OK, this is my proposed HTPC build, check pwease? :D

OCdude · 29 Apr 2011 at 23:39

My aim is to have a decent enough HTPC to play some games on, while also being nice and quiet, so here's what i've decided upon!

Appreciate it if anyone could spot any obvious flaws/mistakes

Case:Zalman HD503
CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-C12P SE14
Mobo: Asus Sabertooth P67
PSU: Seasonic X-460 Fanless PSU
RAM: 8 GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC-10666
GFX: Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme
System drive: 64GB Crucial RealSSD M4
Storage: 3 TB Hitachi
Fans: 2x 80mm Noctua NF-R8 / 2x 120mm Noctua NF-S12B ULN

As the Zalman case can handle full sized ATX cases, I didn't think there was a real need to scour the various mATX boards out there, so I went with what I knew was a decent ATX board. Not sure if this is a bad thing (OTT) or not?

One thing that "slightly" concerns me, is whether or not the PSU is powerful enough for the GFX (I think 500W is recommended). I'm thinking it'll be okay, seeing as i'm not building a stupidly demanding system (I know that the PSU has had good reviews, FWIW).

adbp1 · 1 May 2011 at 23:03

i own this case and would say a few things about it.
1: be careful with the imon display, it has cuased me all sorts of problems to the point the guys at zalman have suggested i take it out and put 3rd party display or even buy one of there blanking plates for the 501.
2:not much space for decent cooler so if u know exact height of hte noctua i can measure inside mine and how much space u wil have to play.
3: i found it hard to get neat cable job with using basic corsair cx 500, if u can afford modular then buy it!

OCdude · 1 May 2011 at 23:31

Hmm what problems did you have with the display exactly? I'm not too fussed with it tbh

As for the PSU, the one i mentioned is modular, thankfully!

The height of the Noctua HSF is on this page so if you don't mind measuring, I'd appreciate it!

Thanks!

adbp1 · 2 May 2011 at 00:04

well lets say i have tried atleast 5 different version of the software, xp, vista and win7 and every-time i installed software it would cause system to go buggy and crash. do a clean install and disconnect display and everything is fine.
so ive not got it connected !
anyway kinda wish i didnt buy the case and wanting to sell it soon on mm.
as for height: from motherboard to top of case is : 140mm that is flat from mb to jsut about where the lid will sit. so on the noctua site it says 114mm with fan so giving you about 1" from fan to lid.
also thought on gfx. do you know what length card is? using full atx puts the card directly infront of the hdd cages.ive just measured from back plates to hdd cage and it sits around 10 1/4 inches

hope this helps

oliver2601 · 2 May 2011 at 03:24

is 8GB of RAM really necessary? Apart from that looks a nice build.

OCdude · 2 May 2011 at 10:54

adbp1 said:
also thought on gfx. do you know what length card is? using full atx puts the card directly infront of the hdd cages.ive just measured from back plates to hdd cage and it sits around 10 1/4 inches

I think the Sapphire card is 8.5" I believe! Cheers for doing the measuring

oliver2601 said:
is 8GB of RAM really necessary? Apart from that looks a nice build.

Yah the RAM is overkill, but it's cheap and I might want to slap a virtual machine on there at some point, so I just thought I might as well slap in 8

apple_man77 · 2 May 2011 at 16:21

Looks like a very very high spec htpc for me much higher than is needed but it should keep you going for a while and give you flexibility in the long run!

OCdude · 24 Jun 2011 at 22:03

Hooray, shiny things!

SGWills · 25 Jun 2011 at 08:57

nice array of goodies

look forward to seeing it built

OCdude · 25 Jun 2011 at 18:35

Thanks

Almost done now. Although I've had a tremendous battle trying to get the sides of the case off (gotta love the "case goes this way!" arrows in the diagram... like HELL they do!)

Luckily I've managed to wangle it by prizing the side of the case open, then stuffing down the rubber stand-offs that come with the Noctua fans.. then carefully poking them through the screw holes.. took a while, but I've managed it!

As always... it started off looking really neat... but now I'm almost done.. I can't see any way of hiding or tidying the power cables - and they're all going to end up crammed in the corner by the PSU! :'(

OCdude · 26 Jun 2011 at 12:46

Was sooo neat and tidy... until the power cables went in... lol

I think that's about as good as i can get it though

DiCe! · 26 Jun 2011 at 15:00

Dont think you have enough fans.

OCdude · 8 Jul 2011 at 21:34

adbp1 said:
well lets say i have tried atleast 5 different version of the software, xp, vista and win7 and every-time i installed software it would cause system to go buggy and crash. do a clean install and disconnect display and everything is fine.
so ive not got it connected !
anyway kinda wish i didnt buy the case and wanting to sell it soon on mm.
as for height: from motherboard to top of case is : 140mm that is flat from mb to jsut about where the lid will sit. so on the noctua site it says 114mm with fan so giving you about 1" from fan to lid.
also thought on gfx. do you know what length card is? using full atx puts the card directly infront of the hdd cages.ive just measured from back plates to hdd cage and it sits around 10 1/4 inches

hope this helps

Dear G O D... that software..... :mad:

I had everything working fine, and now it's refusing to connect, with windows claiming that "a USB device has malfunctioned".... i'm close to screaming!

phill1978 · 19 Jul 2011 at 22:52

not sure i understand this build.

the case isnt very nice imo, the sabertooth needs showing off and its never going to be seen. the ram is too much generally. the power of the cpu and gfx is good for HTPC and gaming however if you were just going for a media center and not a gaming pc its overkill, furthermore the best media centers boot instantly and offer fool proof media browsing like a system you would buy off shelf without silly windows updates or virus software to worry about, perhaps using something like linux OpenElec XBMC or a similar dual boot scenario with win x64 as the other os?

personally id ditch the case and get it all into a new case and rethink how you might use all that power

OCdude · 20 Jul 2011 at 06:24

phill1978 said:
not sure i understand this build. if you were just going for a media center and not a gaming pc its overkill

OCDude said:
My aim is to have a decent enough HTPC to play some games on

Not sure where the confusion lies tbh, nor why HTPC "people" seem to get so angry at my build lol.

Anyway it's built, it's quiet, it runs Crysis 2, it runs media nicely through XBMC when I want it to and it blends in with the rest of the kit on my rack.

Job done.

adbp1 · 29 Jul 2011 at 20:26

nice build, any joys yet on the lcd screen!! im still waiting god knows how many months later for a replacement from zalman. for now ive disconnected everything.
one thing i have bought and its frigging awesome! is the Rii touch 240 mini keyboard.
http://www.riiminikeyboards.com/

OCdude · 29 Jul 2011 at 21:59

adbp1 said:
nice build, any joys yet on the lcd screen!! im still waiting god knows how many months later for a replacement from zalman. for now ive disconnected everything.
one thing i have bought and its frigging awesome! is the Rii touch 240 mini keyboard.
http://www.riiminikeyboards.com/

Well, when I first set it up, it worked. Then I updated the software and it randomly broke (yellow ring etc). So after taking everything out of the case to check for loose wires (jesus christ that was a mission :mad:

) I put everything back, totally uninstalled the software and went back to the original version.

Touch wood, it's worked ever since!

Greystash · 21 Aug 2011 at 03:48

Hey OCdude. This thread made me do a double take because prior to finding this page, and after much reading and reviewing, I had already made a list of parts for a new build that is almost identical to yours.

Same brand Zalman case, Sabertooth p67 mobo, Corsair xms3 ram, same Noctua fans, same Noctua CPU Cooler and Seasonic fanless PSU...amazing.

I'm going for an I7 2600k cpu, ASUS GTX560 GPU and OCZ Agility 3 120gb SSD.

I totally understand the concept of the build btw. It blends in and sounds like a HTPC, but is a "goes like the Stig" gaming box. I call it the "wolf in sheep's clothing" build.

Anyway, I seem to have ever increasing concerns with the imon in the hd503. Many people (like you pulling your build apart) seem to be wasting their time trying to get it sorted out. You said you went back to the original software...

How are those issues now??? Any more time wasting? Should I forget about the imon and just buy a HD501.

For everyday use, how useful are you finding the remote and display?

Cheers if you have the time.

I like your pictures because they pretty much showed me what my build would look like. Thanks for that.

OCdude · 21 Aug 2011 at 10:17

Greystash said:
Hey OCdude. This thread made me do a double take because prior to finding this page, and after much reading and reviewing, I had already made a list of parts for a new build that is almost identical to yours.

Same brand Zalman case, Sabertooth p67 mobo, Corsair xms3 ram, same Noctua fans, same Noctua CPU Cooler and Seasonic fanless PSU...amazing.

I'm going for an I7 2600k cpu, ASUS GTX560 GPU and OCZ Agility 3 120gb SSD.

I totally understand the concept of the build btw. It blends in and sounds like a HTPC, but goes like kick a*sre gaming box. I call it the "wolf in sheep's clothing" build.

Anyway, I seem to have ever increasing concerns with the imon in the hd503. Many people (like you pulling your build apart) seem to be wasting their time trying to get it sorted out. You said you went back to the original software...

How are those issues now??? Any more time wasting? Should I forget about the imon and just buy a HD501.

For everyday use, how useful are you finding the remote and display?

Cheers if you have the time.

I like your pictures because they pretty much showed me what my build would look like. Thanks for that.

Heya, thanks

Well, the issues I had with the iMON software were annoying to say the least, to explain what happened... I had basically finished the build, tested the software then neatly cabled everything up and put it onto my rack (which in itself was a monumental re-wiring job lol).

I then made the fatal mistake of downloading an initial update (the first update is a manual download & install jobby).

Once i'd done that, the software popped up with an automatic update (so the previous update must have included the ability to auto-update within the software). So I let that run, until I had the latest update installed.

That's when it started to claim that it couldn't detect the hardware anymore. I figured I might have somehow dislodged something when I was tidying the cables before I packed it all up, so I begrudgingly took it apart and started checking all the cables (most of which disappear into the case itself).

After a lot of swearing and screaming (literally!) I completely uninstalled the software and started from scratch... EVENTUALLY it went back to normal and ran okay (on the initial software, with NO updates).

I'm too scared to apply any updates now, so i've left it at that lol

Not sure about your setup, but the iMON shizzle is pretty important for me as i'm using it with my Logitech Harmony remote, so if it didn't work it would be pretty annoying. But now that it IS working, it's great!

The only annoying thing I can't seem to change, is the default font for the clock, when the PC is off. It's such a crappy font it makes the 4s look like 9s and it's pretty poo, other than that - it does the job. It shows details for what's currently playing and you can have it displaying RSS feeds, weather, system stats, or have it turn off when you're running certain apps etc.

Not too fussed about the display itself, more interested in the iR capability which is (touch wood) working (for now)

Lemme know if you want any other details or pics!

Greystash · 21 Aug 2011 at 11:03

Thanks OCdude for taking he time to reply.

And man you are scaring me because I was considering using the imon software after I got everything set up with...(wait for it)...my Harmony Remote.

lol What the hell? I'm talking to parallel universe me.

I do have another question. If you fully shutdown that PC, but still have it plugged into the wall with the wall switch on, can the IMON unit switch on the PC from the fully shut down state at a preprogrammed time?

I think I remember reading that the IMON display stays on when you shutdown the PC, is that right?

I hope it works that way because I really want to be able to have the PC come on at a give time from a full shutdown. That way I can schedule maintenance and have the PC online in time for my morning coffee, as well as saving power by not being in Sleep mode.