Finally done! I stated that build right around Christmas and it’s been a real learning experience. By the past I’ve build Gaming PCs but this HTPC was certainly the most tedious one I’ve done so far.
For those interested, I’ve detailed below the steps I took to build, the mistakes I made and the solutions I’ve found. Enjoy!
Finished product. Now I need to build a cabinet to fit all that stuff.
THE PART LIST:CASE: Zalman HD160
For the case, I was looking for something that was looking good for a living room, relatively silent and that had lots of room for efficient cooling and capable of housing 4 HDs. I also liked the integrated card reader because I wanted to use the HTPC to view family pictures directly DL from my camera.
Fresh off the box!
MB: Asus P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP
I always had good luck with Asus MB by the past. Why changing then? I also needed an integrated WiFi internet connection since my modem was in another room. That one fitted the bill perfectly. It was also coming with a utility that automatically adjust the CPU fan speed depending on the CPU load = quiet operation!
Work in Progress!
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Opted on the “low-end” Intel C2D. I figured that it was going to be enough computing power for normal HTPC tasks… and it is!
CPU FAN: Zalman CNPS9500
Huge Super-quiet CPU fan! A little on the pricey side but the goal wasn’t to build a hairdryer, right?!
RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 1GB (2 x 512MB)
Great deal at NewEgg. Had also tones of positive reviews. A no-brainer. 1GB was a minimum for a later upgrade to Windows Vista.
GPU: MSI NX7600GT
I hesitated quite a bit on the graphic card: fan or fan-less? PCAlchemy was advertising the MSI 7600GT as quiet. I took a chance and didn’t regret it. It runs cool and silent. The only thing is that the MSI is really ugly with its cheesy graphics on top of the fan housing, but who really cares since it is hidden anyway.
PSU: SeaSonic S12-430 ATX12V 430W
Originally, I was thinking about getting at least a 500W PSU. Read a few posts here and there and discovered that it wasn’t needed. The S12 was cheap and ultra-quiet again. Good deal!
TUNNER: NVIDIA DualTV MCE
That one took me for ever to decide. I spent countless hours reading and questioning forums to understand the ins and outs of HD, SD, ATSF, NTSC signals; how to capture from a STB (Set Top Box); what is doable, what’s not, etc. I also wanted to watch live TV while recording at the same time. Dual tuner was a valid option. Analog tuner was also the right choice since the STB output signal is analog anyway (I didn’t intend to capture HD OTA). The Hauppauge PVR-500 had horrible reviews since they changed to Samsung tuner components. Also decided to run Win Media Center and the NVIDIA became the “natural” choice.
DVD DRIVE: Pioneer DVR-111D
I needed a drive that was cheap and that I could easily flash in RPC1 to play multi-region DVDs.
HD (OS): x2 Western Digital SE WD800JD 80GB
HD (Storage): x2 SAMSUNG HD400LJ 400GB
I wanted to Raid my drives in various ways and to configure the system on a dedicated partition away from storage and TV recordings. The Samsung was a bargain at $100 for 400GB! I’ll explain later why and what I did with those drives.
KB: Gyration KB & Wireless Air Mouse
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Putting it together. Nothing really hard here. Things went almost as expected. The Zalman HD160 is roomy and everything fitted nicely. The HD trays are a little annoying since it involved miniature screws in tight places. A magnetic screwdriver is really helping here.
Fan online first! I first installed the PSU, then the HDs and Optical Drive, then the MB/CPU. I was still waiting for the Zalman CPU fan to come in and didn’t know that the fan mounting instruction called for installing 2 mounting brackets: One in front and one in the back of the MB. Bummer! Result: Uninstall-reinstall the MB for the fan brackets installation. Lesson learned: Wait until having all parts before getting started (or read the online manual)!
When all set and done!
Then, everything else when easy except that the MB IDE connector is placed sideways and connecting the optical drive requires small fingers and determination because of the case’s HD mounting brackets that were in the way. Nothing major though.
IDE connector in tight space.
Pesky OS! Time to load Win XP MCE 2005. First try: Discovered that I needed to load the Intel ICH8 RAID driver in order for my HDs to be recognized by Windows installer. The only way you can upload a driver during OS install with original OS CDs is via Floppy and I didn’t had neither wanted a floppy drive on this machine. Solution: Slipstream the original OS CDs and embed the required driver. Slipstreaming is basically making a bootable copy of the OS and burning it onto an empty CD. This process also allows customizing certain features of the OS and adding drivers/updates/etc as well. It is generally used for unattended installs. That’s what I did. In the process, I got ride of a bunch of unnecessary Windows features (Languages) and applications (games, etc) to fit within one bootable CD. To slipstream the OS I used nLite:
http://www.nliteos.com/download.htmlAlso a great website for instructions on all unattended install options:
http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/19/#topFinally, before doing anything with the machine, update bios, drivers and run Windows updates.
Overcome overscan! That one kept me in dark for quite some time… Let’s just say that a lot of HDTV television sets are not really friendly to PCs. I have a 2 year-old 30” LCD Sharp Aquos HDTV and wanted to connect the HTPC via DVI. First, it wasn’t recommended by the users’ manual: I didn’t care and continued. Second I realized that the TV wasn’t capable of anything else but its nominal resolution of 720p at 1280x720; nothing else would work. So, trying to setup the screen resolution, refresh rate and so on, I ended up with a huge overscan, the desktop task bar falling off the screen almost entirely. The MSI Graphic card came with a simplified NVIDIA nView interface and I discovered a cool utility – NVtweak - that unlocks many functions/options that are indispensable when connecting to a 16/9 HDTV and capable to overcome the overscan issue in no time. See here:
http://nvtweak.laptopvideo2go.com/For my particular TV and setup, I also found a nice post that runs through the screen resolution setup process. It might not be the same for all HDVTs but there are some good principles that certainly could be useful with other HD televisions:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=493566Hard Drive maze! I set my two 80GB HDs in RAID 1 – Mirroring and primarily dedicated to the OS. I partitioned the drive as such:
• Drive C: 30 GB: OS only.
• Drive Z: 6GB: Virtual Memory / Page File / Swap File. Set to 2.5 GB for both mini and maxi.
• Drive D: 40 GB: My Document, My pictures shell folders and one additional Program Files folder for application installation I can select the destination folder. To relocate shell folders in other partitions see this article
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_shell_folders.htm Also check TWEAKUI. A cool utility that helps with shell folder relocation and plenty of other OS customization options:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloa...ppowertoys.mspxI set the two 400GB HDs in a variety of RAID levels:
• Drive M: 250GB in RAID 1 – Mirroring. This partition is dedicated to host all my music CDs in mp3 and wma format. That way I don’t need a separate Stereo System to play music anymore. I mirrored it so that I won’t lose all the ripped CDs all at once!
• Drive V: 260GB in RAID 0 – Striping. This partition is dedicated to host all my TV recordings. Since I don’t care about eventually losing recording if one HD goes bad, I took advantage of combining the space left in both 400GB drives.
Nice and clean!
Optical mixer! I own a bunch of region 1 and 2 DVDs and wanted to make my optical drive a RPC1 – Region Free – to watch them. That’s what I did but went a little too far… The Dangerous Brothers website has what it needs to do that: On this particular Pioneer drive there was a large choice of various RPC1 Firmwares. Began to flash with version 1.29 successfully and then I noticed that the drive was reading every DVD at high-speed making as much noise as my wife’s Kitchenaid mixer! I later discovered that some of those firmwares are meant to take maximum advantage of reading/writing speed and won’t make watching a DVD enjoyable. I ended up reverting back to the earlier 1.06 RPC1 firmware. Now the drive is totally quiet but has a much slower reading speed, but I know my priorities! The Dangerous Brothers website:
http://tdb.rpc1.org/IR Blaster from Hell! This one was really a pain in the b** to get to work! I got a Microsoft IR transceiver with remote and this thing is really temperamental at best. It comes with IR blaster buds that weren’t firing at first. Then, after repeated tries, it finally worked out. If this happens to you, during the TV Setup process in MC and when asked to test TV channels with the remote, click on “try next IR control cable” button on the screen repetitively until it actually change channels on your cable box. This can take a little time but don’t be discouraged, this thing doesn’t make any sense what so ever but that’s the way it is. A few blog pages I found with very good additional troubleshooting tips:
http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/200.../31/458928.aspxhttp://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/200.../24/484423.aspxhttp://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/pages/updat...#commentmessageAnother cool utility for dual tuner setup is the handy MC Tuner Priority that lets you select which tuner MC uses for liveTV versus recordings:
http://www.salloway.org.uk/mediacenter/util/index.htm#tunerOne more thing about anything-IR: The Zalman HD160 has a built-in VFD panel with IR receiver and remote. If you are using a STB and a separate IR transceiver to watch live TV within MC, do not install the Zalman IR driver: It will conflict. Just disable the device in Windows Device manager.
Firewire Recording and channel change. After a little research, I discovered a nice program that lets you change channel and record HD and SD TV via firewire, thus bypassing the STB digital to analog signal conversion. That way I could watch recorded HD captured from my STBs in “true” HD! Well, I can say it has been partially successful: I am changing channels with firewire (more reliable than the IR blaster buds) but haven’t been able to record successfully yet. I’m still working on it though. Here’s the link to Timmmoore’s website to DL Firestb:
http://home.comcast.net/~timmmoore/wsb/htm...20Firewire.html If you attempt installing this application, you MUST read the Tim’s Read Me file. Absolutely!
The Green Button forum also has an extensive thread on this topic:
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/98686.aspxStreamlined Services! I wanted to speed-up Windows boot time. Windows automatically loads a bunch of things that aren’t necessarily needed for what I’m doing for a typical HTPC usage. So here is a list of things I did to streamline the PC. (Warning: Not every machine is alike, not ever user-needs are alike. Don’t disable things if you are not sure what you are doing. If you do, take note of what you disable and the original setting. Check this article for more info on Windows Services:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm AND USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!)
BIOS:
Chang the Boot Device priority sequence: Set to Hard Drive.
Disable the floppy seek.
Disable the Virus Check (if present).
Disable Bios boot screen (i.e. Asus boot screen).
Disable AUTO device/drive/hardware detection. Tell the BIOS what drives your using.
XP:
Take down Wall Paper
Delete all or most of Desktop Shortcut Icons
Disable Windows Sound Scheme
Delete files in C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch but DO NOT delete Prefetch folder.
RUN > msconfig > BOOT.INI Tab: Check NOGUIBOOT and apply
A FEW STARTUPS:
Some possible startups to disable upon users’ preference:
• qttask - used for Quicktime
• NeroCheck - used by Ahead's Nero Burning program
• InCD - used by Nero (packet-writing?)
• jusched - used by Java Runtime to check for updates
• CTHELPER - Creative Labs program
• Adobe Reader Speed Launch
SERVICES I MODIFIED:
D = Disable; M = Manual; A = Automatic
D - Alerter Service
M - Cryptographic Services Service
M - Distributed Link Tracking Client Service
D - Distributed Transaction Coordinator Service
D - DNS Client Service
D - Error Reporting Service
D - Fast User Switching Compatibility Service
M - IPSEC Services Service
D - Messenger Service
D - MS Software Shadow Copy Provider Service
D - Net Logon Service
D - NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing Service
A - Network Connections Service
D - Network DDE Service
D - Network DDE DSDM Service
D - NT LM Security Support Provider Service
D - Performance Logs and Alerts Service
D - Portable Media Serial Number Service
D - Print Spooler Service
D - QoS RSVP Service
D - Remote Desktop Help Session Manager Service
D - Remote Registry Service
M - Removable Storage Service
D - Routing and Remote Access Service
D - Smart Card Service
D - Smart Card Helper Service
D - SSDP Discovery Service
M - TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper Service
D - Telnet Service
D - Upload Manager Service
D - Volume Shadow Copy Service
M - WebClient Service
D - Windows Time Service
D - Wireless Zero Configuration Service
Well, I guess this sums it up. The experience was great. Always interesting and frustrating at times but the result is worth it. I now enjoy music, radio, TV and all media right from one single easy-to-control source!
Cheers!
