Theydon's Perpetual HTPC Build

My new case arrived, and it looks very nice indeed.

As mentioned, it has no VFD, and no remote (unless you can find the rare M version) but for £75, its very well built with a brushed steel finish, and comes in Silver or Black. I went with black - I had the Silver Zalman before all the rest of my kit ended up being black, hence the colour change. And lastly, to answer "...why did you not go for the LC20M?" - thats approx £150?, I am not 100% that I like it all that much (flap covering optical drive) I did not find any in stock, and I am a little 'meh' at the iMon VFDs, so my only criteria was to want a nice case with (any) remote that I dont sometimes have to lay on the floor to operate.

01lc10_casefront.jpg


The insides are not as deep as the Zalman, but still large enough to hold a full sized ATX board, with two 8cm fans at the back, and full sized graphics card capabilities. If you cram them in, you can get an optical drive and seven hard drives, but I dont advise this if like me you have a ATX board as it will be an almost impossible fit.

I went to work on the prep, stripping out the supplied fans and removing the top bar:

02lc10_inside.jpg
 
One of the things the Silverstone LC10 has over the Zalman HD160+ is the provision for fans inside the hard drive caddy's. I had to mod the Zalman as shown to get a fan installed.

03lc10_zalmanmod.jpg


More bits of the case removed, including the middle hard drive caddy, before I started adding all the bits from the Zalman into the Silverstone LC10. It was a bit like those sliding puzzles, as I had to put things in, then remove them to add something (like the 24 pin PSU board connection) then add back the Bluray drive, then remove the hard drive caddy to get to the front header connections before then replacing the drive caddy to remove it again to get to the connections and lay the cables for...... you get the idea.

06lc10_tightfit.jpg


I decided to leave the middle hard drive caddy out, as I needed the space to stick some cables. The hard drives are sticking out that far as I have a 8cm fan in the caddy, which obviously has the side effect of pushing the drives closer to the PSU. Good job its modular! I removed the 750Gb drive I had for my TV rips and added in a 3Tb WD drive that I have had since Jan! waiting to be installed, so it now contains 5Tb (2+3).

05lc10_start.jpg
 
With most parts plugged in, I fired it up just to make sure it was all ok. Its missing rear fans, only the SSD is plugged in, but it booted ok and thats what counts. The SSD is simply stuck in the middle section in amongst all the cables in the empty caddy space, and no, as I type this a few hours after I rebuilt my HTPC, I dont know what that bit of fluff is on the side (I noticed it in the photo as I shrunk it in size and uploaded it), and just checking the floor its not there anymore. :)

08lc10_running.jpg


After the initial test, I downed it, hooked up the rest of the drives and then spent ages again removing the fan clip from the heatsink to attach the SATA power and data cables to the optical drive, as well as tidying things up - including cable tying one the SATA power due to it being so close to the heatsink fan. I then added one of the rear fans - the other fan header must be obsured by the optical drive, so I need to replan everything again to fit it!

10lc10_gettingthere.jpg


Its back in place again, and god I hate camera flashes on black AV items. Look at the dust where I have cleaned around it all! I will have to remove the items and clean underneath.....

Anyhoo. New drive in, initialised and formatting.......didnt click quick format, and potentially wasted five hours as it slowly counted to 100%. It didnt matter that much to be fair, apart from making me stay up late and allow me to type most of this. Once the format was complete, I copied the TV Boxset rips from the 750Gb drive in a caddy to the new 3Tb drive and left in copying overnight, and went to bed.

11lc10_dusty.jpg


A quick check the next morning to see it had all copied across, fired up AirVideo on my iPhone to check it was streaming correctly (it was) put away the hard drive and caddy and went to work.

Current work needed:

Attach missing fan
Secure all bays and fit crossbar
Fix front optical plate
Setup new remote control
Get my dusting mitt out
 
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How are you finding the keyboard in terms of range? I have one of these and it only seems to work for about 3 or 4 meters and then the trackpad dies.

Not bought it yet, its the next on the list. 3 to 4 metres is the range I need it for, and it says 10, so it will go back if it does not do what I want it to.

Well the package that the missus said was waiting for me at home yesterday was a book rather than my remote, so rather than muck about anymore this evening with the black box, I simply watched a few old Star Trek episodes, using the Coach Potato app on my iPhone instead.

12lc10_coachpotato.jpg
 
Don't forget to watch this once you're done:

 
With most parts plugged in, I fired it up just to make sure it was all ok. Its missing rear fans, only the SSD is plugged in, but it booted ok and thats what counts. The SSD is simply stuck in the middle section in amongst all the cables in the empty caddy space, and no, as I type this a few hours after I rebuilt my HTPC, I dont know what that bit of fluff is on the side (I noticed it in the photo as I shrunk it in size and uploaded it), and just checking the floor its not there anymore. :)

image


After the initial test, I downed it, hooked up the rest of the drives and then spent ages again removing the fan clip from the heatsink to attach the SATA power and data cables to the optical drive, as well as tidying things up - including cable tying one the SATA power due to it being so close to the heatsink fan. I then added one of the rear fans - the other fan header must be obsured by the optical drive, so I need to replan everything again to fit it!

image


Its back in place again, and god I hate camera flashes on black AV items. Look at the dust where I have cleaned around it all! I will have to remove the items and clean underneath.....

Anyhoo. New drive in, initialised and formatting.......didnt click quick format, and potentially wasted five hours as it slowly counted to 100%. It didnt matter that much to be fair, apart from making me stay up late and allow me to type most of this. Once the format was complete, I copied the TV Boxset rips from the 750Gb drive in a caddy to the new 3Tb drive and left in copying overnight, and went to bed.

image


A quick check the next morning to see it had all copied across, fired up AirVideo on my iPhone to check it was streaming correctly (it was) put away the hard drive and caddy and went to work.

Current work needed:

Attach missing fan
Secure all bays and fit crossbar
Fix front optical plate
Setup new remote control
Get my dusting mitt out

Will that case accommodate a full sized graphics card? My card is 12" x 5" x 1.78", any idea if that would fit or not?
 
Will that case accommodate a full sized graphics card? My card is 12" x 5" x 1.78", any idea if that would fit or not?

According to there site, you can get a 8.75" with the drive caddy left in, or 14" if removed:

SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd.- LC10-E

Support graphic cards up 8.75 inches (remove 1 of 2 HDD Cage if you want install up to about 14"), width restriction-5.51"

I only have a little 4670 passive in there, which is taller as it has the heatsink pipes.
 
The remote arrived a week ago, but despite classed as a MCE remote, Mediaportal does not actually class it as such, which makes things slightly more complicated to set up. By that I mean I spent the a few hours into the wee small hours testing and installing software to get the remote to work for the majority of the buttons.

This is the remote - I got it from eBay, but Amazon have them as well. Its classed as a ARC-1100. It has a small mouse pad and mouse buttons, which is very helpful as well.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290833606005?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Windows-Con...3J72/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365021700&sr=8-1

42lc10_remote.jpg


I found this on the MediaPortal forum, from a while back:

Vista MCE Remote Control VRC-1100 | Page 2 | MediaPortal Forum

I've got this remote working satisfactorily so I thought I would share.

Attached is a zip file containing an XML configuration file for EventGhost as well as the plugin files for EventGhost. While EventGhost will install these driver files for you after you load this XML file, I seem to recall downloading an alterd set of these files, or I altered them myself to get things to work correctly. Either way I'll include them just in case.

So, download EventGhost, install, and load this XML file. Let EventGhost install the drivers for the remote. After that is completed, exit EventGhost and replace the driver files with the driver files in this zip. Place the entire contents of the Auvisio folder inside the folder of the same name in the plugins folder inside EventGhosts install location. Restart EventGhost. I suggest setting EventGhost to run when Windows loads.

In MP config, enable General HID device and keep default mappings.

Then install MessagePlugin and leave defaults.

Message Plugin for MP1.2 - MEDIAPORTAL

I think that's it. You should find most of the remote's functions working. Mouse pad works. Info key works too. You can launch MP (or any other program for that matter) by pressing the Green "Start" button twice. The only think I can't figure out how to do is program it so that the "Start" button goes to MP Home when pressed inside MP. If anyone can figure that out, please let me know.

The reason the Start button needs to be programed the way it is, is so that I can launch MP with the remote. This remote doesn't work like a true Windows Media Center remote so the MP task tray thingy doesn't work. You have to use EventGhosts program launcher.

Any questions, let me know. I'll try to help.

Mike

I tried a few other options but they did not work before I found the above, which added to the time taken. KMPlayer did not work very well with this solution, but to be fair I have started to use this less and less, using VLC should I need a player external to those included with MediaPortal. So I followed the instructions above and now the majority of the buttons work with MediaPortal and VLC player, and most with TMT5, but I will work on that. The only main button that does not work in the way I want it to is the close button that on the Zalman remote I could configure to Alt+F4 which was very handy.

I also updated:

Mediaportal from 1.23 to 1.30
StreamedMP from 1.78 to 1.90
Bluray Arcsoft Plugin (which broke in the upgrade to 1.30) - Blu-Ray / HD DVD plugin for Arcsoft player | Page 67 | MediaPortal Forum

Then, just as I had it all good to go, I 'touched' something and subsequently broke the way the remote control worked, and it stopped working for the volume, the stop button changed the screen size and the forward buttons did not work. This meant that I carried on for nearly another hour restarting and reinstalling the ghost software to get it all working once more.

Why must we tinker? :)
 
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The best remote mapping software I have ever come across are IR Server Suit (From Team MediaPortal) and Intelliremote (From Mellware).
 
I've just moved to IR Server Suit (after using HIP for years) as I needed something that worked with a 64bit install. I use it to control NextPVR and TMT3 and it's working great. A little tricky to get your head around at first - especially finding the docs on what codes to use for mapping buttons to key presses (%{F4} for Alt+F4, ^D{ESCAPE} for Ctrl+D+Escape, etc), but other than that no issues at all. That's with an MCE receiver.
 
I will try IR Server Suite if I find this not working properly for me, thanks to both of you.
 
Final updates..for the time being at least. The inside of my HTPC was left like this, missing the rear fan, internal drives not screwed in and the SSD kind of left dumped in the middle in a mess of cables.

40lc10_before.jpg


The outside of the case was missing the plate that fixes to the drive, and I had temporarily magic taped the infrared remote receiver to the side of the case.

41cl10_outsideofcase.jpg


To start, I removed the hard drive bay once more, and then located the spare fan header hidden under it. I then plugged that in for the fan covering the drives, moving the existing fan to the fan header visible freeing up the one nearest the GPU. I then made a little mod to hold the SSD a little more securely then just leaving it sitting in the middle compartment. They are velcro cable ties that came with a PSU holding the SSD, linked via cable ties from the bays, creating a little hammock of sorts, so the SSD floats in the air between the two caddies over the routed cables.

43lc10_ssdmod.jpg


I then screwed the drive and the optical bays in properly, as I was sure I would not need to remove them again. I added the missing rear golf ball fan, and then tested the central bar, but left it off as although it cleared the GPU, it was by a few mm, so I left it off.

44lc10_inside.jpg


Lastly, I added the plate that covers the optical drive bay to cover it all, and secured the IR receiver again.

45lc10_casedone.jpg


All done, and now to test with some Star Trek Next Gen, or perhaps a Firefly Bluray episode.
 
I've been using the same remote as you Theydon for a year or so and use LM Remote Key Map (free) to get it doing what I want it to.

Not sure if it's relevant to you as I use JRiver Media Centre in my HTPC but LM remote also let's you remap the green button to launch something other than WMC.
 
My pretend amp has slowly been dying a death, sound sync issues if the amp was left on for a few hours so I bought a cheap Sony amp from Richer Sounds.

I have reused my speakers but sadly the amp needs a line out while my sub had normal speaker wire connections.

I have it set up the same way through optical, and just giving it a few tests with some Star Trek Next Gen episodes.

First impressions? The lack of sub has not made an issue yet - my missus always moaned like hell anyway so it made the sound go up and down on her request.

Surround sound is much better - and it's not the cheap but infinitely better speaker wire that I bought as I didn't buy enough so one surround is cheap and nasty wire while the other is merely cheap.

The speakers can be individually increased in volume and speaker pattern so voice can be issued from the from three rather than just the centre.

I am sure an action film will make me mourn a sub, and hopefully I will pick up a cheap one at some point.

So, thumbs up :)
 
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Just some software updates:

MediaPortal 1.5
StreamedMP 2.14
AnyDVDHD 7360

I then spent the next few hours mucking about with Event Ghost, LM remote to get both MP and TMT6 to work, but no joy..... so went back to Event Ghost which works perfectly in MP, but little use in TMT.

Not so bad as the play pause works, but not forwarding etc, no volume, the mouse part of the remote works fine though.
 

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