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My HTPC Build

  • 04-12-2011 5:43pm
    #1
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭


    resource?articleId=24396&size=2resource?articleId=35706&size=2

    Ok folks, I'm about to build, I will be ordering these bits on Tue.

    http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=24396&agid=1199
    http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=35706&agid=1391

    I already have an 40GB Intel SSD lying about and have laptop DDR3 in stock so will be ready to go. I plan on dual booting Windows 7 with OpenElec with my preference being OpenElec for now until I get myself setup with decent peripherals so I can get a better Windows experience (not really that bothered with Windows and the missis doesn't want the TV turned into another PC). Not bothering with a dvd drive, in my last year with a Boxee Box I've never once needed one, I can mount and share another in the house if needed. I'll possibly add DVB combo card in future (if I can find a low profile one) but it's not needed for now.


    I'll keep you all posted and upload some pics.


Comments

  • #2
    Alun
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,499 ✭✭✭✭Alun


    BTW You don't necessarily need a low profile PCIe card as you can't put it directly into the PCIe slot in that case anyway. You have to use a riser card or a flexible PCIe riser cable, as the card slot on the case is mounted horizontally away from the mother board.

    See my post with pics here ...

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=74241199&postcount=50

    Also the case actually has perforations above the position of the mother board's heatsink which isn't shown in the photo's on hardwareversand's website.


  • #3
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    Thanks for that Alun, it's hard to image the space.

    Is 60W enough for that mobo, the deluxe model comes with onboard 90w.


  • #4
    Alun
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,499 ✭✭✭✭Alun


    PogMoThoin wrote: »
    Thanks for that Alun, it's hard to image the space.

    Is 60W enough for that mobo, the deluxe model comes with onboard 90w.
    Seems to be. I've put a power monitor on the mains side and never seen it go above about 45W.


  • #5
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    Alun wrote: »
    Seems to be. I've put a power monitor on the mains side and never seen it go above about 45W.

    Is that on full load?


  • #6
    Alun
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,499 ✭✭✭✭Alun


    PogMoThoin wrote: »
    Is that on full load?
    That's recording two HD channels on satellite and watching RTE Two HD on DVB-T at the same time.


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  • #7
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    Would there be room for 2 hard drives in that case? I already have a 2.5" SSD, but would like to add a Blackgold tuner card and a 3.5" 1 or 2TB Sata later


  • #8
    Alun
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,499 ✭✭✭✭Alun


    PogMoThoin wrote: »
    Would there be room for 2 hard drives in that case? I already have a 2.5" SSD, but would like to add a Blackgold tuner card and a 3.5" 1 or 2TB Sata later
    Yes. There's a 3.5" bay that sits flush with the bottom of the case, which you can see on the left of the first picture in the link I gave above, and there'd certainly be room to mount a 2.5" SSD above it. In fact it looks like there'd even be room to mount an additional 3.5" drive there although there's no mention of it in the spec anywhere.


  • #9
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    The fun begins!!!!

    IMG_20111229_103436.jpg


  • #10
    Seamu$
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 606 ✭✭✭Seamu$


    Thats a big pic! What else will be going into this build?!
    It's interesting that there's a 3.5" bay, HWVS doesn't seem to offer any 3.5" HDs with it in their PC Configurator.


  • #11
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    Seamu$ wrote: »
    Thats a big pic! What else will be going into this build?!
    It's interesting that there's a 3.5" bay, HWVS doesn't seem to offer any 3.5" HDs with it in their PC Configurator.

    Resized image, posted without viewing.

    There will be a hybrid tuner card and a 2TB Sata added some time next yr when I'm flush. For now I'm just getting it running with a 40GB Intel SSD. I'm going to dualboot install Windows 7 and Openelec on it, but just use Openelec for now.

    A hard drive isn't essential, you can boot OpenElec in 12-15secs from a usb key.


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  • #12
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    I had a few problems with OpenElec, I couldn't get sound to work, so I ended up using XBMC on Windows 7. I have a MCE remote which works lovely for XBMC and I use Unified Remote on Android for Windows.

    IMG_20111229_142932.jpg


  • #13
    Voodu Child
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,706 ✭✭✭Voodu Child


    PogMoThoin wrote: »
    I had a few problems with OpenElec, I couldn't get sound to work, so I ended up using XBMC on Windows 7. I have a MCE remote which works lovely for XBMC and I use Unified Remote on Android for Windows.

    Seems to be a common problem on Ion2 systems, did you try this?
    http://www.openelec.tv/find-help/documentation/howtos/sound/item/47-sound-over-hdmi-on-ion2


  • #14
    silvine
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,132 ✭✭✭silvine


    Looks good, I like the form factor. I'm considering getting this for XMBC. What's the boot time like for Windows on it? Can it bitsream HD audio? Is it capable of XBMC skins like Aeon?

    Is there anything else I should consider buying with this apart from a small SDD and a large SATA drive? I'm not really interested in satellite etc.

    I only have 2GB Ram from my laptop to spare (2x1GB).

    How do you find Openelec on this machine? I used to run it on a Revo but I found it to be buggy and crash intermittently while playing music files. I also had trouble getting Openelec to mount my NAS.


  • #15
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    silvine wrote: »
    Looks good, I like the form factor. I'm considering getting this for XMBC. What's the boot time like for Windows on it? Can it bitsream HD audio? Is it capable of XBMC skins like Aeon?

    Is there anything else I should consider buying with this apart from a small SDD and a large SATA drive? I'm not really interested in satellite etc.

    I only have 2GB Ram from my laptop to spare (2x1GB).

    How do you find Openelec on this machine? I used to run it on a Revo but I found it to be buggy and crash intermittently while playing music files. I also had trouble getting Openelec to mount my NAS.

    Sorry, I got notified about your post and completely forgot to reply. I still have this running Windows, just because I couldn't be bothered to change it, it just works as it is and I don't need any more speed. It boots Windows very quickly from the SSD (40 secs cold boot with PWR button), although I rarely reboot, my uptime is in weeks. I don't use Windows at all other than the browser the odd time for streaming matches. I've the pc set to suspend to ram after 1 hour of inactivity, it resumes from ram in a few seconds with the IR remote.

    Its capable of any XBMC skin, the Ion gpu is quite a powerhouse. The cpu hovers about 6% when playing 1080p HD as it's offloaded to the gpu. I use the Transparency skin as I've my media setup with added fanart.

    Ram is dirt cheap, 4GB of DDR3 ram is about 20 quid http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=38028&agid=1245


  • #16
    Access
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,359 ✭✭✭Access


    PogMoThoin wrote: »
    It boots Windows very quickly from the SSD (40 secs cold boot with PWR button)

    I thought an SSD would boot way faster then that... i was hoping it would at least as i was intending on trying out an SSD when i build a better XBMC machine in the future.

    i currently use an old dell pc with Win xp and old samsung 80gb OS drive... and it boots from cold with power button to Xbmc home screen in 55 secs.


  • #17
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    Access wrote: »
    I thought an SSD would boot way faster then that... i was hoping it would at least as i was intending on trying out an SSD when i build a better XBMC machine in the future.

    i currently use an old dell pc with Win xp and old samsung 80gb OS drive... and it boots from cold with power button to Xbmc home screen in 55 secs.

    Why would you need to boot? It only uses 1W on suspend to ram. Having an SSD means it resumes from ram in 3secs.

    That's pretty quick for the specs involved, remember the cpu is an 1.8Ghz atom with 1MB cache, it's no powerhouse, a lot less power than your XP machine. About 8-10 of those seconds are bios POST, before Windows starts to boot. There's also nothing else starting at boot, there is no antivirus or other software installed other than browser

    The big advantage of this build is that it needs no cooling and is perfectly silent as it has no moving parts. The Atom cpu and Nvidia gpu are cooled by a heatsink, the case has no fans


  • #18
    Access
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,359 ✭✭✭Access


    PogMoThoin wrote: »
    Why would you need to boot? It only uses 1W on suspend to ram. Having an SSD means it resumes from ram in 3secs.

    Ah right, fair enough so, Im always used to shutting it down and just powering back up when needed to watch something, but never thought of suspending. When i select suspend... it shows xp going to stand by - is that the same thing?
    PogMoThoin wrote: »
    The big advantage of this build is that it needs no cooling and is perfectly silent as it has no moving parts. The Atom cpu and Nvidia gpu are cooled by a heatsink, the case has no fans

    I am aiming to have my future htpc silent as possible... the old dell is fine for now... but its like an aircraft taking off sometimes with the way it revs up during a hd movie! :(


  • #19
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    Access wrote: »
    Ah right, fair enough so, Im always used to shutting it down and just powering back up when needed to watch something, but never thought of suspending. When i select suspend... it shows xp going to stand by - is that the same thing?

    No, there are two different states, Standby and Hibernate. Suspend to ram is like standby on XP or now called sleep on windows 7. There is also hybrid sleep which is what I'm using.
    http://www.timeatlas.com/term_to_learn/general/understanding_differences_between_hibernate_and_stand_by
    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-IE/windows7/Sleep-and-hibernation-frequently-asked-questions

    It's an area Microsoft made huge advances on in Windows 7. Also newer generations of Intel processors get more efficient at S3 and S4 suspend
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface


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