Revamped Home Theater PC Build and comments (lots of pictures)

[James]

So, I've been meaning to upgrade my Home Theater, and especially my HTPC for awhile now. Thankfully a bonus at work allowed me to do just that. (After the required gifts for the girlfriend.)

So, here goes. Home Theater PC 2.3.6-21b
For this build, I wanted to make sure that the system could handle anything I threw at it, gracefully, without issue. That meant that I wanted a good deal of power, but an extremely silent package for that power. As HD content continues to spiral upwards in storage requirements (both online content, Bluray media, H.264 Quicktime content, HD TV recordings, etc.) I also needed lots of storage. Pushing HD content to my Westinghouse 47" LCD was also a concern, which thankfully was met with the onboard graphics from the Asus nVidia 9300 based motherboard.

Thus the contents of the build are:

Antec Fusion Remote Black
Enermax 535w Whisper PSU
Intel Q6600 CPU
Zalman 8700NT CPU HSF
8GB (4x2GB) G.Skill Value RAM (5-5-5-15)
1TB Seagate 7200.11 hdd w/ 32MB cache
1TB Samsung F1 hdd w/ 32MB cache
LiteOn GGC-H20L Bluray/HDDVD/DVD-RW optical drive
Asus P5N7A-VM Motherboard
Hauppauge HVR-2250 dual hybrid TV Tuner (PCIe x1)

Other Items:
------------
Onkyo TX-SR606 7.1 channel Receiver
Harmony 880 Remote

First off , here's the new receiver that was part and parcel of the whole deal. It's not uber high end, but it upgraded me to HDMI switching, which is what I cared about.

Onkyo TX-SR606 pics:

Box and packaging: Was in OK condition, a bit if "UPS-ing" if you know what I mean, but the contents were fine.






Now for the fun stuff.

Here's the front, nice and clean. Not as clean as the higher end stuff, but cleaner than my old Technics Receiver to be sure.

[James]

And finally, the true HT pr0n, the back side of the receiver. It's no Denon 5308-CI, but it'll do.



*Edit: I know what your thinking. "That's great, but where's the PC part of this HTPC?" Unfortunately it will have to wait until after work, as I'm already running late. More tonight. Sorry for the delay.

[iamsostupid]

let me know how that zalman 8700 works out....

[James]

let me know how that zalman 8700 works out....

I can tell you now, before I finish the build posts, that it keeps the CPU nice and cool (mid-high 40's under load) while running on the "Quiet" PWM profile in the Asus BIOS.

I can also tell you that it uses a subpar fan with noisy bearings, similar to the Silverstone PSU I have in my personal system. I will be replacing the fan with something else, very possibly an Enermax Enlobal fan. Don't know if it will work, but I'm going to try.

[James]

Here are some unboxing shots of all the goodies that will go into the case. It seems I don't have any actual unboxing shots of the case itself though. Weird.

[James]

Shots of the motherboard, with RAM and CPU installed. 8GB of RAM, yum!






If I ever decide to "borrow" the Quad Core from the HTPC, at least I know I can get some decent overclocking out of it.

[James]

Now for the case. This thing has a massive bundle of wires coming from the front panel. Thankfully it also has many little openings to route them through.

These are the fans that come with the case, they are rated pretty well, but they are noisy, in the next few shots you'll see them replaced with the Enermax Enlobal fans.


Here's the optical drive cage, it comes right out, and makes for a very easy install. In the second shot you can see how it kind of angles out/in of the case.

[James]

This round of pictures is ripping out the stock PSU and fans, installing the motherboard, and starting to route some wires.

[James]

Next we have the installation of the new PSU, and the routing of all the wires. Also you will notice that at one point, I have install the HVR-2250. Sadly I wasn't working quite as linearly as I would have liked to for this build.

[James]

And finally, some completion shots from the front and back.

[James]

Overall I'm extremely happy with the build.

It booted first try. It's very quiet. I love having only 3 cables coming out of it. (HDMI Out, Cable In, and Power In)

Some concerns I had:

HDMI: Some people said you can't boot or install the OS while using HDMI as your display output. I had no such issues.

HDMI Repeater: Same thing, but it has been rumored that you can't do the BIOS setup when running HDMI to a receiver, then to a display. Again, this was not my experience.

Multichannel Audio: Works like a charm. Sadly I can only test 5.1 channel sound for now. 7.1 channel sound will have to wait until the next bonus.

Feel free to ask me questions, or to comment, etc. I know I didn't provide a lot of detail during the build pictures. I'll try and flesh it in over the next few days.

[Adisharr]

Hey nice build James I went pretty cheapy for mine (low end Core2 and a VERY low end Ati card - like $35 low)

I like your case a lot better - mine leaves much to be desired.

You running Vista on there?

[James]

Yeah. Vista x64 SP1 with the TV pack. I've got the beta drivers for the HVR-2250 so I can tune QAM channels. Sadly, Comcast offers all of about 5 unencrypted QAM channels.

I really like the whole 8GB of RAM thing. It has smoothed out the UI and allowed for a much more responsive feel. Between that and the Quad-Core, I'm very happy with the upgrade. The old system (X2 3800 and 2GB of RAM) positively choked on some of the HD content.

[Adisharr]

Yeah. Vista x64 SP1 with the TV pack. I've got the beta drivers for the HVR-2250 so I can tune QAM channels. Sadly, Comcast offers all of about 5 unencrypted QAM channels.

I really like the whole 8GB of RAM thing. It has smoothed out the UI and allowed for a much more responsive feel. Between that and the Quad-Core, I'm very happy with the upgrade. The old system (X2 3800 and 2GB of RAM) positively choked on some of the HD content.

I've heard good things about Vistax64 w/ a lot of ram. Not a bad idea going w/ 8 gigs - memory prices are pretty good now

Do the drives run hot? My Samsung drives (2 500GB) feel like they would start a fire w/o active cooling.

[James]

I've heard good things about Vistax64 w/ a lot of ram. Not a bad idea going w/ 8 gigs - memory prices are pretty good now

Do the drives run hot? My Samsung drives (2 500GB) feel like they would start a fire w/o active cooling.

Yeah, 8GB of quality RAM is less than $90. So there is no reason not to do it.

As for temps on the drives, the run in the high 20's, low 30's according to SMART.

The design of the case is such that the airflow is actually pulled past the drives, thus creating a weak, but viable "active" cooling effect.