Home Theater PC

[greghouse]

I was thinking on building an HTPC. Can you please give me any ideas on which cases are the best for an HTPC as I saw ThermalTake, Silverstone and Zalman but I'm not so expirienced in HTPC's?
Thankyou

_____________________________________________________________

EDIT: Thanx for your suggestions.
I also heard that there are HTPC Cases with 7" LCD screens, does any one know about them ? If yes can you please give me some ideas and brands? Thankyou very much!!

 

[michaelahess]

Silverstone LC16M, hands down. I've got 4 320GB HD's (room for 2 more), 600watt ps (silverstone of course), athlon 64 3700, 2GB ram, radeon x800xt pe oc'd, runs nice and cool. Every episode of any sci-fi show you can think of on that sucker

 

[greghouse]

Thanks

 

[Surferosa]

The LC16M sure is a nice case. But its still the same size as a usual desktop.

Id have a look at an Antec Fusion. Very nice case; only you will have to sacrifice a full size atx for a micro atx; which isnt usually a problem given what they're used for. Still takes 3 hdd's (although I personally wouldnt try and install more than 2). Adn it looks cool

Antec Fusion

 

[evongugg]

This may interest you:

Micro-ATX Cases - Shoebox Showdown

http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?i=2901

 

[halbhh]

Silverstone LC16M, hands down. I've got 4 320GB HD's (room for 2 more), 600watt ps (silverstone of course), athlon 64 3700, 2GB ram, radeon x800xt pe oc'd, runs nice and cool. Every episode of any sci-fi show you can think of on that sucker

heh heh 8) I can understand this.

 

[Datman]

Every episode of any sci-fi show you can think of on that sucker

Babylon 5?
Lexx? :?
New Dr. Who?

 

[wimcle]

Silverstone lc-11 is what I use

 

[jaguarskx]

I am currently doing research on cases to replace my current HTPC. But that won't happen for at least another 9 months. So far, the cases I considering are:

Thermaltake VF1000BNS Black

SILVERSTONE SST-SG01-B Black Aluminum

And the:


LIAN LI PC-V800B Black Aluminum ATX Desktop

The first two are m-ATX cases while the Lian Li is a compact full ATX case that is of an unusal design since the PSU is placed in front of the case instead of the back.

One thing that I've found so far in doing research on LGA775 m-ATX motherboards is the lack of overclocking potential. Based on some reviews the G965 and VIA 8980 (??) chipsets can only push the FSB between 280MHz and 290MHz before the system becomes unstable.

That being said, if overclocking the CPU in the HTPC with a m-ATX mobo is the goal then there will be some disappointments. For example, assuming an FSB of 290MHz is the max for the G965 and VIA chipsets, then the E6600 CPU can only hit a max overclock of 2.61GHz before the system becomes unstable.

Perhaps nVidia chipsets will provide better overclocking potential.

 

[jaguarskx]

Every episode of any sci-fi show you can think of on that sucker

Babylon 5?


I got B5 on my HTPC. It takes up about 40GB.

 

[michaelahess]

All B5's, plus the movies, all Star Treks, Original, DS9, TNG, Voyager, Enterprise, Animated, all Smallvills, all EFC's, Earth2, all Buffy's and Angels, all Andromeda's, all Farscapes, all Jeremiah's, all knightriders, all Sliders, all X-Files (that's a big directory!). Cleopatra's, all Simpsons, south parks, father of the pride, ren and stimpy. All Star Trek movies, Star wars movies plus clone wars. And more stuff I probably don't remember.

I prefer the desktop format as it's an EXACT size fit for my other stereo components, mine is black so it fits in perfectly with my pioneer system. Putting in a smaller system would make it look as tacky as those small motorola cable boxes.

 

[lcdguy]

didn't see Battlestar Galactica in there or firefly

 

[michaelahess]

Oops, got both old and new BSG, firefly and serenity! (Firefly is the best series of anything ever, period!)

Edit: and I'm not even going to list all the anime series my wife has on there, lets just say its well over 300GB, and it's all fairly low quality, so it's a LOT. Sad thing is that I actually own 90% of this stuff on DVD!

 

[lcdguy]

same here. it's just more convient having it on the drive which is why i have a 700GB Raid 5 NAS to host it all

 

[michaelahess]

Exactley, I've got a small computer on my living room and bedroom tv's so I don't have to be fixed to my home theater in the basement, aint technology great?

 

[lcdguy]

yup, now if only i had a 50ft, svga cable

 

[michaelahess]

That would look like crap unless you amped it, get a video extender, runs over cat 5, kinda pricey but they work.

 

[lcdguy]

i think for the time being i'll just stick with the 40ft svideo cable that seems to be doing an ok job. The problem is the distance to the htpc to the projector is quite long and unfortunately i don't have the proper adapter to give me component

 

[Datman]

Impressive collection, any Stargate/Atlantis.

 

[lcdguy]

i have season 1/2 of sg-1 on dvd. it's sad that sg-1 is ending though.

 

[michaelahess]

Haven't gotten into SG yet, forgot to mention farscape though.

 

[Datman]

You guy's see the trailers to the new Transformers movie.
Looks awesome.

http://www.transformersmovie.com/

 

[madmurph]

All HTPC cases have their +'s and -'s. Some of the Silverstone's have a clearance problem with the GPU and optical drive bay. I looked very carefully at the Zalman -- it's definitely up there -- although some of the space is not allocated very well. Personally, I didn't like the volume knob on the front. (I prefer a "clean" look). Besides, it doesn't work unless you install MS Media Center. If you do install MCE, then you wouldn't need the knob, because you would probably use the remote. I have also heard that the Zalman is noisey with regard to "strumming"-- vibrations from the hard drive. A monster HTPC case, with an LCD is the Thermaltake Mozart. You can read a review here:

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1027/thermaltake_mozart_tx_monster_dual_system_htpc_enclosure/index.html

The Silverstone has an LCD touch screen, but it's incredibly expensive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811163061

I built my HTPC with the Lian-Li C30I (VFD display, iMon MCE remote), but it wasn't without its headaches, either. I modified it to take three hard drives, that I believe will cool better than the Zalman. Plus, I was able to put a monster-sized GPU in it. Still, not without some minor mods. Good luck; glad to share more if interested.

 

[michaelahess]

The Silverstone clearance issue is easy to overcome, just don't use a full length optical drive, pioneer and lite-on's work great, though the lc16 will still have an issue with an original x1xxx series card or any of the 7x00 cards, as far as I'm aware. But unless you need this to play games (which I don't) an x800 series card is more than enough, even a 9700 or 9800 is enough.

The iMon software is far better than MCE in my opinion. Plus logi harmony controllers will work with them!