Streacom FC5 fan-less HTPC case (4 Viewers)

[foxbenw]

Hi
I mean your shop. When I looked at my shopping cart it only showed me German delivery options so i assumed that's all I could do and I left the web page. Perhaps it does say international/EU is available somewhere else but I didn't notice it fast enough to come and ask here.

After you said it was possible, I went back and went to the checkout and of course I could then add my UK details. However that shopping cart page made me think I couldn't. Perhaps you could add something to the shopping cart page? Even if it just says something like 'international also available' after the German prices. Or maybe I am just a bit dim and most people wouldn't have stopped where I did!

Also, I was on my ipad and the re-direct back from PayPal to your site after pressing 'Pay Now' in PayPal caused an error message. I just reloaded the page as I figured the payment had already been made, and it worked (it gave me the order confirmation page on your site). This may have just been an isolated incident of course, as I was on 3g and on an iPad.

Otherwise, I like the website!
Best
Ben

 

[AEOne]

Ok, many thanks for your hints and the description.
I will have a check and promise an improvement.

Regards, AEOne

 

[Zeppelin]

If only the FC5 would have Front USB...
I think I'm going for the FC8 Evo.
As for the IR Receiver: Is there already a built in version or do you have to buy one anyway?

And anybody yet tried to fit in a third hdd?

 

[foxbenw]

I have the fc8 evo. I like it a lot. There's no built in ir receiver. That's why Streacom sell a separate one. It comes with a board that screws on to the front by the little window in the case, and plugs into a USB header on your board.
But it doesn't work properly 'out of the box', which is why I ordered one of the ones above.
I have the asrock z77E-itx board, which I chose because it has a cir header and therefore provided a backup plan if the remote didn't work.
I am hoping that the mounting bracket will make it easy to fit onto the front of the case without any extra modifications. But I haven't received it yet so I cannot say.
I have only fitted one ssd into the case so can't comment on more drives.

One very mild negative for the board would be that the USB headers end up being directly below the heat sink pipes, and I fitted the heat sink first which made it awkward to get the USB cables attached afterwards. It's not a problem and next time I would just make sure I plug the USB headers in first. And looking at other itx boards I think this would be common anyway.

However I also found that the second ram slot is a bit close to the mobo power slot. The pico psu has some circuitry above it so it is actually touching the ram slightly. I figured this might be bad but have done it anyway for the time being, as I won't be leaving it powered on unless I am using it. I guess I could get some kind of 24 pin extension cable which would remove the issue.

There is also a h77 board from asrock with a cir header, which has the 24 pin power in a different place.

If anyone is thinking about a different board for the fc8 evo feel free to ask me to have a look for any issues like those above. Can't guarantee I'll be right of course but it can't hurt.

 

[Zeppelin]

Then I'll take the offer

I first thought of the ASROCK H67M-ITX, are there any advantages with the H77?

Greets

 

[gijoe73]

The H77 chipset seems to have a lot of problems with nearly all Tuner cards. It seems that there is a problem with the PCI-E handshake.

So I've decided to buy a Asus P8Z68 for my new HTPC.
For example Google: H77 CineS2

 

[Zeppelin]

What's your experience with 24p on that board?

PS: I'll most likely use a Cine CT v6...

 

[foxbenw]

That's interesting re h77. I would never have noticed as it's a client set up, but good to know.

I don't know if you are familiar with quietpc, but they sell a pre-built fc08 using the gigabyte ga-h61n-usb3 board. If you look at pictures the port placement is very similar to the asrock one you said. So I would say that it should be ok.

Looking at the manuals for the asrock boards on their website, the h61 version says it supports hd4000 but the h67 one doesn't mention it. I don't know if this is true as I don't own them, but if it affects your choice based on cpu preference the layouts are very similar and both have cir headers. (the gigabyte board used by quietpc doesn't have a cir header as they build it for media center). The asus above also has no cir header so you'd need to go for a different receiver than the ones above. Power on from s5 may affect your choice there.

24p on my tv is actually a bit annoying. But it's because of an old tv not the board I think. I've been meaning to try the new audio renderer on it but have only had it running for a week or two.
Ben

 

[Zeppelin]

The hd4000 is indeed important for me.

So what would be your favourite 1155 board with support for hd4000 (core i3-3225), a Cine CT v6 and eventually firewire Support?

Greets

 

[foxbenw]

Sorry I do not know any for all of that. Best you can do is probably check all the manufacturers websites one by one.
The only one I saw is an intel h77 with on board FireWire. But if the h77 is a bad way to go as per gijoe73, the only other way of getting built in FireWire will be via another pci card. You can get mini pcie FireWire cards, but you would need another slot on the case. And the fc08 only has one slot, which you said will be for a tv card. of course, you could just use a FireWire to USB adapter...
Esata and usb3 are more common on itx boards it seems.

For me, the priority was to have good wake from sleep options for USB/pci and a cir header, to give me the most flexibility on remotes. That's why I ended up with asrock. If your priority is FireWire you may need to find a different case that has 2 slots, for your tv card and a FireWire card.

If you are going for h61 or h67, it may be worth double checking on hd4000 support with the manufacturer first as it doesn't always seem clear on their websites to me. Perhaps there is an easier answer than this but i haven't found it with a quick search, other than that ivy bridge should be ok on h61 and h67 boards with a bios update. I think if I wanted a non-z77 board I would have gone for the h61m-itx from asrock, again because of the cir header.

Edit: forgot to say but h61 doesn't have sata3.