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> HTPC > Hardware
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24th Jan 2005
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Components
My current specs are:
Duron 1.3Ghz CPU,
384mb DDR Ram,
200Gb Storage,
DVD Drive,
Single DVB (Freeview) Tuner,
Wired LAN,
19db PSU, 8db Case fan, Passive GPU, 18db CPU fan, HD Silencer, Kameleon Remote.
Bellow is a log of the bits I've bought for it, then bellow that more detail on why I did so.
My original budget was about £300 - the cost of a 80Gb freeview harddisk recorder and a low end
DVD recorder. - refers to bits I had lying around in drawers etc that hadn't been used in the
6 months prior to the project's start, items in grey have since been removed for reasons outlined below:
| Part | From | Date | Cost |
| |
| Coolermaster ATC620SX1 Case | Specialtech.co.uk | Jan 05 | £71.48 |
| Abit VA10 KM400 Motherboard | Ebuyer.com | Jan 05 | £32.57 |
| Coolermaster 'Silent' Fan | - | - | - |
| AMD Duron 1.3Ghz | - | - | - |
| Crucial 384Mb PC2100 (with sinks) | - | - | - |
| WD 200Gb 7200rpm 8mb cache | Ebuyer.com | Jan 05 | £73.72 |
| 16x Panasonic DVD | - | - | - |
| Geforce2 MX (with S-Video out) | - | - | - |
| Haupaugge WinTV Card (Analog) | - | - | - |
| Haupaugge Nova-T 909 Card (Digital) | Ebuyer.com | Nov 04 | £66.37 |
| 54mb Wireless Lan Card | Ebuyer.com | Jan 05 | £17.61 |
| Creative Webcam Go | - | - | - |
| Kameleon 6in1 Remote | letsautomate.com | Feb 05 | £58 |
| 19db Hiper 350w PSU | Novatech.co.uk | Feb 05 | £23 |
| SilenX 8db Fan+Dampener | KustomPCs.co.uk | Feb 05 | £10.54 |
| SilentDrive HD Silencer | KustomPCs.co.uk | Feb 05 | £22.33 |
| 13/18db Artic Cooling CPU Fan | Overclockers.co.uk | Feb 05 | £12.20 |
| 54mb Wireless Access Point | Ebuyer.com | Feb 05 | £52.86 |
| Acoustifeet Silicon Case Feet | KustomPCs.co.uk | Feb 05 | £5.22 |
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| | | Total | £428.29 |
Case
So, after choosing a Black Coolermaster ATC620 case and getting round to buying it, I found that it'd been
discountinued and wasn't available at all in the UK. After a few false leads (including buying one which was
incorrectly shown as in stock on casetech.co.uk) I finally had to settle with the silver version (which was
hard enough to find), costing about £72 including VAT and delivery. Nothing really comes close to it terms of
value for money, looks and practicality. The front is aluminium, the rest (which wont be seen) is steel.
Heavy yes, but who cares? The finish is normal Coolermaster quality, blue LEDs and the power button has
a satisfying clunk when pressed. It's the same size as normal hifi equipment, so won't look out of place sitting
under my TV with a VCR, amp etc. It takes a standard ATX power supply, a micro ATX motherboard (so 4 expansion
slots including AGP gfx - important as I'll need TV out which most motherboards that arn't stupid money don't have
onboard) and has its drives hidden behind a geared panel.
CPU + RAM + Cooling
The CPU and RAM I already had from an old FreeBSD desktop machine. It's debatable whether I need a machine
more powerful than this, but for the time being I can cut costs and at least get the project running by using
them. The CPU fan is already quite quiet (although branded silent, it only cost 7 quid and isn't quiet enough
to fool even a 90 year old), but will be replaced in time. To their credit, 1.3Ghz doesn't use much power and hence
won't cost as much to run (I think about these things now I pay the electricity bill!), nor will it put out too much
heat. The ram already has ramsinks that I bought ages ago for about 2 quid each and never used. Normally I wouldn't
bother, but to cut down on fan noise I plan to run this case as hot as I can get away with, so could be useful.
The case already has a 60mm fan attached, but this will be replaced by a 10db one soon.
Motherboard
Micro ATX doesn't give many expansion ports, so as much stuff onboard as possible is important. These days I
generally don't care who makes my motherboard, in the past it used to really matter, but the best board I've had
in ages in my main PC cost 18 pounds (PC Chips M848ALU) and performs no worse than the 60 pound Asus one (A7S333) I
had before. That said, we're talking about a difference of a tenner for micro ATX boards, so I decided to fork out
for a major brand. The Abit won against the competition for being the only one with SPDIF onboard, which for once
I actually plan to use (for hooking upto a 5.1 amp). As with every motherboard I ever buy, the CPU I plan to use is
one of the lowest it supports, hence giving me a couple of years worth of expandability before needing a replacement.
Storage
The original idea was to buy a 80Gb drive for about £35, then buy another when I ran out of room. Alas, after much
debating I realised it was probably best to go for a 200Gb now, then have more space (physically, inside the case)
for more drives/expandability in the future. The only harddrives I've ever had fail have been Maxtors, so I swore never
to buy from them. Seagate is my current favourite (I have a 200Gb Seagate in my main desktop infact), but there were
none in stock from the place i ordered from at the time. Alas, I went for a Western Digital Drive (200Gb, 8.9ms with
8mb Cache). Opps, had I known this drive was a whopping 28db when reading/writting I would never have touched it with
a bargepole for this project. I need to get some cooling for it anyway at some point, so I guess I'll just have to pay
a bit more and get a silencing caddy for it.
The original plan was, and still is to have a DVDRW drive, but for the time being I'm using an old 16x DVD drive for cost
cutting purposes. I'm in no rush either, I'll only write dvds when i run out of harddisk space, which isn't going to
be in the next few months.
Expansion Cards
Micro ATX motherboards have 3 PCI slots and an AGP slot. The AGP slot is being used by an old Geforce2 MX card;
will do the job perfectly yet is low power and has passive cooling (no noisy fans!).
I already have a Haupaugge
WinTV card that I bought in about '98 to fill one of the PCI slots. As this is meant to be good quality thou I need
a digital card of some description. Technically my city isn't covered by digital terrestial, but as I live in an
appartment block and the arial is about 5 floors up, it's just about possible. I could have gone for a freeview
satellite card instead as my appartment has access to a shared dish, but I don't know how long I'll live here and
whether I want to/could have a dish installed where I live next. Thus I chose a Haupaugge Nova-T card to go with it.
2 TV cards means I can either record 2 things at once, or 'pause live TV' using one whilst I record with the other.
The motherboard I got has LAN onboard (as do most these days) which is great for initial configuration, but as this box
will be in my living room I decided to fill the last PCI slot with a cheap 54mb wireless lan card.
Webcam
As the machine will always be on, I may as well have a web cam on when I'm out, uploading in real time to a server
on the net. That way, if i get robbed, even if the camera and unit is nicked, I'll have
their face in glorious technicolor stored on my webserver. Neat huh? I can also see what builders/plumbers etc get
upto if they need to call when I'm out, or just check the place is still there when I go on holiday :)
Digital TV (Feb 05)
I finally got round to setting up my digital card in LINUX, and decided to ditch the analog tuner. The quality is far
superior. This leaves me with a free slot to buy a second tuner when the prices come down a bit.
Wireless Access Point (Feb 05)
I needed a wireless access point anyway, and bought one in Feb 05. On the day I got it I realised that I could put it
in the living room and connect the PVR directly to it, making the wireless card in it redundant. This frees up one of
the precious PCI slots, will generate less heat and means I don't have to bother setting it up (although I was half way
there). For 45exc it's a complete bargain, it's got an adsl modem built in and usb print server (not that I want a printer
in my living room!).
More Silencing/Cooling Bits (Feb 05)
The PSU I had was pretty silent already, but my main PC's PSU died one morning so my PVR's one was theifed for it, giving
me an ideal oppertunety to buy a proper silent one for it. After much shopping around I found an absolute bargin - £23 inc
VAT and delivery for a 19db one (at 60% load). It's not completely silent, but for the money it's amazing. I replaced the
CPU fan with a cheap and cheerful silent cooler. At 13db it's almost completely silent, unfortunatly it's performance was
worrying even by my standards! So I switched it up to it's middle speed (18db) which cools it to around 60 degrees (NOT
cool!) which will suffice for now. When it gets warmer in the summer I may have to turn it up to max, or even
consider putting the old one back on. I also replaced the case fan with an 8db SilenX fan with a silicon dampener. Again,
completely silent, but the ambient temperature in the box is a worrying 60 degrees, so I may need to buy a slightly noisier
one, or figure out better airflow. Finally I got an HD caddy, with soundproofing material inside. It has an aluminium plate
that slots in and bolts to the drive helping to distribute heat out, but i'm not sure what it's doing to the life of the
drive. It is a lot quieter thou, altough now my main problem is vibration, which results in a low humming noise.
Remote Control (Feb 05)
Yes, Febuary was an expensive month! I managed to get the IR receiver that came with my digital TV card to work, so purchased
a swish looking Kameleon remote. It does feel slightly tacky compared to LCD remotes, but it's a fraction of the price
and looks pretty damn neat at first glance. It can control 6 devices, so PVR, TV, Amp, VCR and anything else I acquire. It's
fully programmable with new codes, it can learn from others and download codes from the net for new devices. I'm sure it's not
as future proof as the manufacturers claim (it has no support for rf, only ir for instance), but it will hopefully do for a while
yet.
Acoustifeet (Feb 05)
I have to say, I've never even thought bout spending money on case feet, but now it all makes sense. Having paid out on getting silent
fans a lot of noise comming from the unit now is from vibration transfered to the shelf. For 5.22 delivered, a set of acoustifeet
replacing the stock feet makes a big difference! Well worth the money, will be buying these again for other computers. There's
no point unless you've already really silencced the unit down, but for the cost I'm a total convert!
Home Cinema Reciever/Speakers (March 05)
Not really directly for this project, more just part of my general setup. After much debating I bought a Denon
AVR1705 for £179 delivered. It's a 6.1 amp with 3 digital audio inputs, 3 component and 3 svideo. To compliement it
I got some cheapo 5.1 sony pascal speakers (save155) for £75 which sounds dreadful for music, but pretty good in my
tiny living room for films. I didn't bother with the surround back, most films are 5.1 anyway, and I really don't
have any where to put it! They'll be ebayed at some point when I have more money no doubt, and I may have to buy
some bookshelf speakers just for music. I bought some wireless sennheisers as well, but have put them on my main
pc for the time being. I'll get a second set for my htpc sometime soon. I want to have mplayer set in cron to start
playing mp3 radio at 7.30 till 8.30, so when I wake up I can listen in bed/when i get up :)
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