Completed New HTPC : Silverstone LC19B-R (1 Viewer)

[ollie_1982]

Hello!

I've been looking for a new HTPC because the old one (Antec Fusion Black) is too big and not capable of playing 1080p. Maybe with a new videocard it could play 1080p. Another reason for the new setup is that the new setup is only 120watt max. It also is quieter then the old setup (I hope ).


Old Setup:

Antec Desktop Case Fusion Black mATX 430W
Asus M2A-VM HDMI 690G
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 3.0GHz HT 2MB AM2 Box
Zalman Processor Koeler CNPS7500-AlCu LED AMD & Intel
Kingston 2x1GB DDR2 SDRAM PC6400 CL5.0
Samsung 500GB SATA300 16MB FDB, HD501LJ
Samsung DVD-/+/RAM SH-S203B 20x/20x/16x
Microsoft MCE Remote & Reciever 2005 NL OEM

OS: MS Windows Vista 32-bit Ultimate + MediaPortal

TV : Philips 47PFL9603D
Audio : Logitech Z-5400


This is my new setup:

Silverstone LC19B-R (link)
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G
AMD Athlon X2 5050e 2.6GHz 1MB 45W AM2 Box
Silverstone SST-NT07-AM2 CPU-Cooler
Kingston 2x1GB DDR2 SDRAM PC6400 CL5.0
Samsung 500GB SATA300 16MB FDB, HD501LJ
Samsung DVD-/+/RAM SN-S083A 8x/8x/8x Slimline
Microsoft MCE Remote & Reciever 2005 NL OEM

OS: MS Windows Vista 32-bit Ultimate + MediaPortal

TV : Philips 47PFL9603D
Audio : Logitech Z-5400

What do you think of the setup!?



I'm building it this weekend. I post some pictures after the weekend.

 

[josch.hh]

This case is not quiet!! I had it before. Together with this Board and the CPU it will get very hot inside.
The Silverstone low profile cooler is incredibly loud. The only chance to keep it more quite is to exchange the fan with an 15mm SilenX fan.
BTW, The CPU cooler will never be very quiete because the fan is only 3mm away from the case top -> means the most noise near the cpu fan will be caused by the air-noise flowing through the little holes in the case top -> bullshit desgin from Silverstone.
Another issue is the hot northbridge of this board. The location of the northbridge cooler within the case is problematic because there will be nearly no airflow in that area.

If you want to test it .. have fun.

 

[dcwp]

Too bad to hear that this tends to be a noisy case. I'll be interested to hear what your experience with it is. I'm hoping to move to a more attractive case within a year or so and the lc19 is the most attractive one out there as far as I'm concerned. I do imagine that it's hard to cool though.

That Athlon 5050e, the e means it's the energy efficient version of the 5050, right? That should help some in the cooling. Also, I wonder if you could mount an extra 120mm fan (one of the super quiet models from SilenX or similar) directly to the grill on the top of the case (obviously with the fan inside the case) to draw air in and across the hot components.

 

[josch.hh]

I did like the case - is only to loud (for me) -> i like it turbo-silent
The CPU 5050e is good.
For the fan you need one of 15mm height. To my mind there is no 120mm diameter fan with 15mm height. The only one i know is a Sycthe with 100x100x15 but i think that wont make a big difference to the 80x80x15 from SilenX.
There is simply no room for a fan with standard heigth of 25mm. Even if this would be possible the fan would be to close to the top cover - and as i told you this effect causes the noise. So i think wont get much better with a bigger fan, even if it would rotatet much slower (i already used a fan contoller -> Cpu fan speed was about 1000rpm).

But test it, maybe it wouldn't be to loud for you. BTW it was not really loud, only for me...

 

[iSP]

I got one and it's incredibly silent.
Replaced the power supply with a 120 watt picopsu.
Used a 690g board (need to upgrade to 780g) and udnerclocked the cpu to 0,95 volt,
used some 1u cooler with a zalman fanmate and most of the time it can be cooled passively.
Some parts indeed tend to get hot, but it never failed in one year on me.
I'd say find the right parts and you should be okay.

 

[ollie_1982]

I've got all the parts now. The only thing that makes a little sound is the harddrive, maybe replacing it with a 2.5" harddrive. I also got the revision 2.0 of Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G and not the early revision, they where getting to warm i've read. I also have a 120watt PSU (comes with the case). I'm also upgrade the memory to 4GB instead of 2GB. The Silverstone SST-NT07-AM2 CPU-Cooler makes no sound at all.

I'm going to install Windows and MediaPortal and will post here how it goes.

 

[dcwp]

You should take a look at Solid State Drives, at least if you have network storage. My long term plan includes going to this case or one like it and buying a 32 or 64 Gb SSD for the system and using NAS for media files. I haven't experimented with SSD yet so I'm a little unsure, but all the reviews look good and they're totally silent and cool. On the other hand, for the same price you can get a 1Tb Western Digital Green Drive, which are also supposed to be quiet and cool (less than SSD of course, but passable) and have a good chunk of storage onboard.

 

[ollie_1982]

That is also one of my choices... SSD are indeed very quiet and cool. I have a NAS so that's won't be the problem. On the other hand like you said, 1TB disk for the same price is also a good choice, maybe both, 1TB extra for in my NAS and a 64SSD for in my HTPC. For now i'm good

 

[ollie_1982]

I've tested the HTPC when playing 1080p. The CPU cooler makes indeed noise, more then I hoped for. I haven't get DXVA working so the CPU is @ 80-90% en so will the CPU Fan @ 2600rpm, which is loud. I have an Fan Mate 2 and I'm going to try it tonight with the Silverstone Fan and hope is will help a bit. Are there any other suggestions if this doesn't work?

@ iSP, which 1u cooler do you have in your case? Or replaced the Fan to a low noise fan with fan control?

Also, I installed AMD Overdrive and it measures the temperature when idle @ 42 degrees, and in load (after playing 1080p) @ 54 degrees. Is this normal?

Thanks!

Would this be a possibility to use on this motherboard and cpu?

Coolermaster E1U-KPFCS-01-GP : Cooler Master - Products

Zalman CNPS8000 : http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=163

Dynatron A46G : Dynatron Corporation - CPU Cooler
Dynatron A48G : Dynatron Corporation - CPU Cooler


Thanks!

 

[dcwp]

Looking at this case online, it looks like there are mounts for two 40mm fans on the side. Depending on your MoBo, it looks like they might be right next to the CPU. If you had a high quality fanless heatsink and a couple of quiet fans there mounted to the CPU fan connection, might you be able to get adequate cooling without the noise caused by the CPU drawing across the top? You'll still have some fan noise, but maybe less?