Torby's mediacenter worklog

[Torby]

Here's my mediacenter worklog. It's up and running, but not finished. Some soundproofing and improved cooling is still needed. Anyway, thought I'd post some pics of my progress.

Specs:

Case: Silverstone LC17
Motherboard: Asus P5K, P35, Socket 775
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2,66GHz, Boxed
Disk: Samsung SpinPoint 500GB 3.5" SATA2
Graphics: Sapphire Radeon HD 3450 512MB Heatsink (Fanless)
RAM: OCZ Platinum XTC 2048MB DDR2 PC6400 KIT
PSU: OCZ 500W StealthXStream
Tuner: Digital Everywhere Floppy DVB-T
I/O: Logitech diNovo Edge

This spec was chosen after a lot of reading, but also from a limited budget. The CPU is built with the 45nm technology, which allows it to run quite cool. RAM is cheap nowadays, so I chose 2 Gigs of pretty decent RAM. The Samsung disk is known to be somewhat quiet from what I've read. The ATI gfx card should have enough grunt to process 1080p material, and also has builtin support for audio via HDMI. I'm using an old DVD player at the moment, while waiting for the BlueRay players to become cheaper.

Anyways, here are a couple of pics of the case, while I resize more pics from the build.









Ok, over to the build itself.

I pretty much disassembled the case to begin with. No thumbscrews here, so tools are needed. The front I/O panel is still mounted in this picture (top left). As you can see, the case comes with 2 rear mounted 80mm fans. There's also room for 2 fans in the front.



So here's the motherboard. Nothing special really. Got onboard digital coax output, and fairly much room around the cpu, in case I'll be using a larger cooler later. It has also got passive chipset cooling.



Trial-mounting the motherboard. Notice how it sits close to the front panel mounting brackets (top right).

[Torby]

Update, more pictures.

Here's the powersupply. OCZ 500W. Looks good, and comes with nice sleeved cables and black connectors. Only bad thing is that it's not modular.



Gfx card ready to go in. Fanless goodness. The card is surprisingly small, compared to the more high-end cards.



Gfx card, psu and cpu-cooler trial mounted in the case. Still lots of room.



Since this case doesn't have any 3.5" bays, I decided to remove the front I/O panel and mount the Floppy DV-T there.



Removed the mobo etc, and mounted the DV-T card. Fits like a glove.

[Torby]

Right - time for more pictures.

Mounted the motherboard. Notice how close it sits to the DV-T card.



Another view, now with the coaxial cable connected. It's tight, but it works.



Fitted the CPU.



Fitted the nice and shiny RAM.



Mounted the harddrive, and started tucking away the cables.



Another view. Notice the 12V cable, juuust long enough.



Mounted the CPU cooler and a DVD drive I had laying around. It's and IDE drive, so the cable is quite big. But it works as a temporary solution. I will get a BlueRay drive when they get a bit cheaper.



Comments welcome!

[ThaClown]

Nice one, I really like that case! I use a LC11 myself...
How is it noisewise?

[Torby]

Hi!

Atm I'm just using the two oem fans in the rear, and the boxed cpu cooler. I'm getting a bit of noise from the moving air, and some vibration noise. I'm guessing the harddrive is to blame for that, so I'll be getting a harddrive silencer. I'm also going to mount one fan in the front, and use vibration dampers on all the fans. I also have to get rid of the vibration noises..

So I'll say it's fairly quiet, but there's always room for improvement!

[rtv]

I have no clue about that PSU but otherwise you've chosen the components very well

[Torby]

Originally Posted by rtv

I have no clue about that PSU but otherwise you've chosen the components very well

Thank you. I don't really know much about the performance of the PSU, but it's as quiet as my MIST 500W, at half the cost.

[Paranoid Delusion]

RAM: OCZ Platinum XTC 2048MB DDR2 PC6400 KIT

See you have these fitted in what looks like slots 1 and 3, for dual channel mode most motherboards require either 1-2 or 3-4 slots to be occupied.

I can see the thought behind heat seperation\good airflow etc, but they will naturally run hotter if they have to work harder in single memory channel mode, where they do not have to struggle and are a lot more stable in dual channel...

Check your motherboard manual to see what it recommends.

Looking really good BTW, bet you be well made up to impress the friends when it's finished. :

[Torby]

Good point! I actually hadn't thought of that when I installed them, it just seemed logical by the color code. I checked it out, however, and it's recommended to use slot A1 and B1 for dual channel mode. Thanks for the heads up!