seagate 300GB TV Archive
Seagate 300GB TV Archive
Seagate 300GB Other
Seagate 300GB Other
Sony DVD-R/W 16X DRU-800A
7-in-1 Multimedia 5 1/4 bay (CFC, MSC, SDC, SMC)
Microsoft IR Transceiver with MCI Remote
Microsoft MCE Keyboard
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Microsoft Media Center 2005
Sony 72" XBR Primary Display (1920x1080)
BenqQ 19" Secondary Display (1280x1024)
I spent a month researching prior to purchasing these components. I would recommend this setup even more now that its up and running!
I am looking at building a MCE server as an addition to my main MCE machine to store DVD's and video etc.....can you tell me a bit about how noisy it is, how easy it is to use etc.
amg082, it depends on how you want to run the 'server'.
1. Server is a big powerful Media Centre PC, and you have extenders throughout the house, e.g Xbox360
2. Server is a central location for all Music, Pictures, DVD's etc, but all Media Centre recordings etc are done on the Media Centre PC, not the server. This is how I do mine, mainly due to extenders being so rare/nonexistent/limited in their functionality.
Basically my server is just a PC (P4 3Gig, 1GB, Gigabyte 915G-Duo MB), with a good power supply, Gigabit LAN card, decent cooling and of course TONS of storage, both via internal drives, and external USB2 and Firewire drives. It is definitely noisy, as every hard drive adds to the noise, and heat, so you want to keep it cool (i.e not in the hot ceiling space), and as far away as possble (mine's in the garage, near the cool airflow coming from under the house). For the O/S you can use XP Pro, 2000/2003 Server or one of the many flavours of Linux out there, depending on your knowledge and preferences. I've gone for 2003 Server personally as I liked it's software RAID features. It works flawlessly, and I haven't touched the machine in about 5 months, thanks also to the UPS which keeps the power going during a short blackout, and automatically switches it off during a longer one, then on again when power is restored. I have the external USB2/1394 drives shared and mapped, and the internal ones are all on a very large software RAID 5 array, except for the O/S + Music drive, which are in a hardware RAID 1 array. The only downside is that the nice episode descriptions that normally appear in the 'Recorded TV' section don't appear when viewing the dvr-ms files on a network drive, so renaming and organising your files is important for your sanity!!
The main reason I went down this path was that too many hard drives in my MCE PC just got too noisy, and too hot.
But a warning... no matter how much HDD storage space you have, it's still not enough!!!
Nice config.
Very close to mine, except you have a higher end Motherboard for more RAID array.
Mine has worked a treat up until now. I just blew my motherboard last week. Seems like a capacitor has blown its bubble. Even got the burn marks to prove it
Seems like this crazy Aussie heat has been playing with the system a bit, especially when its doing a HELL OF A LOT of crunching and spending many hours of the day at 100% CPU.
So what Im going to do once this has been replaced by Intel (oh sorry, IF it gets replaced by the very caring and loving INTEL), is to remove the windtunnel and place a Zalman CNPS9500LED Cooler in place of the stock cooler. It seems that the windtunnel does help with cooling, however running the 9500LED (just as I do in my main MCE which runs Dual Core and pretty much the same setup), gets the temp down to mid 50's. The windtunnel unfortunately doesnt come close to that. Great concept the old windtunnel design, just not 100% effective with CPU's running Pentium D's.
the 9500 is great all right, handles the P-D 830 no probs.
The capacitor issue may look heat related, but it's a very common problem at the moment, not just for Intel, but for all mainboard manufacturers. It cost Dell an extra 300 million dollars in mainboard replacement and technician costs in the last year alone!!! I've probably changed about 25 boards in the past month alone, all with exactly the same problem, and on Gigabyte, Intel, ABit and Asus mainboards.
Someone at the big capacitor factory stuffed up, that's for sure.
Thanks for the info on that Tigger. Thats a very interesting Fact.
Well, heres hoping Intel understand this and give me my replacement.
They are a pretty aggrevating company to deal with for returns.
They expect a full days worth of testing by me for a obvious problem on a cheap $170 m/board!
Re Capacitor: If your motherboard is out of warranty and you are a bit handy with a soldering iron you can replace them yourself.
See: http://www.overclockers.com/tips1081/
Re Having to rename your DVR files: MCE customizer allows you to change what info is added to the filename when it saved. I've changed mine to. Program name and episode title. So it gives me The Simpsons_Homer Alone.dvr-ms instead of The_Simpsons_18_00_2005_01_05... etc.
Have you tried using MCE tweak to add a "watched Folder" from your server and actually get it to work?
I ended up adding a shortcut to my Recorded TV drive on my server (Webscheduler recordings) in the area where my videos are stored to make it easier to get to, seeing the other method doesn't work.
Server 2003 is the next try, already loaded in standard form on a removable drive on another PC
Re Capacitor: If your motherboard is out of warranty and you are a bit handy with a soldering iron you can replace them yourself.
See: http://www.overclockers.com/tips1081/
Thanks for the heads up SPG
Thankfully mine is only a few months old.
Must admit though, Im a bit lazy when it comes to things like that. If it was broke, Id just use the old one as a frisbee and start over again Afterall, its a good chance to upgrade to something slightly nicer
Basically my server is just a PC .......... etc etc
It works flawlessly, and I haven't touched the machine in about 5 months.... etc etc
Well I think that saying that was an utter obvious curse, as my servers' power supply just died!! Man, I thought it was the mainboard for a while there, that had me worried, (although I'm paranoid and have a spare one!!!!!) But the cabling and drama to change it over wasn't a nice thought.
I did have a spare 430W power supply, so back up and running again... whew, some nervous moments there.
I think that the act of saying your machine is working well immediately triggers a hardware failure of some kind. Best to stick with 'it's not working properly' methinks.
