building a mini-pc

[merk]

I'm thinking of building a mini pc ... one of those small cases, like the ones shuttle makes:
http://www.shuttle.com/hq/product/product_b_intel.asp

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or advice? Right now my desktop pc is doing the recording for me. But thats not ideal since its in my bedroom and its kinda noisy so it would be nice if i could leave it off at night if a recording is coming up.

Anyhow, since 3.5 is going to be released soon and it supports multiple tuner cards, and i have 2 cards right now, i thought now would be a good time to think about building on.

So the main thing that i would like is for it to be able to hold at least 2 pci cards, one optical drive (i have a spare dvd burner), and it would be nice but not essential if i had room for 2 drives. I dont care too much about more then one HD since i think a 250gb drive should work well. I really just plan on using this for recording and watching movies. So i dont plan on loading it up with MP3's.

It would be nice if i could use to play games, but thats not crucial. And it has to have TV out.

Can anyone recommend some good brands/stores to look at? anything i should avoid? I've built several desktop pc's before, but never anything in small form factor case or micro atx. Oh ... and i'd also like it to be relatively quiet.

The parts i already have are:
2 hauppauge tuner cards
1 dvd burner
power supply
and i think i have a radeon 9500 laying around as well.

thanks for any advice

[HideOut]

well mini PCs basically dont have but 1 PCI slot. If you could get an AIW radeon and a hauppauge to work, that might do it. SOME can be had, not like shuttles but smaller cubed shaped cases that use standard mATX boards. You could also build a HTPC out of the Antec or similar case. Directron.com has a case that you'd swear was a harmon kardon amp inside. $90 too. Uses mATX boards. Get it, AMD XP MOBILE proc (cooler cooling solutions = quieter and only few bucks more to buy) 512 RAM (dont need dual channel rig really so the cheaper chipsets will work, like a nForce2 400 NON Ultra or SIS or whatever. Local starge in that case is a plenty, like 7 drive bays. Just remember, t he more drives th e more heat therefore the more fans and noise ya have. Id go one large drive and your old DVD burner. Network storage for everything else. What y think?

Hide

[merk]

i assume by mATX you mean microATX? or miniatx? i'm not sure what the difference is between micro and mini. It doesnt really have to be one of those small cube cases. Although i admit they look nice. But i would like something compact that would fit next to the tv or on a shelf etc.

I noticed on shuttles site they have micro atx boards with 2 and 3 pci slots. Do the small form factor shuttle cases not take micro atx boards? I'm pretty new to the small pc thing so i'm not familar with how many different form factors there are.

I think one drive would be fine... if i have the option to fit 2 thats cool, but 1 is ok.

Where would i even find a amd mobile XP proc? hmm nm... found a bunch on pricewatch. They fit in any socket A board?

thanks for the advice

[Zogg]

I'm about to spring for this case, the Antec Aria: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10361774&loc=101&sp=1

I've looked them over at Fry's and they look pretty cool, just a bit bigger than the Shuttles but lets you put in your own microATX motherboard and have 4 slots available. Supposed to be quiet too. Also available at http://www.directron.com/aria.html and other places.

[xcskwng]

I am using a Shuttle SN45G for Snapstream. I have it connected to my TV and home theater setup. I am using an Athlon XP-M 2000+ CPU which I bought from Newegg. The mobile CPU runs 5C to 10C cooler than the regular desktop CPU. This allows me to turn the fan speed down to the lowest setting. I also replaced the heat pipe fan with a quieter one. I have an eVGA GF4 personal cinema and Hauppauge PVR-250. The eVGA GF4 has no fan. So my SN45G has two fans, one for the heat pipe and one in the power supply. Overall its very quiet. You won't notice the noise unless the room is completely silent.

If you are looking for quiet operations, be on the look out for:

1. HD noise level (sometimes listed in spec)
2. CD/DVD noise level
3. Fanless graphics card
4. Low power CPU (some AMD mobos allow XP-M, dont know if intel desktop mobos support Pentium-M)
5. Quiet fan in power supply

Kent

[dlandrum]

What-ever you do, do not think you can survive with the onboard video ... I suggest sticking to MBs that do not even try to tout their onboard video beyond base OS usage.

I also suggest that you only get a box that will support multiple harddrives.

RE: Shuttle
Only try this if you enjoy random blue-screens. I spent 3 weeks tweaking a Shuttle box, troubleshooting every component with 3 different OSs. I eventually gave-up, took-out the haup 250btv, and made it into an XP gaming computer for my son. No issues with it since.

[Brett]

Food for thought:
http://www.antec-inc.com/us/pro_details_enclosure.php?ProdID=15130

Holds more harddrives, and its a bring your own motherboard type of deal.

-Brett

[merk]

thanks guys. The antec case definitely seems like a good case. its about the size i want but gives me the advantage of being able to have a few pci slots.

as far as noise goes, i was thinking of putting a 250gb seagate drive in there. I have 2 seagate drives in my desktop and they are super quiet.

Is everyone suggesting athlons cpu's because of the price difference? I was leaning towards a pentium just because they tend to run cooler then the athlons. Although if i can find a microatx mobo that will take a mobile athlon and has a nice feature set, i have no problems with using an athlon cpu.

[Zogg]

Brett, that's the same case I posted about earlier. ;)

merk, from what I've heard about the mobile Athlon it should be fine. There are very quiet heatsink/fan combos out there but they tend to trade size for quieter fans. I think the Antec Aria case will let you put a pretty large (and quiet) hs/fan in there. However, I haven't tried it yet so don't take this as gospel. I will be ordering mine tonight though.

Z

[Thorvald]

I like that Antec case as well, but the specs say 4 PCI slots... Most MicroATX motherboards have 3 PCI and 1 AGP. I assume this case can support the AGP as well?

I'll likely put the ASUS A7V8X-MX-SE into it.

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7v8x-mx-se/overview.htm

[theparanoid]

Some of the maxtor hard drives can be made to run extermely quiet. I did this to both my 80 and 250 gb maxtor. Before i could heard the hard drive over the fan, now I can not hear the hard drives at all.

I got the dimond Plus 9. They state that you notice a slow down in performance, but I have to experince any.

http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=1200

[merk]

ok so the one issue i'm not sure on yet (or the one issue i know of that i know i'm not sure of ;) do i need a special mobo to take a mobile athlon? or will any socket A board that takes the regular athlon xp cpu also take the mobile?

the asus board A7V8X-MX looks like a pretty decent board. Thats about what i would want. has on board audio and lan so thats 2 cards i dont need. And has 3 pci slots, so thats enough for my 2 tuner cards and leaves me one slot left over for whatever. Not bad pricewise either... can get it with an Xp 2600 and 512megs of ram for 225. Looks like it would cost me about $15 more to get the mobile cpu. still a good deal.

[Thorvald]

So you hoping/thinking the mobile cpu will be quieter/cooler?

I can't seem to find any other ASUS boards that fit 9.6x9.6 so the A7V8X looks like it.

We'd have to replace the video right away, the onboard one is crap.

[merk]

what exactly is 9.6x9.6? was that the dimensions of the case?

As for the onboard video... its not good enough to just handle outputting to the tv? assuming it has tv out. Otherwise i think i'd probably pick up a lower end all in wonder card ... might as well get a 3rd tuner card out of it :) I really dont think i'll be using this machine for gaming, since its just going to be hooked up to a tv.

[Zogg]

I think 9.6x9.6 is the size of a microATX motherboard.

You might also consider this motherboard, the Chaintech 7nif2, that has onboard video and S-Video out built into the Nvidia chipset (Geforce4 MX compatible): http://www.directron.com/7nif2.html

AGP and PCI slots are spaced the same, it's up to the motherboard as to where they are positioned in relation to the slot openings in the case.

Z

[HideOut]

9.6x 2 is mATX, that antec would be awesome. Yes, moble AMD CPUs run in regular boards. They only difference is their opperating voltages are lower. If hte board dont autodetect it you can manually lower the voltage. So long as your not going to overclock then it'll make it cooler and quieter too. The mobile chips do NOT have a CPU ratio lock so you can easily overclock by both the FSB and ratio. I think a 2400 mobile barton based would be fine at stock clock and run cool an quiet too. Run a nice capture card and you set.

Hide

[merk]

no worries about overclocking. I dont have any need for it. The only cpu intensive thing the machine will be doing is converting mpg into wmv ... and i dont really care if i have to wait 5 minutes longer as opposed to overclocking it ;)

I'll look at the chaintech board.

thanks for all the advice from everyone.

[Thorvald]

Hmm, wonder where we can get the Chaintech board in Canada?


That is exactly what I wanted, Nforce microatx!

[merk]

mwave.com will ship to cananda. I've ordered from them a few times since they are 20 minutes away and i can just drive over and pick up my stuff.

I'm probably going to order everything from mwave for this since they have the mobile athlon (directron doesnt). Looks like for the motherboard, memory, case, cpu and HD its going to cost me around $450.

I need one final component though... a cpu cooler. any suggestions? I want something reliable (obviously) but also something quiet. I'm going with the mobile athlon 2400

thanks guys

[HideOut]

Volcano 10+. Its not as cool as say the massive ones but its very quiet. Not to heavy either. If ya want, get a Swiftech (alot more $ though just for heatsink) and run a very quiet regular old case fan on it. MOre cooling for same noise (but more $). Volcano 10 is aobut $20 USD.

Newegg.com dont ship to Cananda? They cary everything you need, except MAYBE the case.

Hide

[merk]

figures, thats the one item mwave doesnt carry. they have the 9 and 11, but not the 10. although directron has it pretty cheap, $14.

[no1hedberg]

I would definitely stick with nforce2 chipsets whether you go sff or not. The feature set (5.1 sound, onboard lan,etc.) is perfect for this app. And you can't beat the price/performance ratio of the Athlon XP processor. My pvr runs 24/7 in my bedroom, and I don't even know it's there. (I am VERY picky about noise and light while I'm sleeping.) If you really wanna go stealthy on the case check out Ahanix cases on newegg. http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&catalog=7&manufactory=1587&DEPA=0&sortby=14&order=1 They have some microATX desktop cases that look alot like stereo components. MSI, Asus, chaintech, and Biostar all offer Micro ATX nforce2 boards on newegg as well

[merk]

well this one doesnt have to be super quiet ... as long as i cant hear it while the tv is on it should be good. Its going in my living room.

I'm just going to look over all the parts and make sure i am not forgetting anything or missing a cheaper price.

but so far this is what i am ordering and the pricing (all from mwave except the cpu cooler)

antec aria case - $99
chaintech 7nif2 mobo - $75
ddr400 512meg ram kingston - $95 ($79 for generic)
aythlon mobile xp 2400 - $80 w/1 year warranty
seagate 200gb 8mb cache 7200rpm drive - $122
volcano 10+ cpu cooler - $14

going to use the onboard video, audio and lan. Already have a dvd burner and 2 tuner cards.

Hmm, just relized i am forgetting something.... mouse/keyboard ;) should i just get a wireless mouse/keyboard combo or should i look into getting some sort of remote control?

[Zogg]

merk, that setup sounds nice. I ordered the antec aria from buy.com over the weekend, I'll have to wait a week to get it but with free shipping and coupon it was $92 total. :)

I'm going to experiment a bit with a m/b I already have, but if it doesn't pan out I'll be getting the same m/b and cpu that you are getting.

I have a wireless kb/mouse combo that someone gave me, the mouse is a pointy-stick. I wouldn't want to use it for hours every day but for occasional use it will be fine. I'll be using the ATI Remote Wonder or PC Anywhere to control it at other times, maybe something like that would work for you. The Logitech cordless stuff works great too.

[merk]

i thought the cordless stuff was a lot more money then it is.

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=1066859

gets me a cordless keyboard and mouse for $36.

I dont have to worry too much about shipping ... i'm going to go pick it all up. Places is local for me. :)

[HideOut]

ya only need 2100 RAM, not 3200, that amd mobile is 133/266 FSB. If ya want to overclock then maybe faster ram is needed but otherwise get the cheaper stuff.

Biostar makes a nice Nforce2 mATX too.

Hide

[joseph_chapman]

I wish I could find a case that would fit in a little bit better with other audio components...
The case needs to be no more than, say, 17" wide, 5" high and about 12" deep.

Most of the cases I've seen are either too wide, or too deep...

[Zogg]

joseph, check out some of the new silverstone cases, they look pretty cool. Here's one: http://www.directron.com/sstlc03.html , might be a bit bigger than you want though.

I got my Aria case but haven't got to try it yet. Ordered from buy.com, turns out they have a depot here in the Dallas area so I got it in 2 days. Gotta love it. ;)
Z

[merk]

well i just finished putting mine together last night. I still have to install the 2nd tuner card ... and i havent actually tried powering it up yet. Just put all the parts together. So far everything fit, although the tuner card was a close fit. I'm not sure if every agp card would fit in there. Soon as i can find my spare agp card i'll try it.

Hopefully it'll power up and work later today when i try installing the software ;)

[HideOut]

Ya might wanna not put all the tuners in there at first. Get your OS ont here and updated first, then ad stuff. You can also make sure you have a restore point set before ya install all the tuners and BTV and such so you have something to fall back on. BTW, your wireless setup. WHats its rated range? RF or IR interface? RF can go thru walls, IR cant...
HIde

[merk]

well i wanted to get at least one card in there just to make sure it fits.

as for wireless ... i dont have wireless in this machine. dont need it. Its getting an ethernet chord. I did pick up a wireless keyboard and mouse, which i assume uses rf, although that also wont matter too much since i wont be using it behind a wall anyhow ;)

[merk]

just turned it on for the first time and it gets past tbe bios no problem, so thats a good start ;) Just started installing xp.

I did notice one thing though... on boot up the bios is saying the cpu speed is 800mhz. That seems kinda slow for a 2400 chip. I know an athlon 2400 does not run at 2.4ghz, but i would expect it would run at least 1 ghz. I left all the clock speeds to the default settings.

Is this the normal speed for an athlon 2400 mobile? The only thing i remember off hand is the memory frequency was set at 133. I've got ddr400 memory in there.

[merk]

well it was giving me a bluescreen with the tuner card in there ... looks like it was conflicting irq's.

Pulled that out, it booted up, i logged in and then 5 seconds later i got a bluescreen with invalid_work_queue_item referencing the file rdbss.sys

rebooted again and got irql_not_less_then_or_equal to blue screen

rebooted a again and got a new blue screen:
driver_irql_not_less_or_equal volsnap.sys

So i rebooted another time ... and this time no bluescreen ... it just froze at the xp logo screen.

another reboot, another bluescreen and irql_not_less_or_equal

so i tried disabling the onboard sound, rebooted and got a new blue screen:
page_fault_in_nonpaged_area

another reboot and driver_irql .... again

So, i disabled everything that isnt needed to get windows running:
serial ports, parallel ports, usb, lan, audio, modem

disabled all of that. And i still am getting bluescreens. I'll try downloading the drivers from chaintech and installing those (i can boot into safe mode with networking) and if that fails then i'll try reinstalling XP with all of those above items disabled.

if anyone has any other suggestions please let me know.

correction: i cant boot into safemode with networking... get a BSOD and registry_error. So i guess i am going to just try reinstalling windows with everything disabled and see how that goes

several minutes later ....

yup... hosed. I burned a new copy of xp (its a legit copy, from an iso image) thinking maybe the cd went bad.

Started the setup all over again, it copied everything and when it got to the point where it should reboot, it instead says:

"setup cannot set the required windows xp configuration information. This indicates an internal setup error. Contact your system administrator (me)."

After contacting myself, i told myself to give up for a while because i'm tired of getting random error messages.

I'd LOVE any suggestions from anyone as to what the hell is going wrong here.

thanks

[merk]

sigh ... well something is really hosed ... now i got a bluescreen during the reinstall of xp. So i cant even reinstall xp. Anyone got any ideas whats wrong here? Something in the bios with the timings i didnt set correctly?

Hmm... actually, i wonder if my copy of xp might be bad. I just restarted the install again and this time i got an actual windows error instead of just a crash.

error: the signature for windows xp pro setup is invalid. The error code is 6ba.

Although i suppose that error could just be from one of the crashes before and a file got screwed up.

And i also just noticed something else ... during the bios screen it says: ddd dimm at rows 0 1

I only have one stick of memory in there.

[Keith]

Have you dropped and recreated the partition to make sure no trace of previous install. Sounds like there are corrupt files left.

Keith

[merk]

yeah... every re-install i tried i deleted the partition and did a quick format.

[Zogg]

Check your cpu to make sure it's not overheating, that can cause all sorts of weird errors. Usually there is a PC Health or Status screen in the BIOS Setup you can use to check the temp.

The other thing is that if your cpu is still reporting as an Athlon 800 then something is amiss that may be causing the problems. The FSB should be 133 although you should be able to run it safely at 100. Also check the voltage to make sure it's in range, at this point you don't want to go too high or too low, it should be at mid-range until you get it all working correctly.

Z

[merk]

The cpu temp seemed to be around 110. One thing i found bizaare. The bios has an option to auto-shut down if the cpu gets too hot... the higher of the temp scale for that is 212 ... correct me if i am wrong, but wouldbt my pc and motherboard be toast, litterally, if it reached 212??

I'll set the fsb to 133, but it reports it as 800mhz when i do that. I'm assuming the mobile 2400 should be somewhere around 1.6ghz or so

What should the voltage be? I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to setting volates and clock speeds. Most of the mobo's i've used do all that stuff automatically. And since i never try to overclock, thats always been good enough for me.

thanks for the help

[WillP]

The Mobile Athlon XP 2400 runs at a frequency of 1.8GHz with a frontside bus of 133MHz (266 DDR). The multiplier should be 14x. From what I hear the multiplier is unlocked in the mobile athlon xp's. So you should be able to observe and, if necessary, adjust the multiplier to the correct setting.

The normal operating voltage is 1.45v. Some socket A motherboards will not set the voltage correctly for the mobile amd's so check that too.

Will

[merk]

Well i did set the fsb to 133. And i think it said the memory was running at 166.

Do you know how or where i would check the multiplier or voltage? i didnt see anything in the bios for that. It displayed the current running voltages, but i didnt see anything to let me set it, or anything at all for a multiplier.

I read through the whole manual and i didnt see any bios setting or jumper that would let me set the voltage or multiplier. The motherboard i have is the chaintech 7nif2.

Any ideas as to what i should look at to check this?

thanks again

[bluchez]

Just in case you are still in the market for a case.

http://www.silverstonetek.com/

[HideOut]

ya you gotta manually set the multi likely, its 800 is its minumum, the low power setting. Try the manual 14 and 133.

Hide

[merk]

i've looked in the manual... i cant find anything in there on how to set that. the manual mentions i should be able to overclock, but i dont see any settings in there to do that. Maybe i'm just being dense, but i've read the whole manual.

[merk]

well i think i have the BSOD's resolved. Looks like it was the memory causing it. I found a little note on chaintechs site which said when you use the onboard memory you cant use pc3200, you can only use pc2700.

the memory i bought is 3200. I pulled a stick of memory out of another machine. I'm not sure what speed this memory is, but since i got windows installed and i am typing this message from the machine now i think its safe to say it was the memory.

I still have it saying its an 800mhz processor though. Havent been able to figure out how to change that. Cant find anything in the manual/website which mentions being able to change the multiplier.

[merk]

well i ran cpu-z, and it says the multiplier is a 6. Also says the memory is 2700. So that pretty much confirms my BSOD's were from the 3200 memory and using the onboard video. I also found a link to an article which also says you cant change the multiplier:

http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/cpu_mobo/chaintech/amd/7nif2/index.shtml

So, does this mean i am stuck at 800mhz?

Here's all the info cpu-z is reporting:

athlon xp-m
barton
1.5~ voltage
family 6
ext family 7
model a
ex model a
stepping 0

core speed 801.8mhz
multiplier 6
fsb 133
bus speed 267.3

Here's the important note about mobile athlons

and i found this note on another site about the mobile ahtlons:

These would make an excellent addition to a cramped slim-line HTPC or can be overclocked easily for a cool running but fast CPU. Just be aware you will need multiplier control on your motherboard to properly utilize the AXP-M as it comes multiplier unlocked and defaults to a low value

Looks like i am a bit screwed unless chaintech comes out with a bios update that lets me set the multiplier.

[Zogg]

Whoops, that's too bad merk. I hadn't read that about the AXP-M's either, sorry you got bit by that.

There are a few other motherboards that are microATX with that chipset, maybe mwave carries one and you can swap it out for one that has the multiplier settings.

Z

[HideOut]

thtas why i suggested the ASus, it gives you multi control. I think the Abit one does too. I use the ASUS A7N8X-Delux but the mATX version has the same BIOS. See if there happens to be a bios update for it. If not, your gonna want a new mobo. Where did you order it from? RMA it?

Hide

[HideOut]

the mATX ASUS is the A7N8X-MV and MV/400 (newest version). The have the MX 440 video built in and the 8x AGP slot too. They should be able to do BIOS level multiplier control. Does anyone here have one of these two varients of the ASUS board to confirm this?

HideOut

[fester]

www.directron.com for mATX and SFF cases. multiple hard drives? try the $78 coolermaster atc-620. yeah, it rocks. for single drive systems - try 55 dollar gigacase yy-a102. www.gigacase.com u can build your own mATX BAREBONE sys w/ CPU for about 150-200. no way ITX systems are that cheap yet

[merk]

how's the biostar M7NCG? mwave has that one for $15 less then the chaintech board and from what i've seen, it lets you set the volatage and multiplier. And it has all the other features of the chaintech board. Actually, it has one thing nicer ... all the usb ports are 2.0. I couldnt understand why the chaintech board has (2) 1.1 usb ports and (1) 2.0 usb port. why even bother with 1.1 anymore?

Anyhow, i'm going to see if i can get anyone from chaintech to tell me if there's a bios update to resolve this, otherwise i'll go with the biostar board.

[HideOut]

that 1.1 and 2.0 thing is od. I contacted my friends at ASUS and apparently, according to them they mATX varient of the A78n8x does NOT have multiplier adjustments. Ive not been able to confirm this but he is usually right. That blows too cause I was considering duplicationg this box for myself. The BIOSTAR is what my friend had, I'll ask him if he rememgbers if you can adjust multipliers or not.

Hide

[Zogg]

At newegg they show the contents of the Biostar package and it doesn't appear to have the TV out cable in the package. If you do wind up swapping motherboards, make sure you can get the cable.

Z

[HideOut]

right from his email

Hide,

Yes the biostar micro board has all the overclocking controls of the asus boards, and almost as many as you would find in an abit board. The other bonus feature is that it as an app that checks the stability of your overclock and determines if your settings need to be rolled back to the last ones.

I have the MCNCG 400 and you can manually control the multiplier, and adjust chipset timings within 1MHz. IE overclock your ram to 184MHz. It also allows disjoint frequencies between the CPU and RAM.

If you want I can bring it by and let you have a look at it.

Alexander Shafizadeh

Star Computer Systems, Inc.
P.O. BOX 17486
Louisville, KY 40217
(502)634-8414 x10

So try the biostar.

[merk]

I changed my mind and decided to go with an MSI K7N2GM-L board instead. I emailed msi and they said they dont officially support mobile athlons in their desktop boards, but that the mobile athlon should work in the board. biostar hasnt responded to any emails yet, nor has chaintech.

also, it comes with the tv out cable AND it has svideo as well as rca video out. another improvement is that it has 6 usb ports which are all USB2, as opposed to the chaintech (dont remember about the biostar) which had i think 3 ports, 2 of which were usb1.1 for some reason.

Its $6 more then the chaintech board.

I did find an article which tells you how to connect certain pins on the cpu to trick the system into running at the correct speed. But i decided i'd rather spend the extra $15 (re-stocking fee for returning the board) rather then risk screwing something up.

I will hopefully pick up the replacement board tomorrow.

Once i get it all working i'll snap a few pics of what it looks like in the case as well as all the parts and prices in case anyone wants to duplicate it. I have to say the aria case is pretty nice. Its very easy to open it up, but doesnt feel cheap. And the multi-function card reader on the front is a nice touch. The only thing i haven't tried yet is installing more then one card in there. But i was able to get an older hauppauge card to go into the 3rd and 2nd pci slots.

anyhow, i'll post more details when i have it together and (hopefully) working.

[HideOut]

omg...

that board HAS to have CPU mutli options or you just wasted even more money. On bridging wires to get it? It works, yes but its hard AND your BIOS STILL has to support it. Thats used to unlock the chips themselves, thats not your problem. I think there is an option on desktops to perminately set them, but not on lappy chips. Oh well. Better luck next try.

Hide

[merk]

i gave up on using the mobile athlon chip and i suggest anyone else also give up on using the mobile athlon chip. I wouldnt use it unless:

a. you know someone else who used it and you are getting the same exact motherboard (same model AND revision)

b. you are willing and able to return the mobo or cpu if it doesnt work.

According to the manual for the msi board, its supposed to let you set the voltage, multiplier, etc etc ... the manual lies. I emailed msi and they emailed back with the following:

All Nvidia based mb does not support Fuzzy Logic utility. All Micro-ATX mb does not have any selection to change CPU Multiplier/Voltage/FSB. Only Standard ATX boards does.

So i guess if you are going to use a full size atx motherboard you can give it a try. I went and got a regular xp 2500 desktop cpu... i've got my old hauppauge card in there with it hooked up to the tv and it seems to be working. Now i have to install my newer hauppauge card and get btv set up.

Anyone want to buy a mobile athlon 2400 cpu? ;)

[fester]

RE: All Micro-ATX mb does not have any selection to change CPU Multiplier/Voltage/FSB. Only Standard ATX boards does.

huh? many mATX boards have fsb / multiplier adj but of the 4 that I own only the P4 boards have a bios that I can adj volts, cpu:mem, agp, pci, etc... ( abit sg-71 and asus p4p800-vm). amd mATX do not have BIOS adjust? gee, that would suck.

Also - i855 ITX boards are starting to show up in Japan. this chipset will run pentiumM low power cpu with equivalent speeds up to ~ P4 2.8C - but of course w/ very little heat. very expensive. cpu + mobo + mem = $700-1000. If it were less $$$$ - there would be no reason to use any other platform for htpc IMO. Most influential / best partnership here is ATI now introducing HDTV wonder w/ HW encode + new GUI + intel relationship... AMD is asleep at the wheel as usual. Pinnacle, hauppauge, snapstream, sageTV, etc, all will hemmorage. too bad its such a low margin business.

[artbatista]

A warning is in order here. I went the mini-pc route a couple of months back. Got me an Nvidia based MoBo, 3.2 GHX Athlon, PVR-250, DVD drive, etc. The thing is so small that it was just about the size of my series 2 TIVO but taller by 2 inches or so, nice little black case that fit in my entertainment center.

Within a day I started getting overheat shutdowns. MY CPU temp was hitting as high as 180 F. So I added to case fans at the proper spots that came prepunched and the temperature dropped to a more acceptable 125 F on the CPU. I also had to install a fan in my ent. center to exhaust the hot air.

3 weeks later my power supply went bad, got a warranty replacement and that one went bad after 2 weeks. I figured I was putting too much load on the PS (2 7200 RPM 160GB drives in a RAID array, another boot drive, a DVD drive, PVR card), so I went online and purchased the biggest micro ATX P.S. that I could find (300W by Antec), and that one lasted 3 weeks.

I gave up the micro case idea, got a Midtower with 600W power supply and transplanted everything to it. Now everything runs cool (CPU at 98F).

It sits on the floor now besides my ent center and the wife kinda does not like it, but she tolerates it because she loves BTV and/or TIVO.

Point of the story: Smaller cases seem to be very limited in what they can do. If you plan to load this system down, beware. Even with 2 HD (no RAID, just a boot drive at 5400 RPM and a storage drive at 7200 RPM), DVD, PVR-250 and MoBo/CPu, this case exhausted quite warm air and I had to install 2 case fans which made it very noisy.


Your milleage may vary.

Art



I'm thinking of building a mini pc ... one of those small cases, like the ones shuttle makes:
http://www.shuttle.com/hq/product/product_b_intel.asp

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or advice? Right now my desktop pc is doing the recording for me. But thats not ideal since its in my bedroom and its kinda noisy so it would be nice if i could leave it off at night if a recording is coming up.
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thanks for any advice

[merk]

well i had this machine running for a little while... heat/power isnt going to be a problem. I'm not putting an uber cpu in there since i dont need one. athlon 2400/2500 depending on if i can get the mobile cpu working. Plus the mobile cpu runs cooler then the regular cpu AND it has a higher temp tolerance to begin with. So i really hope i can get that one working so i can tone down the cpu fan.

And i only have one drive in there. I doubt very much if i will put a 2nd drive in. If/when i run out of room, i'll just go buy a 400gb drive (i'm sure by then they'll have a 400gb model) :) or i can map a network drive.

i didnt get a chance to see how high the temp got for the desktop cpu under load. But idle the cpu temp was 110 and the case temp was around 90, which isnt bad.

[artbatista]

That's my MoBo and I highly recommend it. If you get NVDVD the integrated chipset works wonders, only using about 15 % while recording and playing a recorded file at the same time. Very trouble free.

Just be sure you get the full package, as some places are selling this MoBo cheaper but it comes without the case adapter and the TV out bracket/cable.

Art Batista


I changed my mind and decided to go with an MSI K7N2GM-L board instead. I emailed msi and they said they dont officially support mobile athlons in their desktop boards, but that the mobile athlon should work in the board. biostar hasnt responded to any emails yet, nor has chaintech.

also, it comes with the tv out cable AND it has svideo as well as rca video out. another improvement is that it has 6 usb ports which are all USB2, as opposed to the chaintech (dont remember about the biostar) which had i think 3 ports, 2 of which were usb1.1 for some reason.

Its $6 more then the chaintech board.

I did find an article which tells you how to connect certain pins on the cpu to trick the system into running at the correct speed. But i decided i'd rather spend the extra $15 (re-stocking fee for returning the board) rather then risk screwing something up.

I will hopefully pick up the replacement board tomorrow.

Once i get it all working i'll snap a few pics of what it looks like in the case as well as all the parts and prices in case anyone wants to duplicate it. I have to say the aria case is pretty nice. Its very easy to open it up, but doesnt feel cheap. And the multi-function card reader on the front is a nice touch. The only thing i haven't tried yet is installing more then one card in there. But i was able to get an older hauppauge card to go into the 3rd and 2nd pci slots.

anyhow, i'll post more details when i have it together and (hopefully) working.

[fester]

A warning is in order here. I went the mini-pc route a couple of months back. ...Within a day I started getting overheat shutdowns. MY CPU temp was hitting as high as 180 F. So I added to case fans at the proper spots that came prepunched and the temperature dropped to a more acceptable 125 F on the CPU. I also had to install a fan in my ent. center to exhaust the hot air.
3 weeks later my power supply went bad, got a warranty replacement and that one went bad after 2 weeks.Point of the story: Smaller cases seem to be very limited in what they can do. If you plan to load this system down, Art

it's possible to use stock fans running at 7V and case fans running at 5V and keep the system cool. however, it sounds like the amd3200 (no 64bit?) runs too hot for the task. in my trial and error - i also had heat problems running different setups during long gaming sessions or doing siSoft burn-in stress tests - resulting in thermal shutdowns on p4 2.4B and then 3.0C cpus. The first rule: motherboards - not the chipset - vary tremendously in heat managment. high end asus seem to work the best IMO. Just about everyone with an ITX / shuttle, etc cube with any horsepower complain about the noise! So using a good mATX case such as gigacase yy-a102 or coolermaster atc-610 / 620 is absolutely necessary if you want to run a silent box. I've drilled many cases too attempting to cool down different setups. I just drilled 2 additional 80mm holes and added fans in the coolermaster case since it was overheating with one mobo i used for about a week (abit). Then I returned it to get an asus p4p800-vm and all problems went away. stock intel cpu fan @ 7V on 3.0C ghz and now using only 1 case fan and 1 power supply fan at 5V. I have to look at the light on the case to see if its actually turned on since I cant really hear it - and its on 24/7 in the living room entertainment center. :) (also I used sound insulation inside case to dampen the noise even more)

[artbatista]

Well, this MoBo had the features that I wanted and I just could not find another one like it. As for the processor, I also tried a 2.4 GHZ Athlon and had the same heat problem. I do agree with you that some MoBos are better than others at heat management.

I also think that Intel CPU's seem to run much, much cooler than comparable AMD CPUs.

All in all, I think I can live with the midtower case I am using now. I has one temp controlled case fan that only turns on intermittently and only at very low speed. Seems like the 600W P/S variable fan is all it needs to keep everything cool.

Art Batista

[fester]

i like nvidia chipsets too. i have the old dolby sound asus a7n266-vm w/ xp2400 running very well right now... I also had one of the newer nVidia nforce2 chipset boards too - the one that supports dual ch 400mhz memory. I couldnt have been more disappointed since I thought that the AMD32's @ 400FSB would be really nice. Enough unresloved consistent issues come up so quickly that I just returned the cpu / mobo and never looked back. I guess alot of people say VIA is more stable now - but I'd still stick w/ nvidia if I went with another hi power AMD system.

[merk]

well i finally got it all together, but now i am getting blue screens. this is using a beta version of BTV though. Right now i'm leaving the machine on with BTV shut down and just the wintv application from hauppauge running. I'll see if that causes a blue screen. So far the wintv application crashed once, but no blue screen from it yet.

[merk]

ok ... i think i FINALLY have it working correctly. During one of the blue screen crashes the error report that was sent to MS said it looked like the crash was due to memory corruption. And there was a utility from MS to test the memory, and one of the 6 memory tests failed repeatedly. So i swapped in another memory chip i had and so far it's recorded several shows and no crashes. Now that i've just posted that i'm sure it'll crash ;)

This is with just one tuner card in there though. Once its been working for another day or two with no crashes, i'm going to try adding in my 2nd tuner card. and then if i feel ambitious, i'll try to figure out a way to make it run a little quieter. Right now its just the cpu fan thats making all the noise. The PSU fan is virtual silent.

[raydarr]

You might try a VIA EPIA
http://www.logicsupply.com/default.php/cPath/21?referrer=Overture&OVRAW=via%20epia&OVKEY=via%20epia&OVMTC=standard
http://www.logicsupply.com/default.php/cPath/23
there are some cases out there
that have support a 2 PCI riser card and
you can go with a 90 watt DC poser supply
and a fanless cpu for uktra quiet system..
I even looked at a case that has a Compact Flash Disk
slot so you could load your OS on a 500 or 1gig Sandisk Compact Flash..

[merk]

Right now i'm happy with the set up i have ... the only complaint i have is the cpu fan is noisy. Once its been running a few days and i am sure its stable, then i'll look into getting a quieter fan. Its a real shame i couldnt get the mobile athlon cpu running right. That was noticeable cooler then the standard athlon and it had a higher max temp, so i could have gotten a really quiet cpu fan without worrying about over-heating.

I'm sure i can find a cpu fan thats controlled by the cpu temp or that i can adjust manually. just havent looked yet.