h/w for silent, living room BeyondTV HTPC?

[Mike Cico]

I've been researching off and on for a barebones system to base a HTPC on. I've been agonizing over whether to go with Mini-ITX systems, or to go with an Athlon64 based system with propery passive cooling (if possible). Basically, I have a classic case of analysis paralysis.

I'm pretty open to suggestions on either end. I already have a PVR-500MCE card that works great, and my use cases are pretty common HTPC requirements:

- MP3 playback
- MPEG-2/DVD playback
- TV recording/timeshifting (altho the PVR-500 does all the work here)
- AVI/MPEG-4 playback
- Quiet
- SFF (micro-atx or mini-itx)
- Windows XP OS with Beyond TV/Beyond Media for the s/w interface

I'm a bit skittish as I had nightmarish issues with cooling and silencing an Athlon XP 2100+. That beast never worked right, always shutdown by COP due to thermal issues, etc. My current Athlon64 works pretty well, and is much more stable than

I am seriously considering Mini-ITX, my only reservation there is with AVI/MPEG-4 playback. I know the CN400 based boards have some hardware assist there, but I've gotten mixed signals from different things I've read as to how well that works. And if you go with a CN400 based system, you end up spending as much as you would on a mainstream AMD or Intel based system.

What I'd love to have is a laundry list of components that you folks use in living-room systems that are compact and work well, and are quiet. My target price is in the sub-$400 range for case, MB, CPU, and RAM. I have HDD, TV-tuner, etc, already to put in such a system.

Thanks!

[fester]

dude - I have never liked iTX for many reasons - primarily the lack of upgradabiltiy /too few pci. and they generally are too ugly for the living room.

Either Pentium M (I have) or AMD A64 90nm (I also have) can be made silent. Both are low power units and generate 21W and 54W respectively. P4's generate 80-150W. OMG.

anyway: for one living room system I use A643200 90nm + mATX MSI RS480 + Silverstone LC-11 + ati x700pro *** all fans are 5 Volted!!! *** it is silent.

the only thing I hear is the 200gb WD hard drive. I had to remove the heatsink fan on the x700 pro - and then I ceramic epoxy'd a new mini-cpu heatsink so now the card is HOT - BUT FANLESS!!! I've pushed it - no problems yet.

Airflow is EVERYTHING. Silverstome LC-11 installs the mobo/cpu/hsf all upside down

good luck

[Rich A]

Building a dedicated HT or PVR-PC is kinda like buying your first boat or motorcycle. You start out with a nice little rowboat. Then see how much you enjoy the water and get a small outboard motor. Then something bigger for fishing. And the next thing you know, you end up with a cabin cruiser. Or you start with a little 90 cc Honda bike and eventually end up with a Harley.

Trust me. Once you really start to enjoy what the PVR experiance can do, you'll want to start adding all the bells and whistles. You'll want hardware encoders that use almost no CPU. And then you'll want two or more so you can watch live tv and record at the same time. Or you'll want to add a tuner with a radio in it. Or high definition. You need size, expandability and a decent power supply.

I'm now on something like my 5th generation HTPC. I tried the "little" boxes. The ITX. Also the Shuttle boxes. The Overture thing that was supposed to be very quiet. The Aria (another quiet one). I was always lamenting not having enough power supply or PCI slots to poplulate with cool stuff.

Geeshhh. I started collecting PC chassis.

The "case of the week" for me is the new CoolerMaster Cavalier case. It's big, has VERY good cooling and has a decent power supply. I would have preferred one of the Silverstone boxes that Fester has, but the pricing was a little more than I wanted to spend, and I liked the design of the Cavalier better. In some cases (pun intended) there is an aesthetic factor. Just a taste thing. My case runs 24/7 in an actual Home theater. So it has to be quiet. AND although it's pretty quiet, it's still too much for my taste. (but there's room for improvements I haven't done yet)

So save yourself time and money. Get a case large enough to be upgraded and cool enough to run efficiently. You don't have to fill it the first time you build it. Trust me .. after a week of playing with all the cool stuff, you are gonna WANT that extra tuner, or HDTV thing ... Been there .. done that .. and that .. and that ... heh heh