Balforth's i5-2500k Gaming HTPC

balforth

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I originally didn't have my own thread, mainly because I was embarassed of my cable mismanagement skills, but after being shown the err of my ways, I decided to post one so I could seperate it out of the main gaming htpc thread and show some before/after pics.

So here is my parts list:


Main Hardware
  • Silverstone LC17b Case
  • Corsair HX850W PSU
  • Intel i5-2500k CPU
  • ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Motherboard
  • 2x4GB G.SKILL Ripjaws PC1600 DDR3 RAM
  • Gigabyte GTX-470 Super Overclocked
  • Crucial C300 SATA3 64GB SSD
  • WD Caviar 7200RPM SATA3 1TB HD
  • HP SATA BluRay
Cooling
  • Noctua NH-U9B SE2 92mm SSO CPU Cooler (fans currently on CPU heatsink, to be moved to front case later)
  • 2 x Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm Case Fan
  • 2 x Scythe Gentle Typhoon 92mm Case Fan (on the way) (to be used on CPU heatsink)
  • 2 x 80mm Fan Gaskets
  • 2 x 92mm Fan Gaskets
Perphrials
  • Logitech K800 Wireless Illuminated Keyboard
  • Logitech Wireless Performance Mouse MX
  • Logitech Harmony One Remote
Software
  • Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
  • XBMC - Aeon MQ
  • MakeMKV (for ripping BDs and DVDs)
  • Handbrake (for conversion to H.264)
  • Media Center Master (automatic renaming, and metadata scraping)
Other Little Important Bits
  • 2.5 inch to 3.5 inch SSD mounting kit
  • Rubber chasis fan gaskets
  • Gelid GC-Extreme thermal paste
I decided not to show pics of the intermediate build steps because a) I was too excited to build and couldn't be hassled with the camera and b) there are plenty of those on these forums already.

Since building it, I have learned that I should route several of my cables underneath my motherboard. When the 2 Gentle Typhoon fans come in, I will strip everything back out and do some cable re-routing.


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I was googling stuff every step of the way. I found the same problem with the rubber fan mounts -- I thought I was going to break them I was pulling them through so hard. I was surprised how tight of a fit everything was in that case -- I had to take the CD bay out to get the motherboard to fit in.

I was also surprised at the new technique of applying thermal paste -- just using a dot in the center and plopping on the cooler without spreading it. I wasn't entirely sure how to set all the fancy little jumpers like TPU etc, so I left it all at default. On first boot, I got a blank screen. I think the code on the motherboard was A3 or something like that. The book said it meant "drive event" or something else very non descript. I started scrambling and searching the internet. Then I changed HDMI inputs on the TV.... DOH. Everything was fine -- the drive event was that I didn't have any bootable media in the computer.

So I flashed my ASUS p8p67 deluxe bios to 1003, the Crucial c300 SSD was already at rev 0006. I disabled the Marvel controller as I'm only using the Intel. My memory is showing up as 1333 instead of 1600, which I heard was a problem. But all the settings were set to auto... so I'll have to play with that later.

I heard win7 only takes like 10-15 minutes to install on the crucial ssds. I didn't time it, but it sure seemed like it took 20-30 minutes. It was pretty late so I only got to install video, audio, and usb drivers. I also quickly installed firefox, xbmc, real temp, and folding@home. I'm having some video problems -- when it autodetects my resolution as 1900x1080, the picture extends off my screen on all sides, and the picture is not sharp at all -- it looks like I'm NOT at the native resolution. When I resize the boundaries with nVidia's tool so it fits my TV, it sets it to 1842x1026, and still looks crappy -- fonts are jagged and blurry. Not sure what to do about that.

Coretemps were between 30 and 32 in the BIOS when I first turned it on. I wasn't sure how to stress/load test it, but I started folding and temps rose to 45-48. It was like 01:00 in the morning by this time, so I left it run overnight. This morning, I turned the TV on, moved the mouse, hit keys on the keyboard, and coudn't get the computer to do anything -- no picture. I hit power, hit reset, nothing. So I held power in and it seemed like it turned it off. I waited a few seconds and hit power again to turn it on and it said "Resuming windows" or "Waking up" or whatever it says after it's been put to sleep, so I'm not quite sure what happened there.

One thing that immediately struck me a superbly awesome was audio. I'm used to having a headphone jack -> RCA cable plugged into the laptop with tons of EMI and background noise. Now audio is, well, you get it.

Not sure how good the Windows Experience Index is for really rating a system, but that's all I have at the moment. Highest score possible currently is 7.9. I have the XMP profile loaded for my memory, so it's running at 1600, and I'm currently running my processor with a multiplier of 45 (=4.5GHz) and a vcore of 1.32V. Here are my numbers:

Windows Experience Index Scores

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I'm hoping to get my cooling in order and see if I can get my CPU score to 7.9. I haven't done a thing with my video card yet, but it seems like if I could mildly push it, it could get to 7.9 as well.

Lots more configuration and playing to begin/continue tonight. Thanks to everybody who helped me put this together, especially Razor!
 

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My HTPC has been up and running for a week and a half. I finally got my new Gelid Extreme thermal compound in, along with 2 92mm GentleTyphoon 2650rpm chasis fans. So today I began undoing the cable nastiness I had going on in my computer.

First off, I bought some Gelid Extreme thermal compound to replace the Noctua compound that came with my CPU cooler. This is what happens when you put a pea-sized glob of compound instead of a rice-sized one:
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Here is the new, much smaller glob:
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I started out by taping down anything that could fit under my motherboard. I taped down one rear chasis fan, the power cable for the blueray player, the CPU power cable, both video card power cables, and the data cable for my front USB3 ports. I was amazed at how much bulk can fit under the mother board -- not only are the holes where the motherboard standoffs raised, but there also are several recessed areas on the bottom to run thick cables:
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My intent, courtesy of Razor's advice, was to put the two GentleTyphoon fans on the CPU heatsink and move the exist two Noctua fan's to the front chasis. I got the highest speed GentleTyphoon fans on the market, only because that's all I could find. I used the ULNA adapters on them and they're dead silent.

The Silverstone case requires that you attach the front chasis fans to the hard drive bays, but the center hard drive bay doesn't allow you to put a modern video card in, so I took a hacksaw to it. It was the hardest part of the day and I was dreaming of a dremel tool, but this is what I ended up with:
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The chasis fan now mounts easily into this bay. The other bay with the hard drives holds the other Noctua fan. It seems like there will be very little airflow through there, however, as I have two hard drives mounted at the top of the bay and all the extra cabling from the power supply is crammed in the bottom.

Once it was all in place, I dropped my motherboard in and everything was looking really good:
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Here's the finished product:
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It's worth noting that 2 corners of the GentleTyphoon fans, where the mounting screws go are completley enclosed in a plastic cylinder along the entire width of the fan, preventing you from using the fan clips that come with the Noctua CPU heatsink. I had to use the hacksaw to cut saw through the cylinder, then use just a little rocking motion with a pair of pliers and it snapped off, exposing the hole so the clip could snap in. I don't know if I'm explaing it very well, but if you look at the pics of the fans full size, you can see some much lighter grey areas near the fan clips where I sawed out the plastic.

So for a final comparison, here is a before & after shot:
BEFORE:
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AFTER:
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The after picture still makes it look a little sloppy for some reason, but it doesn't look this sloppy in person. The big motherboard power cables jack everything up, but I don't think there's anything I can do about it.

And a shot of the video card for no good reason:
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Some interesting stuff going with the processor -- it seems I'm having to pump more voltage to get it to run stable at 4.5GHz than I did before, but my temps have dropped from upwards of 80 degrees down to about 65-70 under full load. Upon further investigation, it looks like the voltage in CPU-Z is fluctuating and quite a bit off from where I set it in BIOS, so I'm sure in haste I overlooked something.

Updated final pic:
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How to Control an HTPC
So I've struggled with this for months, both before and after I finished my HTPC build, and I finally think I've found the right solution.... for me.

Mouse
First off, a lot of people want a nice, small, integrated keyboard/mouse. This is great, but for us gamers, a full sized keyboard and mouse is mandatory. Also, I hate batteries, and I hate changing batteries, so I really wanted a rechargable mouse. I have been the proud owner of a Logitech Wireless MX mouse for several years. It came with a docking station, so I pop it in there whenever I'm done and never have to worry about it. The docking station also serves as the wireless receiver. Great for a desk, but the range was pretty crappy in my living room (especially with the docking station tucked into my little piece of junk entertainment center right next to my center channel) and it had intermittent tracking problems on any given surface. I read some reviews on newer mice and decided to stick with Logitech and go with a newer version of the same mouse. Bottom line: very pleased. No range issues, awesome tracking, still don't know fully what it's capable of. There is no base station -- you just plug a USB cable into it to charge it. The receiver is Logitech's "unifying receiver", a tiny little USB dongle, which can act as a receiver for multiple devices. You can switch the scroll wheel between the jumpy, incremental click-click-click scrolling, or enable smooth scrolling, where a flick of the finger sends the wheel spinning smoothly for what seems like minutes. I highly recommend this mouse.

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Performance Mouse MX

Keyboard
For the keyboard, again, I didn't want batteries. I was also thinking a backlit keyboard would be nice. By sheer chance and coincidence, Logitech makes one which also uses the same unifying receiver -- The "Wireless Illuminated Keyboard K800". The keyboard is thin, keys feel great, and the thing lights up just by hovering your hand over they keyboard. It then auto-dims when you're done. Couldn't be more happy with it.
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Wireless Illuminated Keyboard K800

Remote
The most difficult part of all -- finding the right remote. Just so you know that I'm not getting paid by Logitech, I'll let you know that up until last night, I've been using the EZ@Home EZ Commander remote. I chose this remote because I heard so many people say "Oh it doesn't matter, just any old generic remote". Plus this one had a trackball... I use SlingPlayer which has some odd keymappings and an on-screen virtual remote. When all else fails, I could use the trackball to click on the on-screen remote. The problem was the TERRIBLE button layout:

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As you can see, the directional arrows make no sense, and are not centered around a center "ok" button. In general, I would expect the play button to also be centered, with rewind-type buttons to the left and forward-type buttons to the right... stop/pause type buttons probably above or below. They just threw all the buttons into one big random grid. Additionally, you have to switch between PC mode and Media mode to access different functionality. Additionally additionally, some of the labels above the buttons are blue for PC mode, and some are red for Media mode, meaning that the actual label on the button is ??? it's just confusing all the way around. I mean, look at what you'd have to do to change the volume. Finally additionally, there was no way for me to set it up to use the media buttons for both XBMC and SlingPlayer. Even using something like EventGhost wouldn't have worked, because I would need it to dynamically know which program I was using and switch to a whole different set of key mappings based on that.

Final solution? Logitech Harmony One + Microsoft RC6 receiver.

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Harmony® One Advanced Universal Remote

With the Harmony remote, I can set up each of my devices individually. My devices are my receiver, my TV, Microsoft MCE Keyboard (keyboard + MCE remote functions), and Microsoft Media Center SE (lots of cool key combos such as win+1..., alt-f4, etc) These end up serving as, in programming terms, low-level function calls for "activities" that I build.

Basically everything that I do on my TV now, I do on my HTPC. Although I have a PS3, PC gaming has taken over and the PS3 hasn't seen power in quite a while. So I never need to change inputs on the receiver or TV.

Logitech thinks of activities as "Listen to Music", "Watch TV", or "Watch a Movie". It wants to turn everything on, change the inputs/presets, etc etc, and turn everything off when you're done. I have it set up to just leave everything on. My activites are "XBMC" and "SlingPlayer". They are set up as generic utility activities, so I can individually map each key on the remote to whatever function I want for each device I have listed. For XBMC, I just use all the generic keyboard commands for play, pause, stop, fast forward, etc etc. My volume commands are mapped to my receiver, and I have two custom commands that show up on the touch screen: Start XBMC and Close XBMC, which are mapped to Win+2 (location on the quicklauch bar where I have XBMC pinned), and Alt-F4 respectively. Basically same thing for SlingPlayer, except different keys are mapped to different media buttons, and the "Start SlingPlayer" button is mapped to Win+3.

For any other media center or app that I might choose to add in the future, I can simply add a new activity and define my buttons. In fact, I think I'm going to just go ahead and add a generic MCE activity for all other Microsoft type media that I may encounter. Here was a nice guide for setting up the remote with XBMC:

[WINDOWS] HOW-TO use a Logitech Harmony Remote with XBMC - XBMC Community Forum

Again, I don't work for Logitech :) It was sheer coincidence that I ended up with 3 logitech products.
 

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Good stuff balforth, you and I are doing pretty much the same thing at the same time. Hopefully it goes okay for both of us. :D
 
Cheers for sharing Balforth. :)
 
Nice, and good luck with trying to tidy those cables! :D
 
Can imagine indi saying ow no not snakes lol.......:devil:
 
LOL ya... I'm really relieved to hear that there is some other method to this madness. I felt like I was crazy because I couldn't imagine how in the world what I could do with all those cables and how I could make it look like anything half way similar to the beautiful builds I've seen people post on these forums :)
 
wow, those cables look like a nightmare! :-O, id put the other HDD case back in and tuck them all in there and play ignorant! lol.
Nice built there though bud- seeings your windows experience scores has inspired me to consider investing in a SSD :)
 
wow, those cables look like a nightmare! :-O, id put the other HDD case back in and tuck them all in there and play ignorant! lol.
LOL THEY ARE A NIGHTMARE! They're so big and inflexible! I just can't help but laugh at myself. The center HDD bay won't fit in there with that monster GTX-470. Hopefully I can make it much nicer once I get them all placed underneath...
Nice built there though bud- seeings your windows experience scores has inspired me to consider investing in a SSD :)
Thanks -- go for the SSD. As soon as the little animation for Windows 7 finishes while it's loading at boot up, it spits me out at my desktop. I think probably around 7-8 seconds.
 
balforth another thing I did was place my HDD in the top slot of the drive bay, with the SSD just below that. This allows you to stuff some of the unnecessary cables in under the SSD (similar to what Grangey was saying but without the need to put the other drive bay back in. :)
 
LOL THEY ARE A NIGHTMARE! They're so big and inflexible! I just can't help but laugh at myself. The center HDD bay won't fit in there with that monster GTX-470. Hopefully I can make it much nicer once I get them all placed underneath...

Tell me about it, i got one thinking "ah modular, minimalistic and simple- this will work great", geat the cables out and "HOLEY HELL!"- makes me wonder how mad it is with non modular! I was lucky enough that I could hide mine under my hdd and optical drive tray but i guess its tricky with yours as its almost the opposite way round to mine! I guess youl just have to get stuck in with some cable ties!
 
I originally didn't have my own thread, mainly because I was embarassed of my cable mismanagement skills, but after being shown the err of my ways, I decided to post one so I could seperate it out of the main gaming htpc thread and show some before/after pics.

I would'nt worry too much mate, the OCDness of cable management comes over time - if this is your first or one of your first builds, you concentrate on getting it up and running, being very happy with your new toy, THEN worry about tinkering later. :D

I agree with the others regarding the cables though, move hard drives to the top and stuff cables underneath - cables under the board can be tricky unless they are unbroken flat cables - a SATA power cable for instance is flat, but then has power connections and will not fit under a board.

Also, use cable ties to tie them together if they end up being visible, trying to keep things around the outside of the case as much as posssible. They will still be visible, but it wont look like a bag of snakes so much :D

So, hide and cable tie - dont go under the board. :smashin:
 
I assume your HX850 is the same as my 650- in which case corsair are even nice enough to provide the cable ties for you :)

Indeed they do. Of all the components, I was most impressed with the way the power supply was packaged - in its own velvet bag with a separate pouch for all the cables. Really felt like a quality product. (Would want to for ÂŁ130 though!)
 
So, hide and cable tie - dont go under the board. :smashin:

Why do you say that mate? I stick as much cables under the board as possible is makes life so much easier. I do this with every htpc build I do. :)
 
Agree with Razor. no reason what soever not to run it under the board! Only cable tie what you cant hide. If youre not hiding the other cables under the board they are only above it somewhere constricting airflow and looking a mess (whether you can see it or not.) Under the mobo is the only way that gets them completely out of sight and assisting with air flow, no brainer really.
 

Why do you say that mate? I stick as much cables under the board as possible is makes life so much easier. I do this with every htpc build I do. :)

Agree with Razor. no reason what soever not to run it under the board! Only cable tie what you cant hide. If youre not hiding the other cables under the board they are only above it somewhere constricting airflow and looking a mess (whether you can see it or not.) Under the mobo is the only way that gets them completely out of sight and assisting with air flow, no brainer really.

Because there are only so many cables that can - if you check Razors thread, he has two that go under the board, a 4+4 power and what looks like a (very?) long flat SATA power connection. The SATA data connection is running round the outside (possibly just tucked under the edges, and not under the board, likely because SATA data cables are normally only 30cm long), and I dont think every power supply normally has that very long sata power cable either - meaning that only one cable can fit under the board - not much in the grand scheme of things.

I probably should have elaborated by saying dont think that you can automatically jam all the cables under the board - simply because some of them will not be long enough, or too thick, or have connections in the middle.

I did say this to try and explain what I meant though:

I agree with the others regarding the cables though, move hard drives to the top and stuff cables underneath - cables under the board can be tricky unless they are unbroken flat cables - a SATA power cable for instance is flat, but then has power connections and will not fit under a board.
 
I hear you Theydon -- I still can't even conceive in my mind that those big fat power supply cables are going to fit in that little gap the risers provide between the mobo and the case. I'm just going off the fact that so many people say they have the exact same PSU and they do fit underneath.

If you see my detailed Visio engineering diagram referencing my current cable layout:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/13941599-post994.html

I think my biggest benefit will be with the CPU power cable. It currently is almost stretched out trying to fit around my video card, between the DVD bay and the CPU cooler, then finally around the CPU cooler to the opposite corner of the motherboard.

Most of the rest of those that stay up front I'll tuck into the HDD bay as recommended. The only bad thing is I just went from 6 hard drive slots to 2 -- the center bay is gone and the bottom of the other bay will be stuffed with cables. Looks like if I want to expand space any more I'll either have to replace the 1TB drive with something bigger or just build a NAS.
 
I'm just going off the fact that so many people say they have the exact same PSU and they do fit underneath.

Not sure where that was said, as mine shore as hell wouldnt and doesnt! Id say tuck everything else other than power cable under there, then cable tidey the main cable. Itl never looks massively neat i dont think due to you having to remove one of your HDD bays so theres a big space there that will always be visible, but it will still be possible to de-clutter it :)
 
Because there are only so many cables that can - if you check Razors thread, he has two that go under the board, a 4+4 power and what looks like a (very?) long flat SATA power connection. The SATA data connection is running round the outside (possibly just tucked under the edges, and not under the board, likely because SATA data cables are normally only 30cm long), and I dont think every power supply normally has that very long sata power cable either - meaning that only one cable can fit under the board - not much in the grand scheme of things.

I have the 4+4 power connector, one sata cables (20cm long), sata power cable, usb connectors from the front of the case all running under the board on that particular build.

I tuck the 20 pin panel connector and the 24pin power connector along the side of the mobo. The 24 pin has no hope in hell in going under the mobo.


As you say mate, it all depends on what hardware you are installing. On this build here I couldn't put the sata cables under the mobo as the 4+4 cable was too fat. In fact all the cables on my enermax were allot fatter than my cables corsair HX psu. Fitting a 1250w psu into a htpc case was a total bitch.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/10668688-post451.html
 

cant see any pictures of it just that doodle, fair play if he did but he must have either a very very flat cable, or some high risers, as my hx650 would not fit under with all the will in the world, and the fact razor is saying the same and hes ripped his htpcs apart many times, would indicate its a very tall order. Would be brilliant if you can though! Tucking it around the edge though did a good enough job for me and got it out the way :)
 
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lol actually i say that.. but my tucking didnt even too well i dont think (not that i really tried as i havnt use any tape or ties in my build yet)- i think they cable was too taught to keep it perfectly tucked so it popped back out as you can see here :laugh:

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i think that was my biggest issue when the thought of cable management briedly crossed my mind, when i discovered just how inflexible the cables were I new it would have taken me days to try and get it right, if you tried to create a tigher corner in one place... the cable would pop up in another place! I was lucky that I could hide my main power cable under my drive bays (although my vfd added even more length to it), otherwise it would look even worse in mine!
 
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