Zotac H55-ITX WIFI / Origen AE M10 HTPC Build

[mremulator]

I just wanted to share my latest HTPC Build that I've been configuring since last weekend.

I had previously built a water-cooled/overclocked E7600 custom build, which even featured a powder coated custom Silverstone SG05. However, the build was too bulky (even for Mini-ITX) and a little on the noisy side. The case LED’s were also dazzling. Therefore, I wanted something that would not look out of place under my TV.

I also really wanted to be able to power up the PC without having to manually press the power button on the front of the chassis every time. After a little further research I discovered the Origen AE M10 HTPC case. This thing is built like a tank and actually looks like a piece of expensive AV kit. It also has a Soundgraph VF310 VFD/IR module included, which allows full control over the PC and displays lots of info (ID3 tags for MP3's & system info etc).

The rig has a Core i3 530 CPU, Zotac H55-ITX Wifi mobo, 4GB Corsair XMS3, Sony slot-loading Blu-Ray drive, ATI 5570 (was 5450) and is controlled with a Logitech DiNovo Mini (sweet).

Despite what I had read about the Radeon HD5450 being ideal for a HTPC, I found that it was not even powerful enough to allow for shaders to be enabled in Media Player Classic when watching 1080p content. After a few days I upgraded to the HD 5570 and have not looked back.

Another thing worth mentioning is that FFDShow now supports DTS HD MA & Dolby True HD bitstreaming with the Radeon 5*** cards. Combine this with all the other cool features of the Origen AE M10 case/hardware and you have one hell of a nice little HTPC!

Anyway, pics:

Sorry for poor lighting, but you get the idea.

 

[mremulator]

Very nice little build, but I have a few questions.

Are you sure the 5450 was to blame for the lack of decoding performance or could it have been a software issue? Which decoder are you using? The 5450 really should have enough grunt to decode 1080p without issue.

Also why did you go with a clarkdale and then throw in a dedicated gpu? The IGP is more than enough to decode 1080p.

I don't mean to sound critical but am just wondering.

I too was surprised, however, with DXVA enabled and sharpen complex within MPCHC causes frames to be dropped when watching a 1080p/23.976fps MKV for example. Disable the sharpen complex shader and it's perfect. Another thing with the passively cooled HD 5450 is that there is a heatsink on the back of the card to cool the memory; this makes the card hard to fit between the chassis and optical drive. The HD5570 can handle multiple shaders and only has a one sided heatsink with a small (silent) fan. Also 400 stream processors instead of 80, faster memory clock and 128-bit memory bus instead of only 64-bit. Got to be worth an extra £20 me thinks.

I know the CPU is overkill for a HTPC, but it's the best bang for buck you can currently get. Take into account hyper threading, 32nm manufacturing, low voltage & temps... well it's a no brainer IMHO.

Not bad considering it all runs off a 150W PSU.

Mind boggles somewhat when you find the price tag for the case though... o.0

Regarding the cost of the case... you get a Panasonic slot-loading combi drive (£55), VF310 vfd/ir module (£69) and WMC remote (£9). This means that not only are you are getting one of the best quality cases I have ever seen, plus power supply etc, but are basically only paying £145 for the case & PSU. Personally, I don't think it's expensive for what you get at all!

Anyway, I'm very pleased with it, plus it runs cool and virtually silent.

 

[mremulator]

out of interest what kind of cpu temps are you seeing ide/load?

35°C idle & 45-50°C load. Currently not overclocked though.

 

[mremulator]

Forgot to mention that I cloned the WD Velociraptor and whacked in an Intel 80GB SSD. The thing now flies and I use my QNAP NAS for storage anyway.

 

[mremulator]

@mremulator:

Did you experience any kind of power issues using Zotac with M10's PSU?

I have an M10 with similar setup minus the ATI card (i3-540, IGD alone, 4GB, WD Blue Scorpio HDD), but it suffers from excessive current draw on 3.3v and 5V power lanes. It works actually but I can clearly hear that annoying modulated coil noise from CPU fan on system load peaks. According to my meter, there is a 0.8V drop on 3.3V lane and 1.1V on 5V when loaded. Even worst, with an HVR-2200 on PCIe slot (draws 5W from 3.3V), system could not wake from S3 mode. Seems that voltage drop is due to M10's PSU circuit inefficiency not because of the power brick. I used a lab 12V/350W switching power supply in place of FSP150 but didn't help.

BTW Zotac works fine when used with a regular uATX 200W power supply. Unfortunately after all these issues I had to put Zotac aside and use an Intel DH57JG instead. This works great with M10's PSU with much less total consumption and no voltage drops at'all; seems that Intel's circuitry is much more efficient. I missed Zotac's internal wlan though. Onboard mini-PCIe slot is really great feature and the sole reason I've got Zotac.

Yea, can't wake from sleep either and I know what you mean regarding the fan noise. However, the rig is only used for movies mainly and is rarely under load. If your intel mobo works fine with the M10's psu... then surely the problem lies with Zotac and not Origen/Soundgraph (iMON passthrough)?

 

[mremulator]

Do you mean that your Zotac even without a PCI-E TV tuner cannot wake from S3? According to their technical support this only happens when using a non-graphics PCI-E card. If this problem still exists when using a pcie graphics card that proves one thing, they say nonsense.

I'm afraid so. Thing is it's not such a deal breaker for me, as the iMON obviously allows the rig to be switched on/off using the MC remote. Also the SSD boots in to windows in less than 30 secs from a cold boot.

whats the largets graphics card you can fit in this thing?

Radeon HD 5450 / HD 5570 only AFAIK. Card has to be low profile plus can't draw much current either due to the 150W PSU. The good thing about the 5*** cards though is the ability to create profiles for popular resolutions/refresh rates and obviously the HD audio bitstreaming. I have 1080p 23Hz, 24Hz, 50Hz, 59Hz & 60Hz all set up with hotkeys (ALT+2) for example.

Did you have some pictures of this other than this thread? As would have liked to have seen that.

That was basically it Bane, however, I made some improvements/alterations. I'm going to have another go at a similar watercooled Mini-ITX rig over the next few weeks. This time I'll be using a Sugo SG06 instead of the 05, as it looks much nicer from the front. I'll also be looking at integrating an iMON somehow (not sure if this is even going to be possible)?

 

[mremulator]

mremulator - what small rig would you recommend for a server setup? basically i have sold everything i own to finance 1 gaming rig ( light gaming ) 1 media center for bedroom, 1 rig for , gaming rig and one for my gfriend to do office work on ie project visio and surf the net and a server to feed it all...i was going to go with the sugo 05 case until you mentioned the 06 which does look better ( for the media center gaming rig and home office computer ) then a small form factor server case...

Decisions, decisions....it driving me nuts...

For a server I personally use a QNAP TS-439 Pro; best piece of kit I have purchased in a couple of years and something that gets used every day (faster than external USB 2 HDD). What people tend to forget about when building NAS boxes or buying cheap solutions are transfer speeds, reliability and power consumption. I can copy a 10GB file to my NAS in less than a minute (Gigabit LAN) plus stream movies etc when my PC's are off (great for HTPC & Popcorn Hour). Take into account the RAID funtionality, Wake-on-LAN, low power usage, web/email/twonky/ftp servers etc... need I say more. Good software and support too.

Anyway, if you are building a HTPC go for the SG06 and the Zotac; there are no issues with the 300W PSU supplied (Sparkle/FSP) with the Zotac. Oh yea a Radeon HD5770 is also fine in terms of power and physical size.

True but still cannot wake on a schedule, something necessary for timed live TV recordings.

Very true, but personally I only use SKY+ for recording TV shows.

 

[mremulator]

Thanks for that Mremulator. Just looked at the qnap and it does look good but i think i may need more than 8tb ie the 4x2tb that this affords....any suggestions??

What's your budget?

 

[mremulator]

well i need a server plus 2 rig so have around 1,350 all in...

You are really going to struggle I'm afraid. A decent NAS with the kind of storage you are looking for won't come cheap. I spent something like £800 on my NAS with 4x Seagate 1.5TB HDD's. Ideally, you'll want to think about RAID5, as you'd probably kick yourself if one of the 4x drives failed if in RAID0. Also you are looking at £400 plus VAT just for 4x 2TB HDD's for the NAS/server.

 

[mremulator]

I guess you are right...Ive just bought a Fractal Design Array case which should be here in a few days and im going to put a zotac in it..cant decide between 9300 or H55.

After that I will just have to buy a couple of 2tb drives for now - it has 6 drive bays.

What kind of processing power would i need to ensure my 1080p streaming etc doesnt struggle?

i3 530 matey without even breaking a sweat.

 

[mremulator]

Thanks...i3 530 it is...any other tips for when i build this thing?

I would go for something like a Scythe Shuriken Rev.B CPU cooler, however, the stock cooler is also fine. Shame it will not fit in my M10(only by 6mm).

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-027-SY&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

Also an SSD and ATI 5*** GPU are both a bit of a must IMHO.

 

[mremulator]

would i really need gpu? imusing it as a media server and to run office for the girlfriend?

It depends really. 23.976Hz (Blu-ray) does not work properly with the Intel GPU at the moment. You will not be able to use any post-processing (shaders) with Media Player Classic Home Cinema without dropping frames for example. You can pick up an HD 5570 for under £70, which I can heartily recommend. I personally prefer MPC HC with sharpen complex enabled & 23.976Hz for watching BD rips & MKV's.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-226-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1699

It's a killer HTPC card for the money IMHO.

 

[mremulator]

Is the fan on the ATI 5570 loud? I'm thinking of building a similar setup but unsure if it will be quite. I'm not a fan of noisy HTPC's (pun not intended)

Honestly can't hear it, in fact I would go as far to say it's virtually silent.

 

[mremulator]

Bought a QNAP TS-439U for work 2 weeks ago. 4x2TB with redundant PSU to sport over the freestanding one. Works a treat. If we need more we can just buy another caddie and run them as iSCSI

Think this works in the free standing version as well.

Fantastic piece of kit eh? Does exactly what it says on the tin... and then some.

 

[mremulator]

mremulator based on your build I have bitten the bullet and ordered myself an Origen AE M10 case and a Zotac Ionitx-F-E Atom board. As no one could guarantee that the case would ship with a slot loading DVD Rom I emailed Origen in Korea. Origen have offered to sell to me direct, so I have ordered one from them (at massive savings) I have calculated my import duty and Tax and I think I am still £60 better off if I have to pay them.

Anyway I will post the build when all the parts arrive

Mushii

Cool, could you let me have your contact details at Origen perhaps? I have another build coming up. mrmul8r*ntlworld.com (replace star with @).

 

[mremulator]

*Update* Sleep issue is fixed with latest BIOS (Zotac H55-ITX) if using PCI-E graphics card... yay.

 

[mremulator]

I noticed this recently with my onboard intel gpu also, just got hdmi working but sadly no options under MPC-HC for sharpen.

Would you really need a 5550 or 5570 just too enable shaders under mpchc ?

I do love your setup its very nice, ive been considering going such a route but I feel having too many boxes is to much so may just get one decent low powered Q8300 rigg with lots of hdd upgrade space like 8+ slots, and a mobo with 8 satas+ and just have a download/file server/htpc all in one box runnin 24/7.

And then maybe a boxee box to compliment it

I think would work out far cheaper and could still use that money too put onto some much needed 2tb storage drives.

Afraid so, the Intel GPU just hasn't got enough grunt. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, even the Radeon HS5450 isn't powerful enough. HD 5570 minimum for 1080p & Sharpen Complex for example in MPC HC with DVXA enabled.

With regards to MPC HC shaders, go to View - Options - Output and make sure you are using EVR Custom Pres. or EVR Sync.

 

[mremulator]

Really nice case. It's just what i've been after. £300 though :/ Tempted....

Are you using the internal MPC-HC decoders to playback 1080p? Was considering an i3 530 for all HD playback - don't want to pay for an extra gfx card. I use CoreAVC though.

Actually no. In addition to the K-Lite Codec packs (32/64-bit) I have also registered the MPC MKV splitter (Gabtest), MPC mpeg filter and MPC Audio Renderer filters in Windows. This way I can use WMC7/Media Browser and get HD audio bitstreaming and MKV support etc in WMC7. Obviously ffdshow is also required (comes with K-Lite).

MPC HC is actually really good for 1080p, however, if you want to enable any shaders (sharpen complex for example) you'll require an ATI HD 5570 at the very least or else you'll get dropped frames.

BTW... CoreAVC only supports Nvidia CUDA, so you'd be better off using MPC/ffdshow (DXVA).

 

[mremulator]

You will struggle to get a HD and an SSD into the case. Oh and you willneed a Zalman fan mate for the case fan. It runs at full speed and is a little noisy (not so much the noise of air over the grill)

Mushii

I've got an Intel 80GB SSD in mine... no problem. It just screws to the back/left side of the case through the holes illustrated in the manual. Not at all obvious, however, it fits in nicely.

In fact, picture shows my old WD Velociraptor, which is actually larger than the SSD I replaced it with.

 

[mremulator]

dare you to try and watercool it.

Not going to happen. Not with this case anyway. Just not enough room unless you go for an external rad.