HTPC and watercooling - A Build Log

Amazing stuff, really looking to do this in the near future!

I upgraded a few months back to an i7 system and have my E8500 with board/ram etc. just sitting in a box doing nothing - GFX card and a nice sized HDD shouldn't cost too much which should leave some spending money for a nice case like the one you've got there! Reaaaly would like to watercool it too although might try a H50 to begin with.
 
Upgrade time! :D

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Nice :)

Enjoyed reading your thread. Looking to buy a house in a few months time & as part of the budget I will be having a HTPC & projector, so read with some interest. Love the case.

As fr the harmony remote, which one did you go for? Is it pretty easy to configure to Vista Media Centre?
 
Thanks :). I got the Harmony 555, which is one of the cheaper ones but does the same thing really. Easy to set up as long as you have a receiver for an MCE remote, which the CW02 has built into the screen on the front.

I've got some other stuff to update actually. Migrated all of my stuff to a NAS, and got rid of internal HDDs so that I can add another 92mm rad. Also, with the help of a friend on another forum, I've put together a new theme for Win7 Media Centre so I'll be posting that and all the details of the upgrade soon.

The plasterer (father-in-law!) is coming in at the weekend too so I'd better post up some shots of the whole set up soon. :)
 
Yeah get some updates :) really need to get a remote sorted so I can use the media centre on this pc. Not bothering setting up properly until I move out, I can then plan it better. Just using my time to 'aquire' plenty of high def movies ;)
 
While I'm waiting for some barbs to finish my loop, I thought I would post up some screenies of the 7MC themes created by myself and a friend on another forum.

The first one is called Streaming Autumn and was basically a modified version of the second one to match the colours in my cinema room.

autumn7mc3.jpg


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Link here, you'll need the excellent Media Center Studio to enable it

Media Center Studio

Streaming Autumn.mct

And the original, more colourful version, Streaming Light.

http://cid-2356ad5e7d6af11a.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Streaming%20Light%207MC%20Theme/Streaming%20Light%20v1.02.mct
 
Thanks gt :)

You're spot on about the case. I was installing the new loop last night thinking 'I've just fitted 4 rads into a HTPC case, did I really need to do that'!! :p

With any luck it will have sufficient cooling capacity to add a second 5850 in a month or so's time. :D
 
Nice!

So what have you got the i7 clocked to then and what temps are you getting?

Oh and is the externally mounted rad hot to the touch? can you feel any air being pushed through? Have you thought about maybe another noctua internally so you have a push-pull effect almost
 
Tiamat21 said:
wo0t very good build log :>
Not a fan of the coiled water pipes but hey, very tidy job for such a micro case.
Click to expand...

Thanks. :) I have to use the coils because some of the bends that the hoses have to do are so tight that they would kink without them.

Xplo said:
Nice!

So what have you got the i7 clocked to then and what temps are you getting?

Oh and is the externally mounted rad hot to the touch? can you feel any air being pushed through? Have you thought about maybe another noctua internally so you have a push-pull effect almost
Click to expand...

Thanks :) i7 clocked to 3.8ghz at the mo, with 1.22v. Temps on the i7 hit an acceptable 70C in stress testing but the NB is getting pretty warm, 70C also. The lid of the case is just a piece of aluminium plate so I am going to make a new one with a fan mounted on it. That'll blow over the motherboard, particularly the NB, and also bring in some cooler air for the rear rad and hopefully give me some room to clock higher.

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The plasterer came yesterday, so while I'm waiting for it to dry I've been doing some tweaking to my OC.

Got the vcore down to 1.18v (still at 3.8ghz) IBT stable and priming now.

i738118v.jpg


With any luck it will go a bit lower too. :)
 
It does seem to be a reasonable chip. Not the best though, it needs 1.4v on the memory controller to be stable.

Second 5850 has been installed, but no water cooled yet. Loving the xfire performance so far. :D I've started to make a custom lid with improved cooling too. Pics coming soon when it's all finished. :)
 
Update. :)

The second 5850 is now water cooled. I've also got the new bespoke lid on but I'm not full happy with it yet. It does the job great but I haven't been able to get it anodized to match the case yet. I want to replace the Noctua that's in it as well. I've gone right off of them particularly the fact that the fins are so small relative to the overall size of the fan. The colour looks blinking awful too!

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The temps are very pleasing too, with the GPU cores running in the high 40s after an hour of BF:BC2. All things considered, I'm very happy with that. :D

I've also updated the OP with the current specs of the whole system. There'll be some pics soon of the finished cinema/living room when it's erm..........well completely finished! :)
 
After some deliberation over whether to get an SATA3 SSD or another X25-M, I finally decided to go with the X25-M in RAID0 due to the performance being higher than a single SATA3 drive.

So I benched the single drive before installing the second and this is what I got;

x25m80gbused.png


Now the results of the RAID0 array;

x25m80gbraid0new.png


Just a quick indication of how fast these drives are. I now have enough space to mux my BD rips on the SSDs before moving them to the NAS and what a difference it's made. A 1.5hr (or more) process has now been reduced to around 20-30 mins and the mux itself...............well take a look at the results....

mkvmuxingonssd.png


339 Seconds to mux an 18gb mkv! :D:D:D
 
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