HTPC pc?

Glaucus

Glaucus

Glaucus

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Joined
11 Mar 2004
Posts
76,637
I have some old parts. Is it possible to turn it into a htpc.

I have a gigabyte mobo, with an amd Barton think it's a 2500+ with an ide hdd and 1Gb DDR400 ram.

I would need a new case and a graphics card.
Which graphics card would I need. Something cheap and to connect to a large lcd with hdmi.

would be streaming videos from my main pc and using vista home premium.

Does this sound possible with an old spec like this?
 
At the moment it's just straight copy dvd's to the hdd. But HD might be a future upgrade. Do you think such a low spec could handle vista and video play back. Or would I be better using xp, but then it doesn't have the nice dvd gallery vista has.
 
If you get an ATI card, something like a 34/650 or even a 24/600xt it will take a lot of the stress away from the CPU when decoding HD/ video. They will also pass audio via the included DVI/HDMI adapter. Antec do a relatively cheap case with included PSU, think its the 2480 or summit like that. Would recommend at least 2gb of ram though tbh.

Edit: Low spec will only matter if you are impatient, it will still do the job, albeit slower than a newer pc
 
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so a second hand 3650 should be ok then.
I'll have to see if the mobo could take a dual core as that would speed up vista.
and 2gb seems to be round £20 so that's a cheap upgrade.
 
Yeah a 3650 would be fine imo. 2gb is defo worth the upgrade, as would a dual core but not essential. I used an old P4 untill recently for my cheapo htpc and it worked fine

If you turn vista aero off it should make things a lot 'snappier' too
 
Tbh im not the person to ask about wifi, i've got a crappy router and unless you are like 3 feet away it is very dodgy! I resorted to just playing some things from a usb stick! Music streaming worked most of the time though, you could always run an ethernet cable to the pc to eliminate those horrible 'dead spots', im gonna try it at the weekend
 
I'm still undecided what to do.
ps3
or htpc.

Ps3 would be good as I could play some racing sims like grand turismo. but it would be unlikely I would use it for any other games.
Or get a htpc.
Since I started this thread. I have upgraded my main comp.
So I now have an asus mobo
amd x2 cant remember which speed,
2gb 400 ram

Then buy
Lian Li PC-C32B Aluminium HTPC Case Rackmount - Black (No PSU)(£109.24)
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail
(£65.54)
HIS ATI Radeon HD 4650 Heatpipe Silent 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI
(£59.79)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache (£37.94)
Sub Total : £236.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL Select Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.99
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £35.54
Total : £272.50

Would that be good enough top play blu/hd dvd?

Means I could buy some hd-dvds for dirt cheap just for things to watch when I'm bored and use my lovefilm subscription for blu-ray.
 
AcidHell2 I have a HD2400 (AGP) that I'll be selling shortly. My HTPC was as follows:

Abit NF7-S V2.0
Mobile Barton 2500+ @ 3200+
2GB PC3200 Geil Value
HD2400 AGP

Ran everything fine, 720p with no problems with 5.1. Only upgrading because the full ATX is too big and I have some cash to downsize.
 
HTPC all the way, I manage to stream movies and music into the front room using a Netgear DG834GT 108Mbps router combined with the Netgear WPN111 108Mbps RangeMax Wireless Network Adapters reasonably well. I guess Wireless N would be the way to go though for best results.
 
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how about 1080p?
and does it have hdmi..
it's a sky router sagem router, so not sure how this would preform. Could always drill another hole for a cable though, if needed. Nothing like polyfiller when you leave.
 
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AcidHell2 said:
it's a sky router sagem router, so not sure how this would preform. Could always drill another hole for a cable though, if needed. Nothing like polyfiller when you leave.
Click to expand...

Not sure how that would perform wirelessly, fairly certain those routers are only 54Mbps, probably best to put a line in and get the polyfilla out if it's not too much hassle :D
 
coupe69 said:
Not sure how that would perform wirelessly, fairly certain those routers are only 54Mbps, probably best to put a line in and get the polyfilla out if it's not too much hassle :D
Click to expand...

Already ran sky cables through walls :o, just glad I haven't had an inspection. they seem totally laid back.
 
No HDMI on the card but I have a DVI-HDMI dongle (doesn't output sound to my knowledge though).
I'm sure it would be capable of 1080p, I'd have to read up though. My TV is only capable of 720p so haven't tried anything higher.
 
I set up a PC to use for HD 1080p MKV files and it was an AMD64 3000+ 2Gb DDR Ram and a 7600GS I had no issues playing 720p contend but wow when I used 1080p content it was struggling big time, tried a 8500GT and it was the same, you need a decent CPU for 1080p content a dual core something like a e2140 will be ideal.

I now use a 10m HDMI cable and use my main PC for HD playback to my plasma, a cheap PC doesn’t work.
 
i think it's a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
but don't ati cards do most of the decoding anyway. it wont be from files just straight of the blu-ray disc.
 
Sorry, but i use the ps3 as a media centre, and its brill...

Why not use your spare parts to make a download server box? underclock it and stuff so powers next to nil, and stick in a few tb hdd's to store your bumph?
 
Because I don't download stuff.

Store stuff on my main pc.

Trouble is ps3 doesn't have anything like media portal or vista media centre?
 
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