Ongoing "The Uncompromised" HTPC simple yet powerful (1 Viewer)

[MegaPVR_Rack]

After failing with various HTPC set-ups on my Travla 1U rackmount case (which now will be recycled as a home server), I finally decided to move on to full ATX things

Case: modded Thermaltake Bach, black (recycled from my brother's HTPC)
CPU: Intel E5200 taken out from the rack system
CPU cooler: strictly D.I.Y.!
System memory: 4096 MB
Mobo: Asus P5Q TURBO (iP45), decent price and decent performances
Graphics: ATI HD4350 silenced&cooled
HDDs: the same I had on the rack system, connected to the good old Marvell 88SE6145 PCI-E card
Digital terrestrial TV card: Terratec Cinergy 2400i DT PCI-E (I had it laying around since I took it out from my video workstation)
Digital satellite TV card: Terratec Cinergy S2 HD (DVB-S2)
Optical drive: LG GGC-H20L combo BD-ROM/HDDVD-ROM/DVD-Recorder)
Power supply: recycled Enermax MODU82+ (425W)
Small video device: Samsung T220HD connected via ATI native HDMI
Cinema video device: Panasonic AE3000 full-HD projector
Audio: onboard VIA disabled, using ATI onboard HDMI for TV device
HD Audio device: Asus Xonar HDAV Slimline
Remote: Terratec standard IR jack-receiver inserted into the case
HDMI daisy chaining: ATI DVI->Xonar DVI IN->Xonar HDMI OUT->Onkyo TX-SR806->Panasonic AE3000

Now here we go

Let's unpack & check the new components


Fitting an Intel Q6600 heatsink, without the stock fan (which can be removed without breaking anything - retention pins are planted to the metal cross beneath the HS)


A piece of ducting pipe, with a little cutting, can become a very good cooling solution for this case


Fitting some PSU cables and the first two WD10EADS drives, with modified Scythe Silencer II dampeners, in the bottom 5.25" slots


On with some memory banks


Now that's a heatsink see, I had a Thermalright V2 copper cooler laying around...


But we have to see if the card fits into the case...


Drilling of the internal 3.5" cage to accomodate some 2.5" drives "suspended"


Tidying up the front panel cables


Fitting the remaining 3.5" drives on the suspended HDD cage


Cabling up the RAID controller card and the other SATA connections


I had some 7" SATA cables laying around...


Bringing power to all this storage equipment


Adding some ICH10R eSATA connections


Mounting the IR receiver on a piece of PCB and then hiding it behind the VFD front window (VFD not present)


Fixing the middle reinforcement plate


I didn't test it, but I think the suspended HDD cage is removable without breaking the cable ties I use to keep the molex connectors firmly collected


Of course I had to modify the mains cable with a 90 degrees plug to make it fit this deep HTPC


First tests


The combo drive has finally arrived!


And so did the Xonar HDAV card


And you never know, let's provide some easy-reach "local console" connections behind the TV


That's all folks

 

[etheesdad]

neat job. Particularly impressed by the cooling. ... So do I understand correctly you are using a stock heatsync with no cpu fan, then providing airflow via the duct to case fans?

did you need to undervolt to achieve that?

also the suspended hard drives are interesting. good design.

looks great with your other AV equipment. Well done... nice job

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

I used an old stock Q6600 heatsink, which has a copper core with radial aluminum fins. The stock Intel fan snaps on the top of the HS and the pushpins are separated from it: on the bottom there's a metal cross-shaped clip fixed to the copper core, to which the pins are mounted. Current heatsinks for low-end Core2 have the pins and fan "all in one" with the plastic cage that holds the HS too. So if you have to take away the fan you've got to cut it away from the cage. And the stock HSF for E5xxx CPUs is way smaller (half the Q6600 height).
Having used an over-over-sized heatsink, the airflow requirements are less than standard issue. The two 60mm fans are SilenX rated 12dB and they're mounted to evacuate air on the back, it enters on the bottom of the HS through the duct then exits on the rear . Airflow is not as much as having a fan blowing on top of the HS, but on summer stress testing E5200 temp rises no more than 62 degrees on full load

Oh and just to add something, my two display devices, the small one


and the big one planted on an DIY-enlarged TV stand

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

Let's see some action

 

[pilehave]

Impressive build, but kind of a tight fit

Which role does the Xonar card play in this game? And is the Marvell 88SE6145 a PCI-E X1 card or a X8?

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

;P

What do you mean with "tight fit"?
The Xonar card is for bitstreaming TrueHD/DTS-HD to the receiver. Since the Radeon onboard HDMI can transmit only multichannel PCM and is a mess to manage in XP, I connected it directly to the small TV in 2ch mode and I connected the DVI out to the Xonar DVI IN, then Xonar's HDMI out to the Onkyo HDMI2 (DVR), then Onkyo HDMI OUT to the projector , a little complex but works like a charm and straight out of the box with TMT3, so far tried with 16/48 TrueHD and 24/48 DTS-HD MA, since here we have only these as HD soundtracks for BDs... and often only in English . Tonight I might test it with DTS-HD HiRes since Terminator 2 has English in 6.1 DTS-HD MA and Italian in 5.1 DTS-HD HiRes . Here, no 24/96 BD yet...
The Marvell card is a $30 one, 88SE6145 chip was mounted onboard on some Asus motherboards, but never worked properly. In the add-in card version, works flawlessly apart one thing: it seems not to recognize properly 4 identical 1.0 TB HDDs, one of them is always missing from the BIOS screen. It is a Pci-Express X1 card, Addonics X8 cards use another controller. But if you like the huge bandwidth (twice the Intel DMI bandwidth) that X8 provides, you'd better buy some professional controller card, like Promise EX4650

 

[pilehave]

What do you mean with "tight fit"?
The Xonar card is for bitstreaming TrueHD/DTS-HD to the receiver. Since the Radeon onboard HDMI can transmit only multichannel PCM and is a mess to manage in XP, I connected it directly to the small TV in 2ch mode and I connected the DVI out to the Xonar DVI IN, then Xonar's HDMI out to the Onkyo HDMI2 (DVR), then Onkyo HDMI OUT to the projector , a little complex but works like a charm and straight out of the box with TMT3, so far tried with 16/48 TrueHD and 24/48 DTS-HD MA, since here we have only these as HD soundtracks for BDs... and often only in English . Tonight I might test it with DTS-HD HiRes since Terminator 2 has English in 6.1 DTS-HD MA and Italian in 5.1 DTS-HD HiRes . Here, no 24/96 BD yet...
The Marvell card is a $30 one, 88SE6145 chip was mounted onboard on some Asus motherboards, but never worked properly. In the add-in card version, works flawlessly apart one thing: it seems not to recognize properly 4 identical 1.0 TB HDDs, one of them is always missing from the BIOS screen. It is a Pci-Express X1 card, Addonics X8 cards use another controller. But if you like the huge bandwidth (twice the Intel DMI bandwidth) that X8 provides, you'd better buy some professional controller card, like Promise EX4650

If only I was a millionaire I would buy the EX4650

What I meant with tight fit was A LOT of cables and harddisks, you must be sure to connect it all in the right way

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

Well, I didn't say EX4650 just to say something:

That's my video workstation... equipped with the 8-port version (EX8650) plus 4.2 TB of storage , maybe soon to be upgraded from Q6600 to dual E5504 Xeon

Now back to my little big HTPC

 

[limpwhizkid]

Your are as nuts as I am ...

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

Hey limpwhizkid, I effectively upgraded my workstation... now it is a True workstation, with this I make all the contents I enjoy on the HTPC superfast H264 encoding and power to do everything
I decided to step up from the E5504 "basic" Xeons, it is a dual E5520 full-featured 16-logicalcores DIY beast weighing something like 35 kg