Completed NEW HTPC Build, EWSDN 220B Case. (1 Viewer)

[Plasma Dan]

Hey people! Only just signed up to the forum, I thought I'd add my contribution.


I have a lot of experience building PCs, infact; it's what I do.

I recently decided I wanted a cinema. So I surfed & surfed things from all across the internet

I eventually bought an Optoma HD700x projector and a Sony ST-DG820 7.1 Amplifier to run it

Then there's the XBOX 360 , got the Elite this time, maybee this one won't burn out

And finally, the heart of the whole cinema; a HTPC...

I have a dual core AMD in my old HTPC, running @ 2.8GHz. That used to crash out on me too often, I needed something a little more powerful. So I went for a Phenom II Quad @ 2.8GHz

The motherboard I chose was the ASUS M3N78-VM, I have used these before in HTPCs, I know how good they are. The main reason I used it however, is for the native HDMI output. I needed it to have Dolby HD surround sound, and this board does. Although; it was a pain to set-up, and required a BIOS update.

The case I chose for this build is the special part It is made by a company called EWSDN in Taiwan. The HTPC-220B has a brushed alloy front bezel & a very sweet looking VFD by iMON. It doesn't have very good cooling properties, although with my Mini Ninja CPU cooler, it should't be too much of a problem

Here are the specs:

• EWSDN HTPC-220B case.
• Asus M3N78-VM motherboard.
• Chipset: GeForce 8200
• AMD Phenom™ II X4 920, 2.8GHz Quad Core 125W CPU
• Scythe Mini Ninja Heatpipe fanless CPU Cooler
• 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-8500 (1066MHz)
• 2 x 1TB (2000 GB) Samsung Spinpoint F1, SATA 300, Ecogreen, 7200 rpm, 32MB Cache, NCQ
• LG Blu-ray / HD-DVD ROM, DL DVD+/-RW Drive with Lightscribe
• Compro Videomate T220 Tuner card
• 3 x Noctua 800RPM 80mm cooling fans (practically SILENT)
• 400W NorthQ Pacific II, Fanless PSU, 80%+ Efficiency!

You might be thinking a 400W PSU is little small to run a quad core system, but the CPU is the only thing that requires any real power. Everything else is pretty economic. 400W should do just fine, providing I never instal power hungry graphics card, I don't think I ever will.

I really don't watch TV, so I just put a single tuner in this build. I have everything I need on the HDDs

Here's a few progress photos of the build...

Had to remove the DVD bezel to get the new alloy one to fit.

This is before my additional 1TB HDD arrived

Notice the rear mounted BIOS reset switch (very handy)

Behind the VFD screen...

I'm a big fan of Corsair memory, I think it's the best...

Installing Vista Ultimate x64bit

This card reader is supplied installed to the case...

Had to do it...

Rubber HDD gromets...

No fan screws!!....

I/O from MB...

DO NOT PRESS!!

Even has an LED, so I know when it's on

MY extra HDD ...

Ill add a few more pics soon, need to host them all first

Any comments welcome

 

[Plasma Dan]

Some pics of the VFD ...

Stick on DVD bezel

I think this case rivals the Antec Fusion in terms of aesthetics. It is also the same price

 

[dcwp]

How are those Spinpoint drives? I'm looking to upgrade to a quieter HDD and was almost sure to go with the WD Green Power, but I've been hearing that the Spinpoints are almost as quiet. I notice you didn't soft-mount them, so you must not think they're very noisy.

 

[Plasma Dan]

How are those Spinpoint drives? I'm looking to upgrade to a quieter HDD and was almost sure to go with the WD Green Power, but I've been hearing that the Spinpoints are almost as quiet. I notice you didn't soft-mount them, so you must not think they're very noisy.

I use the Samsung Spinpoint F1 drives all the time. I use them for one reason; they are very VERY quiet. For the price; Samsung drives are great.

I cannot hear them spinning at all in this build, and I have the system positioned less than 1M away from my sofa.

Every HTPC I build now have Samsung Spinpoint drives in them.

 

[dcwp]

Good to know.

Are they making anything larger than a 1Tb drive now? I did (minimal) searching around and I don't see any 1.5 or 2Tb drives. Since I'm trying to move to a single drive system for a slimline case, I want to get as much data density as possible.

 

[gingertom]

Really nice biuld. Does your sound go via the hdmi or via optical, and do you have any problems with the on board sound card upscaleing the frequency to 4800hz (if thats the right way to put it!), and not allowing the the sound files to remain at 4400hz if they are.

 

[Plasma Dan]

Are they making anything larger than a 1Tb drive now? I did (minimal) searching around and I don't see any 1.5 or 2Tb drives. Since I'm trying to move to a single drive system for a slimline case, I want to get as much data density as possible.

I know WD are making some 1.5TB, and 2TB drives; although, they are very expensive. Not heard anything from Samsung yet.

If you have low space in your system, why not use a network drive, or an external eSATA drive?

I have a dedicated server PC just to host my files, that way I can access them from any PC on the network. All you need is a cheap old PC, with a couple SATA ports in it.

Really nice biuld. Does your sound go via the hdmi or via optical, and do you have any problems with the on board sound card upscaleing the frequency to 4800hz (if thats the right way to put it!), and not allowing the the sound files to remain at 4400hz if they are.

The onboard sound runs through the HDMI @ 48KHz. It was a pain to set up, took me hours to get it to work . Also, my board came with an old BIOS, so I had to update that before I could do anything else.

The sound files remain at whatever quality they were in the first place, the 48KHz is just the sample rate for the ADC (analogue - digital convertor). Not sure if there is any upscaling, as all the files I have are high quality in the first place.

This board has an exellent on-board sound chipset, although it takes some setting-up

 

[gingertom]

Thanls for the reply. Can I ask where you got the case from?

 

[dcwp]

Yeah, I've thought a lot about external storage and in the long run, that's probably where I'll go. But for now the balance between cost, effor, space, energy consumption, and heat has me working on a one-disk solution. I'm going to go with something that is 1.5Tb minimum, but need to decide if the Green Power Drives are worth the extra cost and if the low RPM will cost noticeably on performance.

Anyway, this looks like an excellent setup you've built! Congrats.

 

[Plasma Dan]

Thanls for the reply. Can I ask where you got the case from?

Yep

This is it... Click Me!!

Anyway, this looks like an excellent setup you've built! Congrats.