I hope this is a step towards native support for playback of Blu-ray movies on Linux. Actually, in my eyes I think we are better off without physical distribution of movies. I would love to see native support for Blu-rays, but even better would be digital high-quality services with a large library.

After installing a new video adapter with a fan making more noise than a 747 jet engine I had to do something. The noise coming from the stock fan on the AMD/ATI HD4870 video adapters is just too loud for my living room.  The video adapter’s temperatures are extremely high as well with an idle temperature over 70 degrees Celsius and load temperatures far over 80 degrees.

Thermalright T-Rad2 - Image from thermalright.com

The first step was of course to replace the cooler on the video adapter. The Thermalright T-Rad2 had got good reviews (Bjorn3d.com), it was small enough to fit within my Lian Li PC-C32B casing, and it could be fitted with two 92mm Nexus Real Silent case fans, which again could be connected to a fan controller. The installation of the cooler and the fans was fairly simple. Just make sure you have everything you need, a bit of time and some space. The results was really amazing! The idle temperature dropped to around 45-50 degrees Celsius and the load temperature reached just above 60 degrees. The readings are done with HWMonitor and they are probably not 100% correct. Nevertheless, they should give pretty clear indications of the significant temperature reductions. More interesting, the noise from the horrible stock fan was gone.

Ximatek HDT-SD946 - Image from ebay.it

Reducing the noise from the video adapter did of course introduce another problem, the noise from the CPU cooler. When the noise from video adapter was gone, the CPU cooler continued keeping the neighbors awake at night. To mend this problem I got a Xigmatek HDT-SD964. This cooler received good reviews as well (spcr), it fits inside my case, and it can be fitted with one or possibly two 92mm fans. The noise was once more removed and the temperature dropped significantly. Idle temperatures were measured to 12 and 17 degrees on the two cores of my AMD 4850e CPU. I doubt these values are totally correct as my living room is warmer than that. Load temperatures while playing Far Cry 2 reached 25 degrees.

The problem now is that the PSU makes a bit of noise. It is nothing I cannot live with but I wish it was a bit more silent and I suppose I will do something about it one day. The computer is however fairly quiet, and the noise is a lot less annoying.

Current configuration

• Lian Li PC-C32B HTPC casing
• NorthQ Giant Reactor 1000 Watt power supply
  
• ASUS M3A-H/HDMI motherboard
• 4096MBs of OCZ DDR2 Gold
• AMD Athlon X2 4850e CPU with a Xigmatek HDT-SD964 with one Nexus 92mm Real Silent fan
• Sapphire HD4870 video adapter with a Thermalright T-Rad2 cooler and two Nexus 92mm Real Silent fans
• Auzentech Prelude sound board
• 2 Samsung F1 1TB hard drives in RAID 1 for data storage
• Samsung F1 500GB hard drive as system disc
• Samsung SH-S203B DVD player
• Zalman ZM-MFC1 Plus fan controller
• 2 Nexus 120mm Real Silent case fans
  

Video Adapter and TV

AMD/ATI 4870HD - From amd.com

The first problem I had with the old configuration was that when I connected it to my TV (a Sony W3000)  using a HDMI cable I was not able to change input source on the TV. Let me explain. When turning on the TV, selecting the correct input (the PC) and then booting the PC everything is working perfectly. Well that is everything works perfectly until I want to change the input on the TV to let us say the Xbox. Changing it over to the Xbox works fine but when changing it back to the PC I just get a black screen. I have of course reported this to ATI/AMD support and written about it in the AMD forum but I have not found any solution so far.

As a consequence of having this problem and as I was going to use the PC for gaming purposes I had to get a new and more powerful video adapter. Silly enough I went for another ATI/AMD adapter, a Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 with 512MB of memory (is RAM). This card did of course have the same problem as the on-board 780G chip-set. I was still not able to change the input on the TV without getting just a black picture. The unfortunate “solution” to this problem was as I wrote about earlier, sending Vista into sleep-mode and reinitialize it. When the computer is reinitialized it apparently starts a handshaking process with the TV and I get a perfect picture again.

Hard drives and RAID

Samsung Spinnpoint F1 - From samsung.com

As I planned to use the PC as a media center and storage for photos, videos, music and so on I preferred using a RAID 1 configuration. RAID 1 uses two hard drives and mirrors the drives so that they have exactly the same content. Even though RAID 1 is a waste of space it reduces the risk of loosing data significantly. One is of course still vulnerable to a simultaneous hard drive crash like in case of a fire or similar but one should be safe from data loss in case of a single drive malfunction. The solution was getting two more hard drives. First, I got another Samsung F1 1TB and used it together with the one I had as data storage in RAID 1. Second, I bought a Samsung F1 500 GB drive and used it as a system disc.

Installing Vista using a RAID or getting the RAID working in Vista was not as easy as it should. It could of course be caused by the fact that I have never done it before. However, a Google search reveals that there are other people with simmilar difficulties. After fixing the BIOS, connecting the drives to different SATA ports and reinstalling Vista a couple of times it was finally running and working as expected.

For several reasons I have been trying to find other ways like for instance this and this to put it into sleep mode (without using the start menu) without success. Now, putting Vista into sleep mode is simply done by assigning a short key to sleep.exe and there we are.

After selecting a case for my new living room computer I had to buy some more parts to piece together a running PC. The case I selected was the Lian Li PC-C32, in black. Overall I am satisfied with the case. It is fairly spacious, it looks good, it was pretty easy to mount everything inside of it. However, when I got the case it was a bit bigger and lighter than expected. The plates used for the case were a bit thin and the top lid had two screws in the front which I did not see and they almost made me force the top off. Other people have said the case comes with one motherboard stand too many. I did not have that problem as I installed a microATX board. The stock fans on full speed were a bit nosier than I would have liked too but it was nothing a replacement of fans and a fan controller could not handle. I chose the ZM-MFC1 Plus controller from Zalman.

The hardware

The computer consist of a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H microATX motherboard with an on-board AMD HD3200 video chip powerful enough to playback full HD video. The AMD 780G chipset is a favoritte among many reviewrs (1). The motherboard is fitted with an AMD Athlon 4850e CPU which only requires a limted amount of power and 4 GB of Kingston DDR2 memory. Both the 1TB Spinpoint F1 hard drive and the SH-S203B DVD player came from Samsung. The plan is to get another hard drive and install it in a RAID level 1 to have backup of images, music and movies. Hopefully will the prices of solid-state-drives fall while the performance contines to increase so I can get such a drive and use it for the operating system drive. The whole ting is powered by a NorthQ Giant Reactor power supply which I had laying around.

The software

I have I have been using Windows Vista 64 because I had a license and I eventually plan on getting a better graphics card to be able to play games. Currently the cards are either too expensive, too noisy or not powerful enough so I think I will be waiting until the next generation arrives or until someone starts selling better cooling solutions for, for instance the AMD 4870X2. If I wasn’t planning on gaming I would have used a Linux distro for sure.

The problems

I wish I could say everything went accoring to plan. Unfortunately it did not. First, the PSU is a bit too noisy. The 850W version of the Zalman ZM1000-HP could be a possible solution. Second, the DVD is way too noisy. I do not plan on using this much but it sounds like a plane taking off. Third, the stock fans were too noisy on full spead. This has been solved by using a fan controller. I might also replace the fans. Fourth, I will certainly get a modular PSU the next time I buy a new one. I hate all those cables. Finally and most annoying. The graphic chip has some problems with HDMI and TVs. If I select the right input on the TV and then turn on the PC I get an image and everything works perfectly. However if I change the input on the TV to something else and then back again to the PC, I do not get any image. It seems it is a problem with the Catalys driver and the handshaking with the TV. I hope this will be fixed with the release of a new driver. As a consequence of this problem I have not used it as much as originally planned. I have not moved neither movies, images nor music to the PC.

The future

As mentioned I have planned to get another disk and a new graphics card. This is however somewhere down the road. It would have been nice to get a quieter PSU as well but with the noise level of the graphic cards of today it is no point of getting a silent PSU before I know which graphics card I will be pairing it with. When new and more powerful CPUS are comming I will probably update those too. However until later the two core AMD should do the job.

To build a good HTCP you would want a PC with a decent storage, capable of high definition (HD) video playback. It should look good in your living room, be small, slim and silent and have a high WAF rating. Most modern computers with an integrated graphic chip coupled with a CPU with low power requirements are able to do the job. Low power requirements mean limited heat which again means no or only very few fans for cooling. Platforms based on AMD’s 780 or Nvidias GeForce 8300 based chipsets have for these reasons been popular.

A gaming rig should produce as many polygons as possible per second. To do this you need a very power hungry CPU and GPU. Power means heat, and to move this heat away from the CPU and the GPU you will need large coolers and a lot of fans. This combined with the fact that most graphics cards are quite long you would want a quite large case for this gaming computer.

For fans there are some simple rules. The larger the fan is the more hot air does it move per second. The higher the velocity of the fan is the more air does it move per second but the noise will rise to unbearable levels.

Requirements

So let us look at the requirements for a HTPC/Gaming computer. I’ll start with the one which are absolute. Since I have a girlfriend it has to look good! Looking good would in this case mean black (to match the other equipment), small and probably shiny.

Second, it should be powerful enough to run modern PC games at resolutions up to 1920*1080. This would include a large and hot graphics card which requires cooling and a pretty deep case. I will also need a decent CPU which would require good cooling. Big tower coolers like TRUE could reach up 160mm but they could be fitted with one or two 120mm fans.

Third, it should be silent. This would include water cooling or really big coolers and several large fans at low velocity. Water cooling would have been fun but it is a bit expensive and I don’t really bother right now. Since I am no millionaire it cannot be too expensive either.

To sum up, it should be a large good looking case which looks small and has room for large coolers, large fans, long graphics cards and a couple of hard drives. Most HTPC cases are small so it is a bit of a challenge to find something which matches all these requirements. However, after searching the web for a long time I found some candidates. And the nominees are:

Antec Fusion 430 Black

This case looks great, uses two 120mm fans for cooling, the critics are great and the price is quite good (about 1200 NOK = 150€). Unfortunately, a bit too small (445mm (W) x 146mm (H) x 414mm (D)) for my planned PC.

Review:

• Bjorn3d
• Silentpcreview
• Tomshardware
• 3dGameMan (if you can call these reviews )

Antec Performance One P182

Another case from Antec. I really love this one, it costs less than 1000 NOK (125€), it is big (520mm (H) x 210mm (W) x 510mm (D)) and has a lot of space for hardware, coolers and five 120mm fans. Unfortunately it is a tower, not a desktop case. If I was looking for a pure gaming rig I would have gone for this one but since it has to fit in the living room it is a no go.

Reviews:

• Bjorn3d
• Silentpcreview

Silverstone CW02

This case is another beauty, at least in my eyes. It is quite tall (435 mm (W) x 225mm (H) x 440 mm (D)) and a large cooler should fit inside. It has quite large fans with one 120mm fan and two 92mm fans. Unfortunately it got a pretty low WAF rating, it is a bit expensive (3800 NOK = 450€) and it could be a problem to fit long graphics cards so was not a winner.

Reviews

• XtremeComputing
• 3dGameMan

Silverstone LC-20

This case has room for in total two 92mm and three 80mm fans. It is fairly large (430 mm (W) x 170 mm (H) x 430 mm (D)) but neither really large coolers nor long graphics cards would fit. It got an overall good WAF rating and the price is attractive (about 1000/1500 NOK or 125/200€ without/with the LCD ). However, there is something to it which I did not like. 80mm fans are perhaps a bit small and there is not plenty of room inside of it.

Reviews

• DevHardware
• DreamWare Computers

Lian Li PC-C32B

This is the case I selected. It is no way near flawless but it is a decent compromise. It is very deep (426mm (W) x 167mm (H) x 530mm (D)) which would allow long graphics cards, and standard ATX motherboards and power supplies to enter. It has room for two 120mm and one 80mm fans. Coolers up to 140mm should enter according a very helpful forum user at hw.no . The fans should according to some reviews be replaced with some, less nosier ones. The fact that the case is pretty deep is also somewhat of a problem because it will take a lot of space in the living room. Hopefully this will not be too much of a problem. The price was about 1700 NOK (210€). It looks great (without the rack mount handles) and it got a very good WAF rating.

I am eagerly waiting for it to arrive in the mail tomorrow or one of the next few days and I will probably post some images when I get my hands on it. Having decided on the case it only remains to decide on all the other parts of the PC …

Reviews

• XSReviews
• Visual-Hideout
• CaseUmbau (in German)

Some Case Providers

I found several other nice cases when searching for this one and I recommend you to check out the following if you are looking for a HTPC case yourself.

• 3RSystem
• Antec
• Chieftec
• Lian Li
• OrigenAE
• Silverstone
• Thermaltake
• Zalman