Novatech Vision Media Centre case build and review

spyder viewer

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http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/cases/mediacentrecases/novatech/nov-vision.html

The case comes well-packed in a triple-wall cardboard carton with carry-handle. It has the usual polythene bubble cheeks to protect the case. Included in the box is a carton containing the remote control, instructions and a power adaptor to enable the front-panel switch to interface to the psu. (not necessary as the mobo will take the switch connections directly). Also in the bag: tie-wraps X4 and various mobo and drive retaining screws.

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The 250W matx psu comes ready-mounted, there is no mains lead provided.
There is no isolation switch fitted to the psu. The front panel has a large power button, is black anodised with a bright aluminium bezel to highlight it. There are six smaller buttons for reset, then hot buttons for My Music, My Pictures, My TV, My Videos and My Home (can't wait to find out what this does). Also there are indicators for power and HD activity. There is nothing in the instructions to indicate the operation of these buttons. There is also a window behind which, is the ir receiver with a led to indicate signal received. There is a small inset panel with aluminium highlighting mounting 2 usb sockets and the usual audio jacks. There is a hinged flap to stealth the optical drive. In the TLH corner is a Novotech logo made from plastic and is probably removeable. The case sits on 4 silvered feet with rubber inserts.
The remote has the majority of buttons on a normal windows remote with the exception of no Windows button. Interestingly it has "mouse" buttons!
The case cover and front panel are made of brushed aluminium and is black-anodised. The sleeve-style cover is held in place by 10 philips screws. The base is of anodised steel, the major edges are turned over to reduce the risk of cut fingers (nice touch). There are two stainless steel tie bars to give the case rigidity whilst the cover is removed. The mobo pillars are pre-installed and there are 2 extra in the screw bag. The drives (1 each of 5.25 and 3.5) fit to a separate sub-chassis which is held in by 2 screws. There are rubber bushes for the 3.5 drive. The psu has the usual 4 pin power plugs (4), sata power (2), floppy power , cpu and mobo (24pin). There is a rubber seal where the psu attaches to the back of the case. There are three perforated areas in the bottom of the case: under the mobo, under the drives and behind the front panel where it is pre-drilled to mount a 120mm fan (not supplied)
The pci card back panel is pre-perforated to allow the openings to be created. The flange for the pci card screws folds out and extends beyond the back panel, the edges are a little rough but not sharp, not going to be an issue once there are cards fitted and it's on a shelf against a wall.
Although there is no mention in the literature, more adventurous builders could probably install mounts for additional hard drives.

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My reasons for purchasing this case apart from evaluating it is to use some components I have lying around from previous HTPC builds.
GA-G31M-ES2L motherboard
500 Gb hard drive
Radeon HD 4350 graphics card
Atheros pci-e WLAN
Peak dual DVB-T tuner
Samsung 223C dvd writer
Pentium Dual core E5800
2+2Gb DDR2 ram
Assembly was straight-forward: the open-plan case was easy to work in with the drive cage removed. Tie-wraps and self-adhesive bases were used to keep cables tidy and out of the way. The space between the psu and the drive cage was large enough to stow unused power leads in. One area where special care is needed: the various pairs of wire going to and from the front panel switches and leds etc are made from quite stiff single strand wire. This has been soldered to the leads on the back of the switches and leds. Although the solder joints are sleeved, there is little or no additional support given to the pins so care should be taken that these are not snapped off. Snapping out the pci back panel slots was a little bit fiddly but it can be made easier by inserting a philips screwdriver into the crosses stamped into the metal and levering. Also, with the lid removed there is the possiblity of the base of the case flexing so it should be supported on a hard flat surface. One of the drawbacks with black anodised finishes is that although the surface is fairly hard, it can scratch so care must be taken to avoid this. The absence of a mechanical power switch takes some getting used to as it means that the unit has to be switched off at the plug in order to remove the standby power when adding or removing cards.

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All trials were done using W7HP64 and WMC. In use, the issues of prime importance are: is it noisy, does the remote work and does it look good? The psu fan is noticeable even from a metre away although it's difficult to discern from 3-4 metres, it's more fan noise than motor hum. It's quieter than my Antec Fusion which has a psu and 2 case fans in. The psu draws air in through the vent on the top of it (which is inside the body of the case) and exhausts it through the grill at the back. In my application, this is the only form of forced extraction from the case. The cpu temperature is 30 degs c and the stock cpu fan speed ~1100rpm. The remote as stated before has no Windows key so the only way to get WMC up is to switch to mouse mode and use the joy ring to move the curser. There are two buttons which emulate mouse buttons. There are dedicated buttons which select music, recorded tv, pictures, videos. The power button puts the pc into standby and wakes it up as well. The buttons on the front panel perform a similar function to those on the remote. If you have no alternative then you could get by with the supplied remote but if you have had experience of a comprehensive Windows remote it will take some getting used to. The remote feels a little a little "plasticky" and it remains to be seen if it will stand the test of time. I'm sure that my "review" team will iron out the bumps. Additional info: Initial impressions are that this remote is terrible. The ir receiver is very slow in passing the signal on to the usb port (or the usb port doesn't have a very high priority). When there is high disk/cpu activity, it can take several seconds for the received signal (receiver light flashes straight away) to be acted on. For instance: if you press the volume control you have to wait 2-5 secs for the volume "window" to appear in WMC. You then have a few seconds to adjust the volume level before the window disappears. Whilst listening to music streamed from a network drive, it was something of a lottery whether WMC would respond at all. The "chapter" buttons do not work at all. The front panel buttons (with the exception of power) are flush, the optical drive stealth flap partially obscures the button when the drive is open but as I'm happy to just nudge the tray so had no problem with it. There is a green and a red led for power and HD activity.

The large Novotech logo tends to dominate the overall appearance which is otherwise good. Bearing in mind observations already made, £50 for case, psu and remote: I have no hesitation in recommending this case as a value for money choice for a HTPC/PVR.
 
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Nice review. Thanks.

So disappointing about the remote. This is a key consideration for me.
Have you tried using another remote with it???
 
I have tried a number of remotes with the built-in ir receiver: Emprex, Kaypro and Peak. Although the red led by the detector indicated that a signal was being detected, none had any influence on WMC.

Plugging the Emprex receiver into one of the usb ports and this remote worked correctly.

Further input on the supplied remote: the red button features don't work and there's no triple-tap facility either.

It is just possible that the remote is defective but even if it worked fully, the lack of certain essential buttons excludes it's long-term use for me.
 
Further info on this system: I powered the HTPC via a power meter for 24 hours. The power drawn during normal use (tv, music etc) was 80W and peaked at 95W. On standby, the power drawn is about 7W.

By comparison, the power values for my Antec-cased HTPC (Antec psu) is similar in use but in stand-by the power consumption fell to 2W.

So the Novatech is likely to cost me £5 a year more to run!
 
Thanks very much for this very useful review.

Just wondering how your getting on with the case. Have you removed the hideous "NOVATECH" letting at all?

Any chance you tried the remote with XBMC?

Thanks.
 
The logo just levers off with a thumbnail, don't use any tooling or you might damage the anodising. It's attached with double-sided sticky and any adhesive residue will come off with an appropriate solvent.

No experience of XBMC but the remote is appalling and I'm thinking of a way of fitting a usb ir receiver behind the case window.

The problem with the remote is that even though it appears to detect a transmission from the handset, it just ignores it. There's no red button and the triple-tap doesn't work either.
 
Thanks very much for your help!

Ordered the case this evening. The other thing I was wondering about is the mechanism of installing the optical drive. Presumably it take a normal 5.25" drive, what's the mechanism like for opening the tray, as the open/close button is obviously hidden? and does it work well?

Also have you found a way of installing another HDD 3.5" or 2.5" in there?
 
Fitting both drives is easy. The cage is fairly rigid and there are plenty of screws. Yes it takes a standard 5.25 drive. The tray open button is very slightly proud so provided you set the drive properly it works reliably. Almost impossible to press when the tray is open but a slight nudge on the tray and it closes.

Update on the remote: it only has a reliable range of about 3 metres. Although the signal detected light works up to 5 metres, it doesn't reliably decode the button pressed. Probably due to the fact that it's only powered by a CR2025 lithium battery.

Would never fit another drive: I've fitted a 500gb drive and have a network drive as well. If you are handy with a drill and have some "meccano" around, I'm sure you could fit a second drive: there's lots of room but keep an eye on ventilation.
 
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Excellent, thank you very much for you help. Much appreciated.

Could add the link to the OP, manufacturers details etc, few reviews of the case too, in German tho.

MC-1200 Rev. C
 
Excellent, thank you very much for you help. Much appreciated.

Could add the link to the OP, manufacturers details etc, few reviews of the case too, in German tho.

MC-1200 Rev. C

The item I reviewed is not the model you've linked to: the Novatech product appears to be a stripped down version: the remote control is a reduced spec, the psu is 250w not 350w, the case is not black throughout. Suggest you add a note to your post to avoid confusion.

Also, it would appear that Novatech have stopped selling this product as I cannot find it on their site. Was it something I said? ;) Have emailed Novatech for update. I'll be interested to see what product you get.
 
Looked at getting the Novatech case but as you say it is no longer listed for sale. I also like the Silverstone ML03 but no one has stock of that either.

Why is it so hard to find a nice HTPC case for reasonable money.

David
 
I know, been looking for a reasonable budget low profile case for a while and those were the two I had shortlisted.

I ordered the Novatech Vision case late on Thursday evening and I've got a feeling it was the last one! Sorry.

The Silverstone looks great too, no PSU included and out of stock.
 
I know, been looking for a reasonable budget low profile case for a while and those were the two I had shortlisted.

I ordered the Novatech Vision case late on Thursday evening and I've got a feeling it was the last one! Sorry.

The Silverstone looks great too, no PSU included and out of stock.

I am not only looking at low profile cases, I like the Silverstone Grandia range to but no stock anywhere.
 
Scan have the Grandia in stock now.

David
 
A hopefully final footnote on this build: these boards have dual channel memory and I built this machine with a single 2 gB of ram. I popped in another stick and found that the Windows Experience Index for memory operations increased from 5.5 to 6.3. Now I doubt if I will detect this improvement under everyday use but I thought that I would share the info with you.
 
Hi just a quick Q. but this case has come up again on HUKD.

Just wondering from your remote tests, did you ever try a genuine MS one (that uses the RC6 protocol?)

This data sheet suggests it should work but would need confirmation I suppose

http://www.ms-tech.de/de/datenblatt/MC-1200.pdf

Thanks
 
I have this case and think its pretty good value for a htpc. One thing I'm struggling with is setting up my harmony one with it. Can anyone help?

I have not done anything yet when I have the amp on an try turn it down with the harmony, it clashes with the vision media and ends up pausing the xbmc movie..... odd..... no other buttons work but the volume up an down.....
 
There's no mention in the datasheet about RC6, I have other ir remotes which the signal detector responds to but none actually communicate with the PC.

Also, that datasheet is not this exact machine as the psu is bigger. Don't know what else is different!
 
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Many thanks for your helpful points. I was thinking of using this box:

Novatech Vision Media Centre Case | NOV-VISION

with this mini-ITX Fusion board:

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Motherboards- ASUS E35M1-I DELUXE

which includes integrated graphics. Based on this, and your observations, perhaps this would be a better PSU:

mini-itx.com - store - power supplies

I think the leads should be long enough.

That apart, are there any other electrical points to consider. I was wondering if it is actually possible to remove the supplied PSU from the novatech case. Has anyone with this case got any ideas?
 
My brother has just built an entirely passive unit using that mobo and psu, works fine but I think his power brick is ~120W. I keep nagging him for details but you know what big brothers are like!

The case psu is easy to remove but there will be a small hole where the switch was.

By the way, I'm hoping to sell the system I built to a friend for £235. He was happy, I am happy!.

It's still a useless remote though.
 
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Canta - I've just built what you are proposing, albeit with a E35M1 standard. Compared to my 2004 PC this thing is silent! My unit is quieter than the Sky+HD box it sits next to.

The premium for the deluxe mobo was too much for me, I have wired LAN outlets everywhere, and don't intend on overclocking (no point, xbmc runs flawlessly). One went for £104 used on ebay - Whoa!

I installed a quiet case 120mm fan and I don't think it has been on yet (I chose silent in BIOS). The remote is rubbish but I use my android phone in xbmc.
 
Glad to see this back up towards the top saves me starting my own thread.

I've allready swapped out the PSU for a 500w CIT pSU(basically the same but larger power output) and still the fan is too loud. I have a throttle on my 120mm case fan so can get it down totally silent, or crank it up and still not hear it over 2-3 ft away.

I've been playing for the idea of removing the PSU fan all together, and only using the 120mm fan for cooling (along with the CPU cooler of course ,scythe shuriken rev b) and even bought a small digital thermometer to monitor exhaust temps.

Rather than opening the PSU and removing the fan I've just slipped a pen inner through the cooling holes and stopped it spinning that way. Rudimentary I agree, but t serves the purpose of letting me see how quiet it is without the PSU fan noise, and my god it's great.

My exhaust temp is a steady 33.9C with the 120mm case fan on full, I'll consider dropping it a little lower later on when I'm sure it's not going to increase too much.

SO i'll finally get round to my question.

I consider the 33.9C steady temp 'good' and note that even with the psu fan stopped, the case is still 'cool to touch' above where the PSU would be.
Previously, with the case fan turned down, it would occasionally get fairly 'warm', but never 'hot', so I consider that an immediate improvement...

If I continue to try and use the PSU without it's fan, what's the consensus on which would be most suitable?

The 250W supplied or the 500W I have bought?

You could say that the 250W will be smaller, and wont generate as much heat, but will it be built to cope with the extra heat?

I would think the 500w would be built to be working harder, and hence, hotter, so perhaps it will have better heat sinks and higher rated components....

Not looking for 100% answers here, just hoping some people can share ideas if they've had similar thoughts. I'm reluctant to spunk £40 on a new PSU when review of the only available one be quiet BN134 say it's noisy anyway!
 

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