My budget HTPC...

zanzibar1985 · 2007-05-24, 01:10

Hey all. Last year I bought a nice (cheap at Tesco's) 26" LCD TV. It's a lovely TV but is severely let down by its crappy speakers. I needed to use external speakers, but on a budget. However the TV has no stereo audio out on it only a mono rcf (if thats right) port. So i decided i'd build a HTPC on a budget to allow me to get stereo sound through fairly cheap PC speakers but get much better quality than through the telly's rubbish ones. It's not the most brilliant spec in the world or the prettiest thing in the world but it cost me about £150 in total, so I'm happy!

I basically bought 2 really cheap PCs off ebay (One was £40 and the other was £55) and put the best parts of each together and then added a few bits to complete what i needed from it. I bought a Wifi Card that was discontinued in Currys (£14) a discontinued Magicbox usb tv from Maplin (£28) and a few other cheapie bits...

It has a Pentium 4 1600MHz on an Intel Motherboard
512MB RAM
2 x 60GB hard drives
ATI Radeon 9250 128MB
Onboard sound
DVD ROM / CDRW multidrive
Wireless PCI
TwinhanDTV Magicbox II USB dongle
Dell Altec Lansing speakers

The Tv is an LG rz26lz55 (£500 from Tesco in June 06)
Labtech Wireless Keyboard and mouse

I can't think of any important specs to put there!

The case I used was the desktop case of one of the PCs i bought which was a bit scuffed and dull 'old' beige so I've started to tart it up and paint it. After sanding it down slightly the paint at the moment is a bit rough but in the dark it looks fine! I also use a MCE remote and was annoyed with having it on top of the unit so i decided to sacrifice the floppy drive (who uses floppies anymore anyway!) and bold the IR reciever in its place. works really well still through the small slit and is really well hidden now as it can't be seen at all!
I also removed one of the internal fans completely as it was really noisy and after testing motherboard and processor temps with it and without it there was no difference. So the case is now cooled by just the CPU fan and PSU fan. It is still always very cool.

Here's a pic of it all. I havent taken any of inside the case (it's a complete mess anyway - mostly due to the billion metres of cable on the IR reciever being tied up in a bundle in the gap at the front!) but i will take some of inside next time i open her up to have a play.

I just wanted to say thankyou to Mediaportal for making my HTPC a possibility - its not often you can get such great working software for free and i wasn't gonna fork out for MCE! So thankyou all who contribute! I wouldnt have bothered building it if i didn't know how great MP was!

ZanZibaR

Game_dude · 2007-05-30, 03:02

Looking good man! I don't know why noone has replied yet its always nice to see pics of other user's HTPC's

nice TV btw

Thats usually the way to do it if You have old pc's just laying around with decent to good parts just combine the two with the best parts I've done the same..

carthol · 2007-06-27, 19:42

Not a bad setup.

How is the quality on the Twinhan box?

I was thinking about getting a AD-TU501 for my laptop to do HDTV/radio. Is that a good solution for this problem? I am also a little worried about if it will work well with MP. Any thoughts?

2007-05-24, 01:10	#1 (permalink)
zanzibar1985 Portal Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Age: 23 Posts: 6 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Country:	My budget HTPC... Hey all. Last year I bought a nice (cheap at Tesco's) 26" LCD TV. It's a lovely TV but is severely let down by its crappy speakers. I needed to use external speakers, but on a budget. However the TV has no stereo audio out on it only a mono rcf (if thats right) port. So i decided i'd build a HTPC on a budget to allow me to get stereo sound through fairly cheap PC speakers but get much better quality than through the telly's rubbish ones. It's not the most brilliant spec in the world or the prettiest thing in the world but it cost me about £150 in total, so I'm happy! I basically bought 2 really cheap PCs off ebay (One was £40 and the other was £55) and put the best parts of each together and then added a few bits to complete what i needed from it. I bought a Wifi Card that was discontinued in Currys (£14) a discontinued Magicbox usb tv from Maplin (£28) and a few other cheapie bits... It has a Pentium 4 1600MHz on an Intel Motherboard 512MB RAM 2 x 60GB hard drives ATI Radeon 9250 128MB Onboard sound DVD ROM / CDRW multidrive Wireless PCI TwinhanDTV Magicbox II USB dongle Dell Altec Lansing speakers The Tv is an LG rz26lz55 (£500 from Tesco in June 06) Labtech Wireless Keyboard and mouse I can't think of any important specs to put there! The case I used was the desktop case of one of the PCs i bought which was a bit scuffed and dull 'old' beige so I've started to tart it up and paint it. After sanding it down slightly the paint at the moment is a bit rough but in the dark it looks fine! I also use a MCE remote and was annoyed with having it on top of the unit so i decided to sacrifice the floppy drive (who uses floppies anymore anyway!) and bold the IR reciever in its place. works really well still through the small slit and is really well hidden now as it can't be seen at all! I also removed one of the internal fans completely as it was really noisy and after testing motherboard and processor temps with it and without it there was no difference. So the case is now cooled by just the CPU fan and PSU fan. It is still always very cool. Here's a pic of it all. I havent taken any of inside the case (it's a complete mess anyway - mostly due to the billion metres of cable on the IR reciever being tied up in a bundle in the gap at the front!) but i will take some of inside next time i open her up to have a play. I just wanted to say thankyou to Mediaportal for making my HTPC a possibility - its not often you can get such great working software for free and i wasn't gonna fork out for MCE! So thankyou all who contribute! I wouldnt have bothered building it if i didn't know how great MP was! ZanZibaR Last edited by zanzibar1985; 2007-05-27 at 16:34.

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2007-05-30, 03:02	#2 (permalink)
Game_dude Portal Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: USA Age: 22 Posts: 125 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts My System	Looking good man! I don't know why noone has replied yet its always nice to see pics of other user's HTPC's nice TV btw Thats usually the way to do it if You have old pc's just laying around with decent to good parts just combine the two with the best parts I've done the same..

2007-06-27, 19:42	#3 (permalink)
carthol Portal Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 7 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Country:	Not a bad setup. How is the quality on the Twinhan box? I was thinking about getting a AD-TU501 for my laptop to do HDTV/radio. Is that a good solution for this problem? I am also a little worried about if it will work well with MP. Any thoughts?