[Hallsy]

Right, I think it's time I get a thread going for my HTPC project.

A couple of months ago I decided I wanted to build a HTPC to help free up some space from my laptop, and also have a dedicated media setup rather than using streamers or my Xbox360.

I read the sticky on this forum, which was a great thread (Thanks Theydon & all other contributors) and gave me lots of help/ideas. I also did a lot of reading over on SilentPC Review with regards to fans, cooling, etc.

I put a couple of threads up in this forum looking for advice, but unfortunately didn't get many replies, but after a lot more searching I was well on the way to sorting out my wishlist!!

Unfortunately due to a recent paycut, I couldn't really afford to go out and buy all of the parts in one hit, so I had to buy them over a couple of months.

The main needs of the system would be to store my MP3 collection, my pictures and also rip all of my DVD's to it. TV recording was also on the list. My current TV is only 720p/1080i so SD capability was the main need, but with a possible TV upgrade in the future, the possibilty of HD material was worth considering.

It will be used with the following:
Toshiba 32WLT66 (via HDMI)
Yamaha RX-V640RDS (via Optical) feeding my Acoustic Energy Aesprit surround sound setup.

So, here is the spec I have ended up with:

Silverstone Lascala LC13 HTPC Case £32.50 delivered (Thanks Behaviour)
Thermaltake TR2 RX-450 450W Modular PSU £23 + £8 p&p (ebay - as new)
Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H ATX Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ EE 65W CPU
PNY 2GB DDR2 PC6400 RAM - Mobo, CPU & RAM £56.10 + £10 p&p (ebay)
Hitachi Deskstar 1TB HDD £55 delivered (ebay)
Pioneer DVR-216DBK SATA DVD+-RW Drive £16.99 delivered (Play)
TerraTec Cinergy 2400i DT DVB-T Dual Tuner £5.50 + £4.00 p&p (ebay)
Coolink SWiF-801 80mm Case Fan £6.99 + £2.99 p&p (ebay)
Akasa 60-80mm Fan Adaptor £2.95 delivered (ebay)
Yate Loon D12SL-12 120mm Case Fan £3.99 + £1.82 p&p (ChilledPC)
Cyberlink MCE Remote & USB IR receiver £5.99 delivered (Play)

And next payday I will be purchasing the following:
Scythe Mini Ninja
Keysonic 540RF Wireless Keyboard
Zalman Fanmate

So this gives me a total spend of £235.82 so far, and with another £60 say to spend just on finishing touches, that gives me a total build cost of £295 which is just right for me, as I didn't want to spend much more than £300

As far as software is concerned, I downloaded the Windows 7 RC.

So, first thing that needed attention was the case. I gave myself some hard work here. As I had already bought the motherboard setup I was restricted to ATX cases, but, I wanted a small case to fit into my AV cabinet.
I looked at cases like the LC02 & LC04, but they were a bit pricey new, and hard to find second hand, plus they were reputed to have poor cooling. So, I decided I could get something a little bigger by cutting out the rear panel on my cabinet, and so, I found the Silverstone LC13.

I wanted to keep the case as quiet as possible, but also cooling needed to be fairly decent as I was running a slightly hotter than desirable 5000+ (65W vs ~45W of the 4850e I was considering) and it was also in an enclosed cabinet (although this is cooled by a pair of 120mm Red Wings and fan controller). Here's a link to my cabinet & mods: http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-...all-mount.html

Here's what I started with, after stripping the case down to it's bare shell:

So, first up I decided to ditch the std 60mm exhaust fans, and mount a single 80mm fan using an adaptor. This wasn't a straight fit, as the adaptor needed slight trimming to clear my motherboard i/o panel. I also cut out the mesh to reduce restriction, so improving exhaust flow and also keeping the noise down. I was advised that the Coolink SWiF-801 was quiet, which it is, and it also comes with a fan controller.

After some cutting & filing I was left with this:

The single 80mm fan flows as much air as a pair of quiet 60mm fans would, and should be quieter.

Moving on to the intake, the stock fan is 92mm, yet the grille is another drilled one, which looks to be designed for an 80mm fan. It daws air in through a vent in the bottom of the aluminium fascia.

I decided I could get a 120mm fan in it's place, and so cut a nice big hole for it, and also added some new mounting holes. I went with a Yate Loon (rather than the more expensive Nexus) D12SL-12 which I will run at ~1000rpm.

A bit of holesaw action left me with this:

And with the fascia back on:

I also made up a cork gasket to mount the fan with, to try to avoid any extra vibrations through case.

So with that sorted I had to think about HDD mounting. I only really thought of soft mounting after I realised that my SATA power connector would not reach from the 5.25" bay to the 3.5" bay! Some of you may notice a little setup in the above pics, but that was shortlived as it hit the motherboard!! So I went with the tried & tested elastic suspension mount.

The missus kindly donated me some old bikini bottoms, which I used the elastic from

With all that sorted it was time to get it all setup and running!! You may have noticed that my TV card was pretty cheap, that was because it was sold as 'untested', which can be read as 'broken'!! Being an electrical engineer I decided to take a chance on it. Sure enough it had been broken, a surface mount capacitor had been broken off and soldered back on. Trouble was, the solder joints were poor, but it was also the wrong polarity. I unsoldered the cap, put it in the right way around, re-soldered, and kept my fingers crossed!!

A modest pile of bits:

soon turned into this:

and I soon got started on loading Windows 7 RC :D

I had the odd bluescreen moment whilst installing, but it got there in the end without hitch

I set about updating the various drivers, etc and installing some anti-virus, setting up network, internet, etc.

Booted up WMC7, tested my TV card - it worked

And here she is with the rest of my kit:

I'm still waiting on the Cyberlink remote & receiver, but once I have it, the spare IR emitter from my 'eye' will be hooked up to the IR receiver, and I will use my Harmony 885 to control WMC7.

Now I'm left with the task of transferring all of my media.

With the HTPC on a network with my laptop, transferring the music & pictures was no problem.

DVD ripping turned out to be a head scratcher for me, reading & reading about which method/software would be best to use.

In the end I decided that as memory is cheap these days I would rip all of my movies to VOB files (just removing titles, unwanted soundtrack, etc in DVDFab), and probably use some compression on any TV series DVD's.

At this point I decided I wanted the glossy coverflow & backdrop look to WMC7, so with some inspiration from Groove's thread I downloaded the MediaBrowser plugin.

I had some troubles at first, I was getting no media info.

I downloaded Meta<browser/> which helped, but I was still having trouble with missing info in MediaBrowser, even though it was present in WMC7. It turned out to be caused by a double up on a movie (I was trying different ripping methods), and when I deleted one, MediaBrowser was OK again!!

So at the moment that's pretty much where I am, I've just started on my DVD collection, so have plenty more to do.

I've done some basic cooling/load testing with OCCT and monitoring using HW Monitor, but until I have my Minja I'm not too concerned with the results, other than it looks OK so far.

After watching an SD movie (VOB) this evening, HW Monitor is showing max ambient temps of 36'C, 47'C & 45'C (idle 32'C, 35'C, 35'C) and core temps of 45'C & 49'C (idle 27'C & 29'C). I am running the Coolink exhaust fan at 1600rpm (which is strange considering it says max speed is 1500rpm!!) but I may get away with running it slower, although at certain speeds it resonates (need to use some case lid dampening I reckon), and the Yate Loon intake at full speed (1350rpm). I have had the Yate running at ~1000rpm using SmartFan and it is very quiet, but I'd rather use a manual fan controller as Smart fan varies the fan speed dependant on load/temp.
The main noise maker at the mo is the AMD HSF, when this gets up above ~1700rpm it starts to get quite loud. Hopefully the Minja will sort that!!

The HDD temp at idle is 37'C, and hit 42'C whilst watching the movie. Is this considered OK? I realise that soft mounting looses some of the heatsink effect from the case and so will run hotter.

Do the above temps look reasonable? Once I get the Minja, can I be happy if I can maintain similar temps? I will also test full loading using OCCT.

I think that's about it for updates so far. I'll keep the thread updated as I go, no doubt I'll have lots of questions as I get closer to completion!!

And thanks for all the inspiration & help I've got from this forum so far

[Theydon Bois]

Excellent thread, and thanks for the pics (and the name check).

I like how you modded the fans, you are correct in your point about the larger fans as 60mm ones I just cant see being anywhere near as effective without turning up the rpm.

Edit: Added to the Sticky listed in the budget builds.

[eiren]

Great thread! Nice case mods there too... quite like the layout of the LC13.

Be careful with the Mini Ninja and that cross beam, as you may find it touches. Worth double checking the clearance from the CPU to that bar.


Where's the knot in the elastic you've used to suspend the HDD? I've been gazing at that photo trying to work out how to tie it together

[Hallsy]

Cheers guys.

Eiren, height is tight, but I have enough room for a Minja, I was also considering other slightly taller options that would have meant modifying the cross brace, but I reckon the Minja will be the way forward.

For the soft mount I have tied the nots on the left hand outer side of the 5.25" bay, as you look at them. Basically two loops pulled tight and knotted, then as you put the HDD in you twist the loops so that they trap the drive.

I'll get some more pics for you if you like

I was told after I bought the LC13 that the design layout was bad (there is an updated LC13-E which has a better layout), but with a few mods I think it will be OK - seems to be so far anyway. On SilentPC it was suggested that I may even get away with running the Minja passively if I were to use some ducting or diversion to direct the intake fan towards it, and with the exhuast fan being very close.

We will see though.

[eiren]

Ahhh I've got it now! I'll have to see if my wife has some spare bikinis laying around

I was going for the Minja too, but in the end went for a Noctua NH-9UB instead. It's only 1cm taller and also has a quieter fan on it, plus a better mounting system. Either one is a fantastic CPU cooler.

You could also try some of these mesh PCI brackets on the back since you've got a fan blowing directly at that area:

Chilled PC UK - Watercooling made easy, The UKs Largest Selection of Watercooling

Should give the air an exit at the back there too then for not a lot of money.

[DoktorAvalanche]

Nice work!
I too bored out my front fan on my LC13 -but stopped short with a 90mm fan.

Please monitor your hard drive temperatures -I had 3 drives, 2 in the centre standard drive mount cage & 1 in the extra one underneath the optical drives, in all locations they got baked!
This was with my case in an open TV stand, I dread to think what could be hapening in your cabinet.

It seems the front right of the case does not get much airflow.

This is especially important for your "bikini" mounted drive as there is no metal to soak heat away.

[Hallsy]

Originally Posted by eiren

Ahhh I've got it now! I'll have to see if my wife has some spare bikinis laying around

I was going for the Minja too, but in the end went for a Noctua NH-9UB instead. It's only 1cm taller and also has a quieter fan on it, plus a better mounting system. Either one is a fantastic CPU cooler.

You could also try some of these mesh PCI brackets on the back since you've got a fan blowing directly at that area:

Chilled PC UK - Watercooling made easy, The UKs Largest Selection of Watercooling

Should give the air an exit at the back there too then for not a lot of money.

Cool, I just looked up that Noctua cooler, might have to look into that, I reckon I can also fit that one in, and if it comes with a quieter fan than the Minja = bonus

I'm undecided on the mesh PCI slot covers. I had considered them, but someone on SilentPC suggested blocking up certain vents, etc and using ducting/guides to force the air from the intake fan to flow towards and across the CPU area, and also be pulled from the exhuast fan right behind it. By blockng unwanted vents off I guess you can control airflow better (in theory), but once I have my new CPU cooler I will play with that sort of thing to see what works best in practice.

Originally Posted by Shazzam

Nice work!
I too bored out my front fan on my LC13 -but stopped short with a 90mm fan.

Please monitor your hard drive temperatures -I had 3 drives, 2 in the centre standard drive mount cage & 1 in the extra one underneath the optical drives, in all locations they got baked!
This was with my case in an open TV stand, I dread to think what could be hapening in your cabinet.

It seems the front right of the case does not get much airflow.

This is especially important for your "bikini" mounted drive as there is no metal to soak heat away.

I was going to go with a 92mm fan and use the stock mount, but I had a 114mm cutter at work so though why not

I checked the HDD temps yesterday after watching a movie and it was idling at 37'C and had hit a peak of 42'C. Is this a little on the hot side or acceptable?

[DoktorAvalanche]

They seem OK!
In general People aim for 35 for idle & 40 for load so your build is just slightly elevated -something you can live with.

The data sheet for your hitachi drive states 5 to 60 degree C operating temperature -this means it will keep working at even higher temperatures, but does not mean the drive will be enjoying it!

My experiance was with the case packed out 3 hard drives, a passive grafics card x2 single tuner cards and the smaller fan! my drives were peaking at 55