Intel Atom based HTPC (1 Viewer)

[madad]

I'm trying to assemble a silent htpc for the bedroom that I could hopefully leave on 24x7. I've got hold of a picopsu 120 and an ide-cf converter so i can essentially remove the hard drive and main psu from the system.

Problem is it doesnt boot so I'm looking for something that'll consume less power and have been looking at this as an option

PCTronix Ltd

Seems fairly cheap, but I'm wondering if it will do the job..? WIll it be powerful enough to use as an htpc?

Also, can passively cool the cpu on it? Hopefully someone else is doing something similar..

Cheers!

 

[James]

Here is a review -> Intel Atom 230 ultra low-power desktop CPU | Register Hardware

Going by their comments it wouldn't be good for a HTPC.

Also the CPU is passively cooled. The fan is for the i945GC northbridge chip.

 

[pilehave]

Hi

Did you ever got the system to boot? If your'e using a regular mATX/ATX board it may need 12V input besides the normal 20/24-pin power...

 

[Ruud]

Hi,
problem is not in de Atom CPU. It will be powerful enough to run mediaportal and movies. Problem is with the onboard GPU that just is not up to the task and will place additional load onto the CPU when running MP.
Take a look at my specs: CPU is even less then the Atom. For the TV server I have off-loaded the CPU by using hardware decoded TV cards. On the client I use a (passive cooled) graphics card that off loads the CPU.
Recording on the server pushes the CPU load to max 15%, playing the recorded (mpeg2) content on the client pushes the load to max 40%
So it all depends on the other components and of course of what you want to do with your HTPC.

gr.
Ruud.

 

[madad]

Hi

Did you ever got the system to boot? If your'e using a regular mATX/ATX board it may need 12V input besides the normal 20/24-pin power...

I had mixed success, but eventually moved to a new AMD quad core based machine and a very quiet power supply, which suits my needs very well. I decided that I was having too many issues with old hardware and it has tunred out to be a good move - the new machine is barely audible even in a completely silent room. I highly recommend such a platform.

 

[Marcusb]

the new asus desktop version of the eepc notebook has recently een released.
From the reviews, it would seem that it can work well for HTPC and HD up to 720, but not 1080.

Best of all, it's tiny and only uses 22watts of power under full load.

Asus Eee Box B202 Desktop System Evaluation - HotHardware

 

[SwingSultan]

do you really think that the atom is faster than the geode nx?!? the geode nx is essentially an old athlon xp core that would wipe the floor with the atom performance wise. there are other issues with the atom. the essential boards have a horrible vga signal. instead of a cf card you could use other alternatives for an hdd like a fast usb stick (you should make shure that it also writes fast!). another alternative for the atom would be something like an undervolted amd sempron with an asrock nf3 based board. there is a special kombo lurking around the internet that is supposed to have an idle power consuption of 17w! with a standard 300w psu and a 2,5" or 3,5" hdd.

btw. why do you want the system to run 24/7 if its only a client. personally when i waste my time watching movies etc. i think that i really have 3 seconds to wait for my htpc to wake up from suspend to ram.

 

[alexeix]

Hi,
problem is not in de Atom CPU. It will be powerful enough to run mediaportal and movies. Problem is with the onboard GPU that just is not up to the task and will place additional load onto the CPU when running MP.
Take a look at my specs: CPU is even less then the Atom. For the TV server I have off-loaded the CPU by using hardware decoded TV cards. On the client I use a (passive cooled) graphics card that off loads the CPU.
Recording on the server pushes the CPU load to max 15%, playing the recorded (mpeg2) content on the client pushes the load to max 40%
So it all depends on the other components and of course of what you want to do with your HTPC.

gr.
Ruud.

I've just looked at your spec (TV server), and am wondering if I'm missing something? How do you fit all that gear in a Procase Noah (3988?)? I thought they only had one PCI slot and no graphics card slots?

I've been looking at those cases, so I'm interested to know how you've done it.

 

[Ruud]

Hi,
problem is not in de Atom CPU. It will be powerful enough to run mediaportal and movies. Problem is with the onboard GPU that just is not up to the task and will place additional load onto the CPU when running MP.
Take a look at my specs: CPU is even less then the Atom. For the TV server I have off-loaded the CPU by using hardware decoded TV cards. On the client I use a (passive cooled) graphics card that off loads the CPU.
Recording on the server pushes the CPU load to max 15%, playing the recorded (mpeg2) content on the client pushes the load to max 40%
So it all depends on the other components and of course of what you want to do with your HTPC.

gr.
Ruud.

I've just looked at your spec (TV server), and am wondering if I'm missing something? How do you fit all that gear in a Procase Noah (3988?)? I thought they only had one PCI slot and no graphics card slots?

I've been looking at those cases, so I'm interested to know how you've done it.

Hi alexeix,
the Mini-ITX has one PCI slot, the Noah case can be ordered with a pci riser card. thats all i need: the TV card is a dual tuner on a single PCI card. Nothing else is in there... well expect for the obvious
regards,
Ruud.

 

[alexeix]

Thanks. I misread your specs (it was late and I was tired!)

I see that you have a TV card in your server and a graphics card in your client.

Nice set-up!