Quest88 Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 Just some quick lessons learnt on my journey. Hope this helps someone! After a week of research, I plunged into getting another HTPC, planning to build it for Vista. The main aim is just to get the thing quiet with decent computing power. There are many solutions out there, but I went for air flow as I was most comfortable with this method. For those with a permanently air-con cooled room, you can even go fanless! If I didn't leave my PC on all the time for BT, I would have done that. Lesson One: Choose your casing then work the rest of the components around it. This proved to be the most important thing to do when starting on your HTPC. A good casing by default will give you less problem with airflow, and vibrations especially for harddisks. Also, it gives you your choice in fans cos only certain ones are able to fit 120mm fans. It might also be able to dampen sound within (but don't count on this that much). Even with all this, if the case is ugly, nobody would want it.. so this is the dealbreaker. It is only after selecting your case that you can choose your components. This is really simple when you think about it - certain casing can only fit micro or even mini-ATX, and that limits your PCI slots, etc. There may be height limitations to your casing too (like mine - but more on that later). Why I say choose your compoents later is because most people have very basic requirements for their HTPC. With the core2duos, you can have a powerful cpu that runs cool, so no real need to consider too much here. If you are one of those people with a need to put in 4 harddisks, 2 dvd-roms, etc.. then yeah, by all means, do pick your choice out early and be realistic about it. I chose the Antec NSK2400 casing after some thought. Strangely, it's one of the only HTPC casings with 120mm fans. Well, the Fusion looked nicer, but couldn't find it readily available. I didn't need the VFD which means.. I would end up paying $160 more for alumnium cover and a knob. Okay.. so I passed. Paired this with a core2duo 6600 and Asus P5B micro-ATX board. Full tower casing choice for me would be the Antec P180. Fulfills all the same requirements and looks to be even cooler/quieter due to the size. Lesson Two: Fans Can't save any money here if you want to go silent. The main culprits are PSU, and CPU HSF. Casing fans are next. I went for a Seasonic S12 600W PSU (really silent though sounds abit buzzy), and Zalman CPU HSF - the NSPC8000 (Only cos I couldn't fit in a Scythe Ninja). My choice for casing fans is Scythe, but I'm living with the Antec 120mms for awhile first. For all fans, try to undervolt where possible unless you think it's really ok. All of the fans above including the default fans from the Antec casing came with speed control, so it's easy to just turn it down. This is why I went for 120mm.. simply cos larger fans are more efficient running at the same speed and won't adversely affect your temperature too much. If you've read the silentpc review on my casing, you noticed I picked similar parts to them after discussing with some other enthusiasts: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article591-page2.html Apparently my PC should be about 27-29dbA now, but can achieve 21dbA if I just change the casing fans. hmmm.. Seriously though? It's hardly audible now, and I can live with the default fans for awhile before deciding. I can't actually measure it cos my SPL meter only goes down to 50dbA measurement. Was curious since it might actually be softer in the tv console. Other things to take note of Harddisks. Getting one that's quiet is important. I went for WD cos I couldn't really be bothered (most of my data on NAS), but I heard good things about Samsung. For those who are really into it, I've read that you can get a notebook hdd, then suspend it to get rid of all the vibrations through the casing. Okay... For graphic cards, I prefer a totally silent one. Went for a Asus 7600GS with heatsink as I hardly game. Sound card is really up to your preference, but I am on the lookout for an external usb one. Last but not least, there's the interface which you'll be spending the most time tinkering with. Some prefer MCE but I haven't gotten my hands around it yet. Used to run Meedio. Good luck!
koma Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 quest where did u get the antec casing frm? im interested in gettin 1 thanx
Audio Posted January 25, 2007 Posted January 25, 2007 Here's how I do it. (1) Casing - Remove all fans (2) CPU- Zalman Reservator (Water cooled) (3) OS - Two iRAMs 4GB X 2 running in RAID mode. No hard drive. (4) Graphic Card - 7300GT with Heatpipe passive heatsink. (Alternatively, I am tryiong to route the water into the Graphic card GPU). (5) PSU - Antec Phantom 380W (Totally Passive) or Phantom 500W with standby fan (Fan turn only when temperature exceed.) There is only one thing in the HTPC that still has a motor...the DVD drive.... :)...I am doing network stream video...so eliminate the DVD drive noise as well. (Audio)
Quest88 Posted January 25, 2007 Author Posted January 25, 2007 quest where did u get the antec casing frm? im interested in gettin 1 thanx casing was from cybermind but i took the last one. maybe you can try looking around. storage studios has the fusion but need to indent. Audio: nice setup for watercool. :) IIRC phil has a good rig on that too. reason i didn't try was cos of the noise from pump and radiator fan. i think the next round of HTPCs can go totally fanless already. :) do you remember peltier tech from the old days? wonder if they can make a comeback.
sonofdbn Posted January 25, 2007 Posted January 25, 2007 Quest, thanks for the info - very useful. I was also considering that Antec case. Did everything fit in easily - especially the Zalman CPU HSF?
Quest88 Posted January 25, 2007 Author Posted January 25, 2007 Quest, thanks for the info - very useful. I was also considering that Antec case. Did everything fit in easily - especially the Zalman CPU HSF? Yup, not a problem since my HSF was only 6cm high or so. The casing should be able to fit up to 10-11cm if I am not wrong. Casing is 14cm in height. Only thing about this casing is that it is very tight almost everywhere. If you have 3 cards - the usual gfx card, tv card, soundcard - it'll be very very tight. The choice of gfx card is important cos it cannot be too high (else hits the ceiling of the casing), preferably not too long (problem with cables going around it), and cannot be too fat (else cannot fit in a card in the next card slot).
tsammyc Posted February 1, 2007 Posted February 1, 2007 Audio & Quest, Do your HTPCs play HD-DVD and Blu-Ray yet?
Quest88 Posted February 1, 2007 Author Posted February 1, 2007 Audio & Quest, Do your HTPCs play HD-DVD and Blu-Ray yet? Well mine can't. To what I know, there's only Bluray writers available now.. and those cost like $1.4k or so. No sign of readers yet.. but I do believe you can buy the xbox360 add-on and use it with the PC.
tsammyc Posted February 1, 2007 Posted February 1, 2007 I've got the Xbox 360 add on and gotten the drivers to allow me to read HD-DVD discs on the PC. However one PC is a X64 3800+, which is too slow even though it has a Nvidia 6600 GT, which supposedly is capable. May try to get a X2 4200+ CPU but in 939 form, they are hard to find. Worse, I just bought PowerDVD 7.0 a few months ago and they aren't offering an upgrade to the version with BD/HD-DVD compatability and I'm not willing to shell out USD99 yet for the full retail version. The other PC has a Dual Core 805, which can be overclocked amazingly, but I'm waiting for a proper HDMI adapter to appear (one that willl pas the lossless codecs). Unfortunately both PCs are fairly noisy.
Doggie Howser Posted February 1, 2007 Posted February 1, 2007 I've got the Xbox 360 add on and gotten the drivers to allow me to read HD-DVD discs on the PC. However one PC is a X64 3800+, which is too slow even though it has a Nvidia 6600 GT, which supposedly is capable. May try to get a X2 4200+ CPU but in 939 form, they are hard to find. Worse, I just bought PowerDVD 7.0 a few months ago and they aren't offering an upgrade to the version with BD/HD-DVD compatability and I'm not willing to shell out USD99 yet for the full retail version. The other PC has a Dual Core 805, which can be overclocked amazingly, but I'm waiting for a proper HDMI adapter to appear (one that willl pas the lossless codecs). Unfortunately both PCs are fairly noisy. From the usual benchmarks, an X2 of 2.2GHz (4200+) should outperform a Pentium D running at 3.2GHz, and a lot cooler too. I recently found out ATI has HQV capable video processing circuitry!! And they are used in Samsung/Sony displays (but unattributed!). But these new ones look amazing http://news.softpedia.com/news/Update-ATI-s-RV550-GPU-Will-Be-Blu-ray-HD-DVD-Compliant-31699.shtml UVD is ATI's codec that can handle AVC/VC1/H.264 decoding offload from CPU to reduce utilization to less than 20% with no dropped frames. Their HDMI also supports HD audio (not from separate SPDIF input)
Ender1624705735 Posted February 1, 2007 Posted February 1, 2007 My X2 3800+ AMD also can't play HDDVD smoothly with onboard nvidia 6150.. Using Powerdvd 7.XX.. I was unable to enable hardwareware acceleration coz it'll crashed. Thinking of upgrading to 7600gt and a reinstallation
Quest88 Posted February 1, 2007 Author Posted February 1, 2007 hmm i haven't tried hd-dvd yet.. but my old pc played h-264 and those high def downloads ok. it was a pentium-d with 7600gs. am not sure if a hd-dvd will be more stressful on it. assume my new pc which is a core 2 duo 6600 to be able to handle it ok. will get a new graphic card when it's time. i still dun like to overclock no matter what.
Doggie Howser Posted February 1, 2007 Posted February 1, 2007 hmm i haven't tried hd-dvd yet.. but my old pc played h-264 and those high def downloads ok. it was a pentium-d with 7600gs. am not sure if a hd-dvd will be more stressful on it. assume my new pc which is a core 2 duo 6600 to be able to handle it ok. will get a new graphic card when it's time. i still dun like to overclock no matter what. Isn't there a 6650 coming soon with 1.3GHz FSB? (all other specs the same) But you do need a new chipset to support it, I guess. The 6300 is also being replaced with 6350 (same speeds but with 1.3GHz FSB and 4MB cache) 4300 will be newer entry level model with similar specs as old 6300 (2MB cache, same speeds) but running at 800MHz FSB. Personally don't like how Intel churns their chipsets so frequently. And you can't upgrade the processors without overhauling the motherboard too. The new AM2 boards are decent. I suspect that for most real world apps, the 5000+ (S$490) should be a match for the 6600 (S$535). And when the native quads are released by AMD end of the year, you should be able to just reflash BIOS of the motherboard and upgrade the CPU while keeping the rest of the system. At the end of the day, don't skimp on the graphics subsystem as well. I think a 4200+ would be decent enough for me, and I'd use the extra moolah to top up to a nicer card that could stand up for games.
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