ITX HTPC on a budget

neil_g

neil_g

neil_g

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ITX HTPC (no longer) on a budget

*** Project "No longer on a budget" rebuild into a Lian Li PC-C37B on page 2 ***

Some of you might have seen my issues with using the Acer Revo as a HTPC, I finally had enough a couple of weeks back and lobbed it on the auction place. Sold it and the BD drive.

My challenge was to replace it with a decent spec HTPC for within the money raised from the sale, here's what I came up with:

CIT MTX-002B ITX Case
Zotac 9300 ITX board
Intel Core2 Quad Q8300
Corsair 4Gb DDR2-800
Sapphire ATI 4550
Fractal 60mm Silent fan
(already had a spare suitable hard drive - 2.5" Seatgate Momentus 160Gb 7.2k)

My first schoolboy error would have been that CIT case doesn't have a PCI slot.. :rolleyes: Oh well that can be an excuse to upgrade the case next year..

Anyway obligatory box shot :eek:

P1020320 by neilgates, on Flickr

For a very budget case I have seen a lot worse to be honest, behind the front flap sits space for a slim optical drive. I may use this in the future but I have a BD drive in my desktop for ripping so not a killer point.

P1020321 by neilgates, on Flickr

Has drive space on the removable tray for the slim optical, 2.5" and 3.5" drives

P1020324 by neilgates, on Flickr

I'm sure you've all seen the Zotac board before..

P1020326 by neilgates, on Flickr

More pics to follow but I've been having problems with the stock CPU cooler, the Intel push pin mounting is properly bending the board so I've been trying to find an aftermarket cooler to fit.. trouble is there isn't much room to play with.. 45mm height and 45mm radius..

Update to follow..
 
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Opted for the Startech 1U Low Profile 70mm Socket 775 CPU Cooler

FAN7751U.Alarge.jpg


and a AIREN FAN RedWings 70mm fan to replace the noisey stock Startech fan

hr_motive.png


Hopefully both should turn up tomorrow..
 
Like the case.

Not sure what gpu temps you will get in that case. It should be ok, I used to have that board though and I dramtically reduced the gpu temps by putting some better compound on.
 
I read your thread about the Acer Revo 3610. I use this with xbmc live (linux), and it works perfectly with HD content.

I was intrigued by this thread as the one thing the Revo does not do is bitstream HD audio. A limitation of the Nvidia 9300 chipset apparently.
 
without wanting to turn this into a Revo debate, i just found that with some of my rips it was completely unusable, yet a reletively low spec laptop streaming the file wirelessly from my NAS could play it with no issue.

anyway its gone now, onwards to quad core goodlyness :D
 
neil_g said:
without wanting to turn this into a Revo debate, i just found that with some of my rips it was completely unusable, yet a reletively low spec laptop streaming the file wirelessly from my NAS could play it with no issue.

anyway its gone now, onwards to quad core goodlyness :D
Click to expand...

What do you plan on running software wise ? And are you interested in HD audio at all ? I quite like the spec you have there, if you dont mine me asking:

My challenge was to replace it with a decent spec HTPC for within the money raised from the sale
Click to expand...

what was the cost of those bits ? The revo price varies wildly depending on which spec you had.
 
fezster said:
What do you plan on running software wise ? And are you interested in HD audio at all ? I quite like the spec you have there, if you dont mine me asking:

what was the cost of those bits ? The revo price varies wildly depending on which spec you had.
Click to expand...

planning on running W7 ultimate using media center with media browser plug-in. dont have a HD audio amp so will only be using optical for DD, although the ATI card does support it if i ever need it. for BD if i go back down that route then Arcsoft TMT3 and AnyDVDHD.

admittedly the whole CPU cooler issue has taken me over budget, but im not far off what i sold the acer, blu-ray drive in external enc, MCE remote, additional memory, some related accessories and cables for.

airen fan has arrived this morning :)
 
I ran Windows 7 MCE (and Vista before that) for years, before I switched to xbmc. I always found the shark007 codecs made everything so much easier to configure. Having said that, I needed GPU acceleration, which makes things a little trickier. With your CPU, you probably dont require it.

I tried TMT a few times, but never found the integration with MCE to my liking.

For HD audio, Ive spent a fair amount of time getting multichannel LPCM working. DD/DTS via optical is usually quite straightforward.

Mediabrowser is brilliant btw - esp with a fast CPU, it runs very smoothly. I use Media Centre Master to do all of my scraping on my main PC, so it's all there for MediaBrowser to pick up - synopsis, fan art, actor images etc.
 
right got the airen fan on eventually.. had to enlarge the screw holes a smidge to drop the screws in further as the fan is thicker, also the fan fouled the northbridge HS so had to file a bit off the corner..

anyway..

board in, heatsink on, cabled up

P1020340 by neilgates, on Flickr

its certainly quieter than the stock startech, i think the noisiest thing in there now is the fractal 60mm fan oddly enough. positioned the HS fins so that air escaped into the PSU fan and over the northbridge to the fractal.. the HS is litterally 0.5mm from touching some caps on the motherboard, its tight

P1020341 by neilgates, on Flickr

drive tray back in..

P1020342 by neilgates, on Flickr

finally got it booted from my W7 USB installer (for reference, to boot a zotac to USB storage select the HARD DRIVE option which then expands to SATA or USB) and installing now..
 
all built up and installed, having some troubles with nvlddmkm stopping responding but only seems to be within some apps..

think im going to have to scrub the display driver and try again, the overscan options page is screwed too.

anyway, cabled into the tv unit.. (blurrrry)

P1020347 by neilgates, on Flickr


P1020348 by neilgates, on Flickr


P1020349 by neilgates, on Flickr

mediabrowser installed looks pretty good, only one minor niggle is how picky it is with folder names and scraping the meta data. cant for love nor money get WALL-E recognised.

the fractal fan is surprisingly noisey too, its starting to annoy me.
 
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