my home theatre pc using the new i3

petriodet · 17 Mar 2010 at 21:43

i've been wanting a htpc for some time now i the other day i bit the bullet and ordered the stuff,
intel i3 530 (on stock heatsink for about 2 weeks)
Noctua NH-C12P (currently being used on my i7 but i'm going to w/c that)
geil 4gb 1600mhz ddr3
asus 5770 cucore one
cheap generic htpc case (it looked very good for the price)
3x akasa 8 cm silent fans
bluray drive
nove t500 card (bought of tom sometime ago)
i'm gonna use the hdd i got lying around.
and the motherboard i got is the evga H55v i bought it by mistake i didn't read any reviews i just assumed it would be good but it's not, there is basically no bios for this thing so i can't overclock the cpu or change the memory timings, after reading the reviews i sent ocuk a webnote saying i'd like to change the mobo but they said no it had already been sent, anyway i received it today and i'm sending it back unopened and getting a different one.

i'm ordering a different mobo tonight hopefully i'll receive the mobo on Friday and have it running on Saturday

Grimley · 17 Mar 2010 at 21:46

I dont think the noctua will fit in that case. Not seen either the case or the cooler in the flesh I could be wrong, but I have a hunch that it will not.

petriodet · 17 Mar 2010 at 21:51

Grimley said:
I dont think the noctua will fit in that case. Not seen either the case or the cooler in the flesh I could be wrong, but I have a hunch that it will not.

yeah it will fit with 2-3 mm to spare by my calculations anyway i could strap on a thinner fan if it doesn't fit

petriodet · 17 Mar 2010 at 21:59

i've taken it a part already

cheap power.

i'm changing the power supply from that cheap generic one to a hiper that i had lying around.

it's about one inch longer

it's also about an inch from the motherboard tray giving it room to clear the mobo

one problem

easily sorted

that's it for tonight!

twist3d0n3 · 18 Mar 2010 at 16:01

eek at the dent next to your psu mod

petriodet · 18 Mar 2010 at 16:33

yeah i drop a screw driver on it but the fascia covers the whole front so you won't see it.
i was suprised how clean the bore hole was i didn't even need to file it.

petriodet · 19 Mar 2010 at 19:14

quick update i got my board today it's the msi h55m-e33
some pics.

whats that some kind of screwed up sticker

DIABLO · 19 Mar 2010 at 19:40

Tasty looking board.

chipps101 · 19 Mar 2010 at 19:46

very nice looking board, that heatsink looks a bit like the reference hd 5450 ones.

wakayoda · 19 Mar 2010 at 22:52

overkill for a htpc you've got a decent gaming rig there!

D1ngd0ng · 19 Mar 2010 at 23:06

overkill for a htpc you've got a decent gaming rig there!

That's what I was thinking. Know intel graphics are crappy but they are fine with HD playback aren't they?

petriodet · 19 Mar 2010 at 23:35

D1ngd0ng said:
That's what I was thinking. Know intel graphics are crappy but they are fine with HD playback aren't they?

i wanted something my friends could use when they come round.

petriodet · 19 Mar 2010 at 23:58

the heatsink is tiny

backplate retention i'm surprised to see it on this board.

fitted into the case

everything is in there just need to do some cable tidying

i haven't got round to putting win7 on it.

DIABLO · 20 Mar 2010 at 15:51

What you using for the media front end? Media center + Media Browser works pretty sweetly.

petriodet · 20 Mar 2010 at 22:23

not sure what i'm gonna be using i'm doing some research to see what the best for me, by the looks of things i will probably be using the windows stuff.

Ultim8 · 21 Mar 2010 at 09:39

have a play with XBMC and Trancparency Skin, it scrapes all your movies for you and downloads all the info from imdb, mine streams everything from the server and i use ember media manager on the server to pre-fetch all the imdb data and images (takes about 20 seconds to manually do it and choose what fanart and poster you want

)

james.miller · 21 Mar 2010 at 09:54

i was, and still am really lol, in two mind about what i wanted from my htpc.

After much deliberation i decided that i dont give a damn about the power usage of it so i changed my mind from an i3-based kit using the onboard gpu to a full blow amd 965 quad core + 5850 combo. certinaly not the right choice for the htpc purists out there but it sure does tick just about every box going.

That's a nice combination of hardware you've got there

people are right in saying you dont need the card at all for video playback, but i dont know if its just me but there's something exciting about playing games on the big screen with somedecent pc hardware.

chipps101 · 21 Mar 2010 at 10:32

if your going to use the windows 7 media centre there is a nice guide to help setting it all up here that helped me loads to set mine up - http://mintywhite.com/windows-7/customise-windows-7-media-center-part-1/
its quite a lot of work but once you get it all done its nice

Skillmister · 21 Mar 2010 at 11:27

Nice build that mobo is lovely

JAYJT29 · 21 Mar 2010 at 19:12

Ultim8 said:
have a play with XBMC and Trancparency Skin, it scrapes all your movies for you and downloads all the info from imdb, mine streams everything from the server and i use ember media manager on the server to pre-fetch all the imdb data and images (takes about 20 seconds to manually do it and choose what fanart and poster you want)

+1 XBMC gets my vote, even the misses likes it which is a bonus!

Jay