Denon 1804 HTPC

[Conan257]

Well i've been trying to get an HTPC under my telly for a while, but i've yet to find a good (read cheap) case that the missus would be happy with... Just as I was about to mount a PC to the wall mount tabs on my TV, I remember my old 1804 reciever which has been dead for a couple of years...

So.. first of all comes the stripping... Inside we have:

A massive amonut of boards and one huge heat sink... about an hour later:

All stripped out and loads of space for the coming system. Example sizing for atx board:

 

[Conan257]

My main problem with the case will be fitting an optical drive... Currently planning on a fairly simple laptop drive, probably slot loading... This will be mounted behind the lcd frontage (No need for an LCD, it'll annoy the missus):

Even though that section is cut out, all the boards are there for the front panel buttons and dials... In time some of them will be wired up to the system for doing important things.. Who knows that they are though.

Also cut the circuit boards down so that all the back panel connectors are in place and available for other uses... Although i'm currently only planning to have 3 wires on this thing, HDMI, Power and network.

 

[alex24]

Interesting project, how were you planning to mount the board? I remember those P4 Titan boards, still got one going strong in my HTPC actually!

EDI: Dont worry about it, posted between your posts, sorry!

 

[Conan257]

Now to ditch the crappy atx motherboard that I was sizing with... Spec will be roughly...

E6300
Abit FI90-HD
Onboard HDMI
2gb DDR2
80GB O/S drive
750GB Storage drive (Till I sort out my NAS)
Old Server PSU
Laptop Optical drive (In time.. No rush)

My first issue is the motherboard tray... Since I wanted little disturbance of the original case format, i'm mounting the motherboard completely internally with the cables coming out of the original power supply cutout.

The motherboard tray is made from 3mm perspex.. Its only red because i've lots of spare from another project i've got going... Its bolted to the case by means of the original board mounts. The motherboard is then mounted to it in the normal fasion...

A section is cut out for the hard drives, not 100% that they'll stand up in the way I want them, but I can make a drive bay from perspex at a later date.

Finally.. the PSU.. It needs a full mount as it wont be mounted to the outside like a normal PSU would. Below it's just sat in the rough area that it will be later on.

Thats about it for now, its currently serving as my download machine, as such its running underneath my desk. Got to run a network cable through the wall and get hold of an HDMI cable before throwing it under the TV.

 

[Conan257]

Damn you for posting feedback!

Looks pretty sweet internally, were it not for my missus i'd window the thing and get some lights in it!