Advice on Old PC to HTPC upgrade

mika27

I have an old desktop PC that the motherboard gave up on recently and I'm thinking of converting it to a HTPC but I'm concerned that the hardware is just too old. It's a Pentium 4 3.2GHz HT with 2GB ram.

I've got a spare ASRock 478 motherboard that has pci-e and 2 sata ports. I would need a case, a tv card, a graphics card to output hdmi and some sata drives for storage. I mainly want to play movies and music and maybe to hook up the NTL box as a secondary requirement.

Is this a viable set up for a HTPC? I'm worried it will be noisy/power hungry.
Also what is popular software wise? I've looked at media portal and XBMC and both look impressive, its hard to tell them apart really.

Any thoughts appreciated as I'm a complete noob when it comes to HTPC.
Thanks!!

Alfreado

I asked a similar question HERE but after a few days of digging it turned out I couldn't put HDMI out into it so the best option for me was to sell it and buy a dedicated HTPC.

Mind you, the set up I had worked fine. It was also a P4 but with only 1gig or ram and 1 small HDD, it was just too messy as I didn't have a hdmi out. I had around 3-4 cables coming from the computer to various places just to get sound AND picture. The pc I was using was next to silent so noise wasn't an issue, but I would guess it was power hungry. If power is a genuine concern and your going to be using it a lot I wouldn't even bother with your present pc, just build or buy a dedicated unit. I've also read that a lot of HTPC builders are using SSD hard drives for the operating system and what ever programs they want to run because its so silent, and then a large sata for storage of media.

XBMC looks great and runs great but for pure ease of use you cant beat Windows Media Centre with My Movies on Windows 7. It takes a TV feed and gives an EPG, works with sky, you can load up all your copied DVD's etc... its so simple to use, once I had it up and running, my girlfriend even said "this is great, I thought it was going to be complicated", and she would have absolutely zero interest in this kinda of thing

mika27

Thanks for the input Alfreado. I think when I add up the cost of all the bits I will need I probably won't be too far away from the price of a dedicated system. But on the other hand, I kinda want to build the system myself just out of interest more than anything else, and also to use the good parts from my broken pc. SSD for the OS seems like a good idea. I might get one and just have one sata drive then for storage.

Alfreado

SSD does sound like a great idea but, personally, for the space it takes up i'd rather have 2 sata's in there. a 2TB Samsung 3.5" Sata is now only €76, so that 4TB's of storage for only €152 which to me is shocking good value, too good to use up the space with an SSD.

Now, if I could figure of how to make room for a SSD for the operating system etc AND leave the 2 present ports free for just storage i'd be laughing!

tmcw

Alfreado wrote: »

Now, if I could figure of how to make room for a SSD for the operating system etc AND leave the 2 present ports free for just storage i'd be laughing!

Can you put an OS on a memory stick, like a 16GB for example, and boot the OS off the USB? Might depend on your OS.

I was trying a Linux HTPC OS a while back, and it was installed on and ran off a USB stick, and it seemed to work fairly well. Only reason I stopped using it was because it wasn't very mature and didn't support some of the video files I was throwing at it, and wasn't as flexible (or pretty) as MediaPortal.

Alfreado

Windows 7 at the moment. I'd need a big memory stick, over 40gig at the moment. Mind you, I think I have all the software I could ever need for htpc on it now so I doubt it would get any bigger.

I have a 60gb hard drive here that I was THINKING of getting an enclosure for and leaving it permanently connected via usb and see if it would boot off that... but its just an idea i haven't looked into it at all.

mika27

Alfreado wrote: »

SSD does sound like a great idea but, personally, for the space it takes up i'd rather have 2 sata's in there. a 2TB Samsung 3.5" Sata is now only €76, so that 4TB's of storage for only €152 which to me is shocking good value, too good to use up the space with an SSD.

That's a good point. I had overlooked the fact that an SSD would use up one of my sata ports. It's hard to turn down the option of 2TB of extra storage against the faster boot/less noise of the SSD.

I've made a start on selecting parts. So far I have:

Case

Graphics Card

2 x Hard drive

I think I will get a power supply as well as the one on the broken pc is very loud. Maybe this one

That will do for a start anyway. I just hope that my old P4 with that graphics card can handle 1080p.

Alfreado

Ordering 2 of those hdd's myself. Works out ever so slightly cheaper off komplett.ie. Have ordered bits off them before found them absolutely brilliant

mika27

I've used a Komplett a few times before, very good service, but they only have two HTPC cases

TheFairy

Lads HDMI out isnt 100% necessary. DVI to HDMI cable will deliver picture and Optical or Coaxial will deliver digital audio. If the mobo didnt have PCIE then maybe that was the issue?