ugly htpc...but its covered up

[insane 360]

well, figured i would drop a pic of what i did with my htpc...i chopped up an old HP case and bought some stuff on a budget last year...i've cleaned up the wiring (from what it was) and also removed some metal, added some fans...but from previous attempts, i cut a lot and the build is still evolving.

i've changed fans around so many times i can't remember what i'll i've done...other than the main noise maker was the coolermaster 500w...i replaced the fan with a rosewill 120mm and man it got quiet...though now i hear the seagate 500gb over everything else...so next up is to swap it with a WD 500gb drive i have that i know is silent.

i'm still trying to decide if i want to upgrade my video card heatsink or just leave it all as is until trinity comes out and strip it out and start over with better more power friendly hardware...

well i'll keep up with all that and more.

right now, here is a current shot of it. i'll get some pics of it closed and before...

 

[brandonwh64]

Looks quite well if it all is hidden. Crafting a HTPC case out of wood would be very nice

 

[insane 360]

yes, i still need to hide the cables out the back, but really it just bugs me, my wife doesn't notice them and its quiet enough now that she doesn't hear it either, other than that HDD.

thanks, i'll keep tweeking it so it looks better even with the doors opened, at least thats my plan

 

[_Zod_]

You could have just stuck a case in that space and been done with it and been better off because of all the RF leakage you have going on. For what reason did you go this route? If it was just for fun, may the flying spaghetti monster be with you!

 

[Norton]

build a quick wooden tech bench and put in in there- they are cheap and easy to make if you have any wood shop skills.

Would clean that up real nice

I think t_ski or sneekypeet showed one they made and posted it here somewhere.... can't remember where ATM

*** EDIT- found it-here's the link for t_ski's tech bench build ***
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=893589&postcount=1

 

[insane 360]

build a quick wooden tech bench and put in in there- they are cheap and easy to make if you have any wood shop skills.

Would clean that up real nice

I think t_ski or sneekypeet showed one they made and posted it here somewhere.... can't remember where ATM

*** EDIT- found it-here's the link for t_ski's tech bench build ***
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=893589&postcount=1

thats awesome! i will be looking into doing that when time permits!

oh and Zod, i didn't put a case in because the cabinet isn't deep enough for a full size case. though when trinity comes out and i plan to upgrade to it, i might change over to a regular case...

the other reason i did it was for the fun of it, it was neat cutting metal and figuring it out on how to place it all in there...i've made a number of changes and so far what that picture shows is my best effort thus far.

if i get the mantel piece cleaned up then i'll take a picture of the living room to show how it looks like normally

 

[Norton]

If you can find one of these, it should fit into an entertainment center

GMC R-2 Toast AZT-GMCR2-BL Black Steel / Plastic A...

full ATX and only 11" deep

They aren't available in most places anymore but they were neat little cases... I had one but sold it as part of an older system 6 months ago.

 

[t_ski]

build a quick wooden tech bench and put in in there- they are cheap and easy to make if you have any wood shop skills.

Would clean that up real nice

I think t_ski or sneekypeet showed one they made and posted it here somewhere.... can't remember where ATM

*** EDIT- found it-here's the link for t_ski's tech bench build ***
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=893589&postcount=1

If you look in the thread, I have version 1.0 on there. That was nearly free after using up scraps I had laying around.

 

[insane 360]

yep, i probably have enough scraps laying around to build it...i've got a few other projects right now before i can tackle that, but its on my to-do list now

 

[insane 360]

well getting ready to update my living room. just got a 42in led tv last night, going to wall mount it instead of just having it sit on the mantle...then do some better cable management, other than just running it along the wall....

then comes the opportunity to change from my current cabinent, to wall mounted shelves, the only thing is i'm only finding shelves with about 12-14" deep...thats not enough for my full size atx (rather a case)

on a budget, so this is the mount i'm getting for the tv
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012S4APK/?tag=tec06d-20

this is the cable management
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00004W3ZQ/?tag=tec06d-20

these are the two wall mount shelves i'm looking at
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002LIOUFA/?tag=tec06d-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001RVAQD2/?tag=tec06d-20

this is the case i would want...
COOLER MASTER Elite 360 RC-360-KKN1-GP Black Steel...

but its still a beast, and i'll still need optical drive and card reader (3.5)

so any suggestions of cases that would fit here? possibility of changing motherboards to a matx, but i have a 4830 (two slots) and two tv tuners...

 

[Norton]

This one will fit your depth requirement but no card reader and you would have to hunt to find one
GMC R-2 Toast AZT-GMCR2-BL Black Steel / Plastic A...

A NZXT Panzer box would likely fit as well but you would have to hunt this one down too

Look through the desktop and HTPC case listings to see if you one is made to fit your dimensions.

 

[insane 360]

thanks norton, looked at that and its an option if i can find one, but i might have found some better options now as far as wall shelf

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BS24V4/?tag=tec06d-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00155PSXS/?tag=tec06d-20

these would allow me to use the coolermaster case, so more than likely on payday, one of these will be coming to the house

 

[Norton]

thanks norton, looked at that and its an option if i can find one, but i might have found some better options now as far as wall shelf

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BS24V4/?tag=tec06d-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00155PSXS/?tag=tec06d-20

these would allow me to use the coolermaster case, so more than likely on payday, one of these will be coming to the house

Just check the width of your current vid card in that CM case.... the card may be too wide to fit it in the case. They do offer some low profile vid cards that are comparable in performance to what you have now... unfortunately that's an added cost. It may be fine, but I tend to run on the cautious side

 

[insane 360]

yah i've thought of that as well. heard some had it in but very tight and others say they couldn't fit a similar 4850 in at all...

i'm very much considering this to be a good time to just change over to a Llano build, i don't mind just gaming at 720p res as thats what i'm used to right now on my current 32in tv...maybe my tune will change later.

for the time being until i make up my mind, getting the tv mounted and cleaning up every cable that isn't necessary in my current getup (see above)

but it shouldn't last too long, i would love to get that cabinet out and mount all my equipment on the wall

maybe i just need to hold out til Trinity shows up next month of two

 

[Norton]

Just transfer your rig to this for right now and then you can make your decision without losing what you already have.

DIYPC Alpha-DB6 Black Acrylic ATX Bench Case Bench...

This will clean up your setup so you can put it on a shelf and you can always use this for your new setup when you decide what you really need/want

P.S> gotta get back to work- catch ya later!

 

[insane 360]

i've really thought about that.

i'll take a new picture tonight, got a new tv and its mounted on the wall, did some cable management.

next us is cleaning up the inside of the cabinet or i'm thinking about getting this case

nMEDIAPC Red Wood Wood/Steel HTPC 8000 ATX Media C...

and then mounting a shelf on the wall to hold this. i know the wife likes it


in either case i had some good luck, i thought my motherboard was going bad, i couldn't get any ram to work in the slot 1 or 2. now i found out it was just very picky about those two slots! so i'm up to 6gb now. will be swapping out my hard drives this weekend to two quiet 500gb WD hard drives, probably raiding them...i have 3 500gb, anyway to have 1tb with a fail over drive? is that raid 5/6...jeez i feel dumb now

so will be upgrading to win7 64 bit as well and increasing my drive space. cleaning up my cooling system (until i order some new fans and heatsinks to make the whole setup quieter...)

then i'll take some more pics and hopefully have good progress! sweet

 

[Norton]

That case will make your components run pretty hot and the the wood used for a novelty mass-produced case will likely be low quality

Best to go with a basic black HTPC case that will fit in with the rest of your A/V components if you're going to leave it out in the open but don't want to show what's inside.


We love pics

 

[insane 360]

alright, so first part of the update, getting better heatsink and start cleaning...

so i've got a Ultra carbon vga cooler, 5 heatpipe and dual 100mm fans...not had time to test a lot, but idle temps with the stocker (no fan control) was 60'ish C...then using Trixx i got it 75% fan and it would run around 50'ish....with the new cooler on it is running 36* C! and thats not turning up the fan at all (i think its around 30-40%) plus now i got the ram being cooled!

alright next was getting a better cpu heatsink. got the cooler master 212 plus. right now just using one fan (stock 120mm came with it) and its very nice. was idling at 26-29*C and now its solid at 20*C...before i had a 80MM fan on the stock amd heatsink and just running it at 5v. so it would heat up very fast...we'll see how this new one gets on once i have the time to test it tonight/this weekend.

also found out there is a beta bios out for my old board that is supposed to fix some issues with ACC and a few other voltage settings in bios, so i'm trying it out tonight as well

so, next up is to swap out my loud ass samsung hard drive for a quiet WD that i have, (got 3 of them) and arrange them so they aren't up front...also need to install windows 7 64bit on there (been wanting a fresh install for a while and right now i'm using 32bit)

after that, moving the shelf around, adding a front fan again for another air mover, get speedfan or something to slow down the rear 80mm fan to make it quiet, its the only thing thats making the pc loud. then i'm going to level out my cabinet...will take a pic of the whole thing this weekend, been a crazy month

 

[brandonwh64]

Looking good but I would watch out with that HDD cause one wrong turn and it can fall over killing the drive easily

 

[insane 360]

yah thats why the plan is to fix that "laziness" this weekend

will be coming up with something