Piecing Together the Hardware
Now that we’ve walked through all the parts to our Media Center, let’s dive into the actual hardware installation. Unboxing the Silverstone case I was happy with the look of it. Nice clean lines and a streamlined front panel will look great with the rest of my home theater components.
Opening the Silverstone ML03B case we find a nice crossbar brace for stability, which is a nice addition if you plan to stack anything on top of it. The case comes with motherboard standoffs pre-installed and I only needed to add one standoff (which came with the case) for mounting of our MSI motherboard.
The Rosewill Capstone 450-M power supply comes with just the 20+4 pin main connector and 4+4 pin 12 Volt ATX connector connected to the power supply. Four out of the five included modular cables (2 6+2 Pin PCI-E, 1 SATA, 1 SATA/Molex, 1 Molex/Floppy) can be plugged into the four modular ports on the power supply.
The full ATX power supply fit into the case without an issue, though you’ll notice how close it is to the mounting bracket for the external 5.25” drive bay, which will give us some issues later.
Just because the MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 is a micro ATX motherboard doesn’t mean it skimps on connectivity options. Everything I could want for a Small Form Factor/Media Center motherboard was available and then some.
Like earlier components, even in the smaller case, the motherboard tucks in nicely and even leaves some room for cable routing around it. I also plugged in the CPU and RAM once the motherboard was in the case and connected all the front panel connectors.
I know it’s a little hard to see, but tucked on the bottom of the case under the 5.25” bay are mounting holes for two 2.5” drives that can be mounted on the bottom of the case and screwed in from underneath. I tucked the Crucial C300 under the 5.25” tray, but the full ATX power supply covered half the holes for the second bottom mount.
For the occasional DVD use, I was planning to install a DVD drive in the 5.25” bay, but found out real quick that with a full size ATX power supply, that was going to be a no go.
Even if I could push the drive all the way back against the power supply (which I couldn’t since I needed to use the modular plugs) it still wouldn't sit flush with the front of the case. Apparently to fit a 5.25” drive, you need to use a “Micro ATX” power supply, of which there aren’t a whole lot of options available. As I mentioned before, I really don’t want to go with some no name brand power supply for a machine that’s going to be on 24 x 7 and our home entertainment hub. Also, Micro ATX power supplies almost always come with smaller 80mm fans which would certainly make a lot more noise than our big 140mm in the Rosewill. Something had to give and the rarely used DVD drive had to go.
Finally I installed the 2 TB Western Digital drive that will store our TV recordings. Sharp eyed readers might notice that WD 2 TB drive in the system isn’t actually the WD AV-GP model, but rather a WD20EARX that I was originally going to go with. That drive was pulled the next day and the 2 TB AV-GP put in its place. Then came the pair of AverMedia dual tuner x1 PCI Express cards that will let us watch and/or record up to four over the air broadcasts at once. Even with all the components now in place I found more than enough room to tuck power, SATA and other cables snugly around the case and keep them off of any major components.
With that, I finished up a little bit of cabling, closed up the case and started digging around for my Windows install DVD’s.
That wraps up this installment of our Cutting the Cord articles. Stay tuned for our next article in the series, Cutting the Cord Part 3: Building your HTPC – OS Install and Tuning.
Missed any installments of our Cutting the Cord Series? Catch up on them here:
- Cutting the Cord Part 1: The Assessment
- Cutting the Cord Part 2: Building your HTPC – The Hardware
- Cutting the Cord Part 3: Building your HTPC – OS Install and Tuning
- Cutting the Cord Part 4: Building your HTPC – Installing and Configuring Windows Media Center
- Cutting the Cord Part 5: Wrap up – Media Center Add-ons and Options
That Silverstone case is
That Silverstone case is nice, I used one for the HTPC in our bedroom: Master Bedroom HTPC- Biostar TA75M/AMD A6-3500@2.1Ghz/8Gb DDR3-1600/Samsung 830 128Gb SSD/LG DVD-RW/Silverstone ML03B case/Win7 x64/Toshiba 32C120U 32″ LCD TV.
Our main HTPC: Living Room HTPC- Asus F2A85-M-CSM/ AMD A10-5700@3.4Ghz/8Gb DDR3-1866/Samsung 830 64Gb SSD /Samsung EcoGreen 2Tb SATA3 HDD/LG BDRW/Allied 500W PSU/Antec Fusion Remote case/Samsung PN42C450 42″ plasma TV/Pioneer VSX-821-k av receiver/ Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Also use a Synology DS111 with a Samsung EcoGreen 2Tb drive. So between the Main HTPC and the DS111 all of our media is available to all the devices on our home network (7 computers, 2 iPads, 4 Android phones). Using an ASUS RT-N66U router, awesome data through-put.
Sam
What are you using for Tuner
What are you using for Tuner card(s) if you're using any?
Glad to see the HTPC coverage
Glad to see the HTPC coverage (I use one for all my bluray playback using a combo of MediaBrowser and MPC-HC to bitstream hd audio, i3-2100 + 4gb ram + 64gb m4 and a 20TB unRAID server). One thing I would recommend for a remote is the Harmony One. You can customize the hell out of it, it controls everything else in your home theater, and you can pickup a USB IR receiver for around $15 on eBay. It’s a little pricey, but its actually not bad for what you get, and its by far the best remote I’ve used in 10 years. For the occasions I need a keyboard/mouse, I use a Logitech dinovo mini, which can be found for about $50 on eBay.
I’ve found Windows Media
I’ve found Windows Media Center to be a wonderful DVR and a subpar everything else. I really wish I could get that level of DVR functionality with the plugin type system of say XBMC.
I’ve got a pair of those
I’ve got a pair of those AverMedia Duet tuner cards myself, love them but they do have a rather annoying quirk that shows up when used in certain motherboards. On Intel based builds they work perfect, but a lot of people (myself included) had issues with them in AMD systems. Basically sometimes if the system were waking up from sleep the cards might not. Avermedia never fixed whatever the problem was, opting to just pass the buck saying the chipsets on those boards weren’t designed to spec properly (whereas I’ve never heard of any other cards of any kind having this sort of issue before on those systems). I was perfectly happy with them when I first got them because I had them in an Intel system, but when I moved them into an AMD box it certainly tried my patience. And that is why my current dedicated Media Centre recording box is basically just my old main desktop that they work perfectly in, NOT the AMD box that I either had to leave running 24/7 or else miss a lot of recordings.
Don’t know if they finally fixed it with this new version of the card that you’ve linked to, or if the chipsets for AMD’s APUs are any less problematic than their 800 and 900 series chipsets could be. Good luck.
Interesting, I may have to
Interesting, I may have to experiment a bit with it, but to be honest, the plan is to never let this box go to sleep because it's going to be feeding extenders in other rooms.
The Silicon Dust network
The Silicon Dust network tuners are the way to go for OTA/Cable. Nothing like being able to watch on every single computer in your house. I used to use PCI/PCI-E cards, but why waste the space inside the computer with a very limited tuner?
As a SiliconDust HDHR3 user,
As a SiliconDust HDHR3 user, I agree with this statement :).
Did you look at / consider
Did you look at / consider the Mede8er line at all prior to deciding upon the Silicon Dust? I’m seriously considering their HD700. The video juke boxes on these little machines are pretty slick.
The network tuners are great,
The network tuners are great, but I'm trying to get down to a single HTPC in the house and then go with Media Extenders (which I'll take more about in a later installment) for the other machines. With my first go around we had 3 HTPC's running at once, and I'd like to get away from having all the extra PC's lying around the house, sucking up power, windows licenses and components.
That being said, I know a few people (Tim included) that love the network tuners, and it's certainly something people should consider.
“I still don’t understand why
“I still don’t understand why Microsoft hasn’t licensed or even produced their own device with their excellent Media Center UI.”
Actually, Microsoft has licensed WMC to companies that sell high end custom home installations (System Integrators) for years. Try a Google search for “Media Center Integrator Alliance”.
Ah, that’s great to know. I
Ah, that's great to know. I hadn't ever heard about that. Yet I still don't get why MS didn't license it for lower end consumer products. I see all these little set top boxes like Roku, Boxee Box, WD TV, etc. and don't think any of their interfaces hold a candle to the WMC UI.
Boxee is actually releasing their new "Boxee TV" with an integrated tuner and tons of streaming apps for $99. If MS could have just partnered with someone to do something similar with their Media Center UI I think they would have done very well with it.
Chris, I bought a Boxee TV
Chris, I bought a Boxee TV (weird obsession with streaming media players) and I can say it isn’t worth $20… Horrible. I’ll send you some details, but this thing is so disappointing.
I’ve been MIA and didn’t see this until today. Great to see PCPer picking up this area. I been messing with this stuff for 10+ years now and own just about every streaming device you’ve never heard of… LOL.
Great case – I have the LC16M and just built a second box using the Fortress Mini. Also have a ThermalTake Lanbox that doubles as an HTPC.
Need to finish the article reading 🙂
Good to see some more HTPC
Good to see some more HTPC articles. I have been writing about HTPCs on my Kulture blog ever since I built myself a new HTPC:
Case: A-Tech Fabrication 2800HP
Motherboard: Intel DH77DF H77
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770T
RAM: Corsair CML8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB Kit (2x4GB) 1600Mhz DDR3
HDD #1: Corsair Force Series GT 120GB SSD
HDD #2: Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EZRX 1TB
ODD: Sony Optiarc BC-5650H
TV Tuner: DigitalNow Quad DVB-T Receiver
Wireless NIC: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 Mini PCIe (6235AN-HMWWB)
PSU: 160 Watt PicoPSU
Overkill yes, but it’s totally awesome. It’s so silent I struggle to hear the HDD during seek even when I put my ear right next to it. The ambient noise easily drowns out any noise my HTPC makes.
just a question, why not use
just a question, why not use a A10-5700 instead {my new budget champion} For $50 more you get about $100 more video power, a nice little boost in CPU speed all at the same wattage. Adding some light gaming potential for $50 seems like a no brainier.
If you’re looking to do some
If you're looking to do some gaming on the box, I defnitely agree the A10 would have been a better choice. For that $50 you do get a nice increase in CPU/GPU power. But in my case, I already have a pretty hefty dedicated gaming machine, and the A6 more than covers what I need the HTPC to do. That $50 in savings on the APU just about covers the motherboard cost, so for my build it was worth going with the A6.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
I know i may be jumping the
I know i may be jumping the gun on the next article, but did you experience any issues with sound devices / drivers ‘colliding’ with each other (i.e., the APU HDMI sound drivers, the integrated sound drivers on the mobo, and the two Avermedia tuner card sound drivers)?
I’ve had issues with this in the past – especially when using Logitech PC surround speakers and an SB live discrete sound card; and an LCD and HDMI feed from a Radeon HD discrete vid card. The HDMI sound would tend to override the SoundBlaster and 5.1 speakers.
Just curious.
These days, I’m seriously considering going the Networked Media Player route vice HTPC – having a stand-alone BRDVD player alleviates one of my main needs for the HTPC.
As an aside, I echo your ‘rant’ about Win8 and Media Center. Kudos on the remainder of the article.
Haven’t had any sound issues
Haven't had any sound issues as of yet, and the box has been up and running for about a week. I'm pushing everything out through HDMI into a receiver which then passes on to the TV.
I had built a system with the
I had built a system with the ML03B case. In choosing the power supply, Silverstone had indicated one that is less than 140-mm long would allow an optical drive to be installed, without the need in going to a microATX PSU. I had put an Antec 380W (non-modular) in there and the optical drive (BD-ROM/DVD/CD) fit without any issues with the 90-degree connectors. My question is, why did you go with the Rosewill unit?
Which Antec unit did you go
Which Antec unit did you go with? I'd be interested in checking it out. Main reason why I went with the Rosewill unit is pretty much why I pick any hardware component, it had great reviews on Newegg and Amazon and had a good price. Also the big 140mm fan and 80 plus gold certification were perfect for an HTPC build for noise and power efficiency.
The Antec I used was the
The Antec I used was the EA-380D. I have a Corsair CMPSU-400CX that I plan to try, but it seems it’s also capable of fitting in without problems.
[UPDATE]
The Corsair PSU fitted without problems either. Here are the pictures.
Antec
Corsair
Good to see someone writing
Good to see someone writing about HTPCs.
I just recently build mine using some old parts I had around the house. The case that I used was a nMEDIAPC Black Aluminum panel & Steel HTPC 1000B Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811204030 this case will allow full sized PCI cards in case you want to add a true video card to your system. I used a HD7770 so that I could use the HTPC with emulators and steam to make it a true Home Entertainment System.
I also wanted to mention that if you are going to use MCE that you get the Media Browser plugin, I don’t have a tuner card so this is all that I use MCE for at this time.
You can simply download VLC
You can simply download VLC for free which now supports Blu-ray play. I have had no issues with mine and in fact prefer it to PowerDVD I had before VLC came out with Blu-ray support.
I think your HTPC is
I think your HTPC is overpriced for what you need it to do.
I built a system last week with Foxconn barebones ($59.99 for H61 itx/htpc case/mini psu) + Sandy bridge Celeron ($34.99) + 8gb ddr3 1866 ($29.99) + old hdd’s + tv tuner.
AMD A6-5400K passmark score 2141
Celeron G530 2274
Cost of CPU+case+psu+memory = around $120-130.
Your A6 build comes to over $300 for the same components.
Another thing –
You can use a
Another thing –
You can use a nintendo Wii controller as your remote.
http://www.houseofnintendo.com/50226711/use_the_wii_remote_to_control_your_pc.php
You can buy a $1 bluetooth USB dongle, download bluetooth recognizing software (I think this is free in win 8). I used a toshiba one i found online for free.
Will the ” DVR/Storage Drive
Will the ” DVR/Storage Drive – Western Digital AV-GP WD20EURS 2 TB Hard Drive” cope with recording 4 simultanious HD channels? Or do I need to look for a RAID solution?