thinking of a HTPC

[otispunkmeyer]

ill be living the student life up next year in a house with some mates, and i wanna put to together a media PC for the living room, so we can store pretty much anything. and play it.

im taking my fairly old 28inch tv down so that would be the display

now, i do have a spare computer lying around. its a little on the noisy side though.

here it is

AXP 2000+
512Mb DDR266
2x40Gb (not enough)
MSI KT333 Ultra2 ATX
Samsung CD-RW (on the count that the liteon DVD-rw has lost all CD functionality)
Liteon DVD-RW with no CD functionallity

in a rubbish case

with a noisy thermaltake fan, and a thermal take volcano 9

so the 1st and cheapest option will be to use this. i dunno maybes a new case, reapply the HSF with good compound, and a quiet fan. another stick of 512 since its so cheap. and some big storage. + wireless desktop keyboard n mouse

do i need media centre edition for what im gonna do?

option 2 is this the KLOSS. here it is on their website here

this is a uber quiet and uber cool system, they reviewed it on toms hardware and it never broke 40dB with a 3.4Ghz prescott.

its skt 775 (dual core compatible?) but uses DDR ram and has integrated video. 1 PCI-x16 and a normal PCI slot

proposed set up would be 3 - 3.2Ghz P4 with HT, gig o ram, big HDD, a Turbo Cache 6200 (tv out dongle thingy) and an OS, and a TV card.

 

[rise]

i'm in the same situation with a left over half a rig- a p4 2.4c, mobo, psu, ram. i decided to add it into this lascala case because i wanted it to fit better into a entertainment center look. added a 250 gig wd, a pvr-150 and a 6600gt as i plan some moderate gaming. i am debating on a soundcard for later, right now its just going on my tv speakers anyway.

the pvr-150 comes with a remote so i think i'll just use beyond tv. i've heard good things about mce but the proprietary recording format is a pita i think. i know there are work arounds but it just seems like more work than what its worth.

i dont know how well that case would work with just the 1 pci slot, but thats your call. i didn't look at it closely as i wouldn't reallyu consider that based on the looks. just beware of what you want to add into it.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

thats a nice case

it does make sense to reuse old parts, i mean its basically just sitting there waiting.

with the price of the XP chips, i reckon i could just flash the bios on the mobo to the latest one, and get one of them XP-M the 35-45 watt jobs. another 512 ram, audigy card, tv card, w/l KB and Mouse.

its got a passively cooled GF3 in it at the mo....is that good enough? or would something like a AGP 6200 be better since it comes with video out goodies?

 

[otispunkmeyer]

should of said, nice as the PVR's are.... id like something that can take advantage of the free to air digital terrestrial TV signals here in the UK

DVB-T all i need is a good ariel, the house has a big roof ariel so just need something that can pick up the digital signals

 

[rise]

aye, you know more about vga's than i. i was thinking the 6200 before deciding on the 6600gt as the price has come down to ~150 for agp.

also, if you're getting a tuner get one with a remote and i don't think you even need a keyboard. maybe just for the install. i'll have one handy when my parts arrive tuesday but my understanding is beyondtv and others allow just using a remote. i'll be interested to see how that goes.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: rise4310
aye, you know more about vga's than i. i was thinking the 6200 before deciding on the 6600gt as the price has come down to ~150 for agp.

also, if you're getting a tuner get one with a remote and i don't think you even need a keyboard. maybe just for the install. i'll have one handy when my parts arrive tuesday but my understanding is beyondtv and others allow just using a remote. i'll be interested to see how that goes.

the tv card im looking at does indeed have a remote to control tv and dvd

 

[rise]

don't know if you've visited it but you may want to check out-

http://htpcnews.com/

they have some good discussions.

 

[mshan]

Good resources are:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=26

http://www.silentpcreview.com

Just remember, 40 dB isn't very quiet for HTPC uses (30 dB would be background noise level or whispher in a quiet room; I would guess you would want at least under 30 dB and hopefully under 25 dB). And the nature of the noises may be more important than overall level (because some sounds blend into the background easier than others).

6600GT is supposed to currently have the best picture quality and some people are recommended the new 300 or 320 GB Western Digital hard drives as being surprising quiet.

 

[Zepper]

The Kloss is made by Trigem (you remember the wierd mobos in early eMachines - yup, that's them). I wouldn't buy that or any shoebox PC because too many parts are usually proprietary. Can you get Aspire cases over there or the same thing under another name like Chen Ming? They recently came out with the X-Qpack (you can see it on the Newegg site) which uses almost all standard components (the PSU is a bit shorter, in the back to front dimension) than normal, but you can find others if needed - miniATX form factor). Or something like the Enermax Venus series would be my choice.
. Short chassis optical drives also work best in all those compact cases.
.bh.