HTPC show and tell

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#194497 6-Feb-2009 17:37

Nice job on the build.. wish I had the patience to keep the inside of my media centre that tidy.

One thing. Why overclock the ram? Over clocked ram produces a lot more heat which as you well know is the enemy of a media centre. It is not like you need the performance.

I just replaced the northbridge heatsink on my MC. Was a Zalman ZM-NB47J but the northbridge was getting very hot. Just put in a Thermalright HR-05 Fanless which is SO much better. Watching blu ray on a hot day northbridge temp only got to 40deg

One thing with the video. The problem I am having is that the card is passive and the heat sink is all on the chip side of the card. There is not much air flow over that side of the card so it does get hot. Trying to work out some way to get the heat on the CPU side so that it can be taken way by the case fans. The are some VGA coolers that will do it but they are not cheap. Which it had a cooler like my old 6600GT did which had heat pipes to take the heat to the other side.

Anyway good luck.

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

m1k30rz

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#194540 6-Feb-2009 21:27

Nety: Nice job on the build.. wish I had the patience to keep the inside of my media centre that tidy.

One thing. Why overclock the ram? Over clocked ram produces a lot more heat which as you well know is the enemy of a media centre. It is not like you need the performance.

I just replaced the northbridge heatsink on my MC. Was a Zalman ZM
NB47J but the northbridge was getting very hot. Just put in a Thermalright HR
05 Fanless which is SO much better. Watching blu ray on a hot day northbridge temp only got to 40deg

One thing with the video. The problem I am having is that the card is passive and the heat sink is all on the chip side of the card. There is not much air flow over that side of the card so it does get hot. Trying to work out some way to get the heat on the CPU side so that it can be taken way by the case fans. The are some VGA coolers that will do it but they are not cheap. Which it had a cooler like my old 6600GT did which had heat pipes to take the heat to the other side.

Anyway good luck.

Thanks man I have been working all day on this thing haha. Have overclocked the RAM as I want the most performance possible as it is running Vista and I thought that 667 RAM may be to slow... Yeah I think a nice northbridge heatsink would do it good but my home made one seems to be doing a good job so far!
Ahh yes thats true, do you have the same case??

eXDee

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#194549 6-Feb-2009 22:56

m1k30rz: In a fortnight I will be replacing the FlyTV Platnium (basically just in there for FM radio for now lol) with a Hauppauge HVR3000 I think.. unless anyone has a better idea? Want to run DVBT Terrestrial Freeview on it under Vista Media Center.

Will be replacing the P4 3.2 ( hot mother ) with a Intel Core2Duo E5200 or maybe even E8200.

Going to add a BluRAY/DVD Combo drive also, and in turn find a good graphics card maybe a nVidia 9400 would that suit? I basically need one with a passive cooler that is single slot, or a very quiet single slot fan'ed model otherwise I will have to find a pciexpress TV tuner that also can do FM and DVBT... hard to come by!

Firstly, sweet as build. Well done.
However, Vista Media Centre + Freeview Terrestrial = No Go. Simply doesn't work for several reasons. Windows 7 will, though its beta meaning expect bugs, however if you want a stable DVB-T solution you'll need 3rd party software such as GB-PVR, Mediaportal or DVBViewer.

Good job replacing the p4. They are toasty.

9400 will suit well. As will 8500GT (i have a silent one, will trade for a fan 9400GT :D).

HVR-2200 has dual analogue/terrestrial. The analogue tuners work as FM receivers too, and it comes bundled with an FM antenna. Its perfect.

Nety

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#194593 7-Feb-2009 10:38

eXDee:
9400 will suit well. As will 8500GT (i have a silent one, will trade for a fan 9400GT :D).

Yeah funny that I have now spent quite some time trying to find a better heatsink for my 8500GT as the one that came with it is well.. rubbish. The card sits at around 75 at idle and goes up to 80+ when playing blu rays. Have come to the conclusion that it is just going to have to live with it until it dies. I will make sure that the next card has a better passive cooling solution though

m1k30rz : Have overclocked the RAM as I want the most performance possible as it is running Vista and I thought that 667 RAM may be to slow... Yeah I think a nice northbridge heatsink would do it good but my home made one seems to be doing a good job so far!
Ahh yes thats true, do you have the same case??

Na I have the LC16M

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=84&TopicId=19606&page_no=3

Got different hardware in now from what I had when I took those photo's.

The two things that have killed the idea of replacing the heatsink on the video card is the lack of length and also hight in that case. I really like the case but having the optical drive where it is really limits what you can do.

I would not bother with overclocking the ram on yours. I dont think you would notice the difference. Media centres are quite different from a gaming rig where every extra frame matters IMHO.

m1k30rz

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#195221 10-Feb-2009 23:18

Got some new goodies today!

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300 2.6ghz per core.
2x 2GB DDR2-800 (4GB RAM!).
Hauppauge HVR-3000 Tripple Mode DVB-T, DVB-S, and Analouge with FM.

Today was really hot and its running about 45 celcius passive with my Alpine 7 Pro heatsink (no fan)... UNDER LOAD! PERFECT :D

Regs

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#195226 11-Feb-2009 00:03

m1k30rz:
Today was really hot and its running about 45 celcius passive with my Alpine 7 Pro heatsink (no fan)... UNDER LOAD! PERFECT :D

and how much noise was it making n total? i assume the new case fans and PSU fans were operating, were they at full speed?

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Nety

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#195261 11-Feb-2009 09:31

That temp seems a bit suspect. You sure it is reading accurately?

From SPCR even with a fan directly mounted and at full speed they got

Fan Voltage Temp °C Rise °C/W Fan Speed Noise
12V 50°C 29°C 0.37 1,950 RPM 32 dBA@1m

They are using a hotter CPU (Intel Pentium D 950 Presler core) but it seems somewhat stange that you are getting a much lower temp with only indirect cooling.

Edit: OK so your CPU has a TDP of 65W vers the 130W for the Presler which does explain a bit...

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m1k30rz

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#195269 11-Feb-2009 10:08

Nety: That temp seems a bit suspect. You sure it is reading accurately?

From SPCR even with a fan directly mounted and at full speed they got

Fan Voltage Temp °C Rise °C/W Fan Speed Noise
12V 50°C 29°C 0.37 1,950 RPM 32 dBA@1m

They are using a hotter CPU (Intel Pentium D 950 Presler core) but it seems somewhat stange that you are getting a much lower temp with only indirect cooling.

Thats what Asus PC PROBE, Speedfan, and the BIOS is telling me so it must be correct, and I am using the E5300 not the PD 950...

E5300's run extreemly cool, barley get warm even with the minature stock heatsink they are provided with, im using an Alpine 7 pro just without fan, and it has 2x 120mm case fans RIGHT beside the heatsink as you can see in the pics so I am not suprised at all by the temps... actually a little unimpressed, expected it to be lower but its okay :)

Nety

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#195270 11-Feb-2009 10:10

Yeah see my edit.. did not realise quite how much of a beast they use.

Ordy

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#196042 16-Feb-2009 13:39

Building a room to fit everything in, and new cabnets etc. But as is:
Screen:Sony Bravia W 46"
PC.Silverstone LC17 CaseIntel Q6600 CPU4GB DDR2 800Mhz RAMAsus P5N-D mobo
c:\ d:\ are on a 150GB Western Digital Velociraptor drive.Data on some 320 and 500GB Seagate Sata drives (to be replaced with a NAS box)Asus 8800GT Vid cardAuzentech Prelude sound card (using optical cable to Sony Receiver)Some 500watt silverstone PSU
Running 5.1 through the receiver, have a universal remote but no need for it atm. (sub behind the fan)

stevenz

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#198062 25-Feb-2009 19:38

I'm just in the process of building my HTPC at the moment, I've been trying to find a Silverstone LC17 case, but everyone is out of stock of the things, after seeing the Antec case above, it looks like that'll do the job nicely. (*EDIT - Bother, it's M-ATX, back to the drawing board, what's a black SFF case that'll take an ATX board and PSU?)

I've gone the more minimalist route;

ASUS M3N-H/HDMI motherboard - Onboard GeForce 8300 & HDMI output. - 1 cable output to the Receiver.
2GB Corsair RAM
Scythe Shuriken CPU fan
Highpower 370W PSU (Don't need a high-end unit, just needs to be quiet)
AMD X2 5600 2.9Ghz CPU (65W)
Hauppauge Nova-T DBV-T tuner card

Got the components, but not the case yet, being very picky!

Only 2 fans in the thing, both of which are ultra-quiet, no videocard fan, and the onboard graphics are not much use for gaming, but more than adequate for any video playback job, and completely passive. The HDMI output means one less cable coming out the back, any keyboard duty will be done via VNC, everything else will be via an internally routed IR sensor that I'll hide behind the front panel, so the only visible cables on the back will be the powerlead, and the HDMI cable.

I've got a good quality DVD player, so the only optical drive will be an external USB/Firewire one that'll get plugged in when necessary, otherwise anything else can be streamed over the network from one of the laptops, so the front panel will just be "black".

I'll probably slightly underclock and undervoltage the CPU to reduce heat output a little too. Any power more than it takes to decode a 1080P H.264 MKV file with AC3 audio, whilst recording TV in the background will be wasted, and since most of both jobs will largely be done by the GPU/Nova-T card, that should be fine. We shall see anyway.

The remote control will be programmed into the Logitech universal remote, so it'll remain just the single remote on the table, all going well.

I anticipate using GB-PVR for media playback duties.

stevenz

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#199003 3-Mar-2009 17:36

Right, final components are:

o Antec Veris Fusion v2 case (Silver) (Replacing built-in fans with the same Antec casefans as Mike used)

o Highpower HPC370-N12S, 370W ATX PSU

o Asus M3N78-EM M-ATX Motherboard (onboard GeForce 8300 with HDMI output)

o AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ 2.9 GHz (65 Watt version)

o Scythe Shuriken low-profile CPU Cooler

o 4GB RAM (2x Corsair XMS2, TWIN2X2048-6400C4) (2GB probably plenty, but I figured WTH?)

o Hauppauge Nova-T DBV-T tuner card

o LG GGC-H20L SATA Blu-Ray/HD-DVD/DVDRW Drive

o Seagate 200GB ATAPI/IDE HDD (OS & Apps only)

Storage HDD will be running externally via eSATA so I can drag it around if need be, plus it'll run cooler:
o Seagate Barracuda ST31000333AS 1TB SATA HDD in a Transcend TS0GSJ35U fan-cooled eSATA/USB enclosure

The board supports the Hybridboost SLI, I've got a spare GeForce 8500GT laying around so if it'll fit in there ok I might pair that up with a Zalman VF-700 GPU cooler and make the system gaming-capable. Playing games on a 46" LCD at 1920x1080 would be amusing, although even with the 2 GPUs it's not a lot of graphics power so the framerates might be a bit questionable at that res.

I need a bit of CPU power as it's going to be doing double-duty as a server running a Linux virtual machine as a DNS, SMTP, Firewall, Web, FTP & Print server, plus a couple of media server apps, not to mention the HDTV recording of GB-PVR.

peteinakl

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#199746 7-Mar-2009 12:43

UPDATE

Finally found some time and reinstalled my HTPC (post 1 of this thread). I moved to MP 1.0.0.0 and now I have:

My VFD working natively from MP
SMOOTH three channel recording (DVB-T x 2 + DVB-S)
I had a bug where the EPG would title the odd program as '.' - gone
And, my favorite, UPnP so I can watch recorded TV, movies and music from my iPod touch.

I would recommend the upgrade (well, fresh install) of 1.0.0.0 to anyone