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Section 1: History and Previous Gallery
(what has happened up to this point, current issues and new pics and progress are in sections 2 and 3)
Rage seems to be encouraging us to open up this section and make our own threads, so here goes! This is a worklog of my HTPC in progress. This is in the gallery since the thread is only mean to show off my project and i've got lots of pictures here and lots more to add soon. I'm going to try and fill in the gaps a best as possible, I know i'm missing a lot of pictures.
Current Specs:
1700+ TbredB DLT3C @ 200x11 (2000mhz) / 1.6v w/SK7+80mm case fan
2x256mb DDR (one is BH-6, one is Infineon 6A) @ 200mhz 7-3-3-2.5 / 2.6v
Biostar M7NCG 400 nForce2 MCP mATX motherboard
BBA Radeon 9600 non pro - fanless model
ATI E-Home Wonder w/capture TV tuner
Toshba SD-R5112 4x DVD-R/W Drive
Seagate 60gb 7200rpm hard drive
Coolermaster ATC-620 HTPC case
Antec SL350 PSU
Lite-on Airboard + USB-UIRTl
My HTPC project truly began a couple months ago, after I sold my last htpc attempt that was sitting in the closet. What stopped me last time was the realization that a quality HTPC isn't going to squeeze by on a 600mhz celeron, and that real cost was going to be involved. My plan was to buy the best possible budget parts and squeeze a decent system out within a few months timeframe. I began to formulate a plan... Here was my old project:
Current budget: $0 -The first step was to decide how to base the project. My initial idea was to take this dell 2.0 and add a tuner card and a few other peices, but lacking a VGA slot made it less than optimal. I end up selling it for $165 without the 60gb hard drive, pci video card, or dvd-rom drive, and selling or keeping each of those peices to keep the project going. The video card and dvdrom were sold for a total of $36. Here is a pic of the dell that I started with right before I sold it. I actually paid $135 for this thing on a dell deal
Current budget: $201 - Time to start buying! Well as is the case with most HTPC projects, the case is what makes you drool the most. I was going to buy a case and power supply, but newegg had a great deal on the SLK3700AMD for $67 shipped plus $13 for a fron 120mm fan for it. This included a 350 watt Antec power supply that I could use for the HTPC, and I could get my main rig into a good looking case. I'll throw in before and after pics later if possible.
Current budget: $121 - So my HTPC had a case (the blue cheiftec) to reside in temporarily and a PSU to use (the Antec 350). It was time to find some guts! Right now all I had was the case, power supply, hard drive, and an old stick of pc2100 to test with. I hit anandtech forums and started looking for used parts! Almost immediately I found a 1700+ and SK-7 for $45 shipped. Not the lowest price, but this chip was told to hit 2.3 @ 1.65v. In the end I think that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it wasn't too far off. At the same time I bought a Biostar M7NCG 400 "new" there for $55 shipped. I say "new" because it was bought from ebay by the seller, could a cleaned up refurb or used, will never truly know.
Current budget: $35 - Getting to the bottom of the barrel! Well now that all those parts were here, I needed a way to run this system at a decent speed and get some overclocking done! I was using a keyboard and mouse out of the closet and an old 128mb stick of pc2100 for testing, and neither of those were acceptable. So I hit anandtech once more and found 256mb of corsair xms platinum pc3200 for $39. I also hit newegg and spent $23 on a lite-on airboard. Now this is a bit more than I had budgeted, but I went ahead and budgeted ahead with my paycheck to spend a bit. In fact from here on out pretty much all expenses are out of pocket.
Current spendings: $62 - Time for ebay! Found me 256mb pc2700 (that runs at 3200 just fine) for $20. I actually bought this (it had no descriptions of speed or chips) at random and decided to give it as a gift to my parents if it turned out to be a slow speed, but I got lucky. This was the only picture given, and based on it I decided that it probably had 6ns chips.
Current spendings: $82 - And this is where the office max 4x dvd-r/w drive came in. They had a deal for a Toshiba (mad dog branded) burner for $8 after rebate (shipping and tax cost) that I had to jump on. It makes a great quiet and reliable player and its easy to make dvd-r backups of data and video from it. The rebate was $40 and I haven't received it yet, so it's still counted as a $48 spending.
Current spendings: $130 - Ok so now things are coming together. I've got everything needed thus far except a tv tuner and a case. I was going to buy a PVR-250 with SageTV @ pcalchemy, but the cost was a bit much and the e-home wonder was available for so much less. Newegg had a refurbished one with FM and svideo/composite input (the more expensive of the two models) for $56, half the cost of a PVR-250 without software if you factor in shipping. I went with this.
Current spendings: $186 - Things are wrapping up! Still need a HTPC case and remote, thinking about a sound card and second tuner but don't have a desire to buy them right now. I bought a niveus remote from pcalchemy for $48 with shipping, shoppped around for a case but didn't find anything I liked. Here you can see the niveus and the above mentioned lite-on airboard:
Current spendings: $234 - The Niveus sucks Went ahead and sold it for $30 and bought a USB-UIRT which would allow me to use my own universal remote. That put me back $15 after what was in my paypal account. Here is where the current project is at at this stage:
Current spendings $249 - Time for the case! A member here had a Coolermaster ATC-620 (the case I was looking at buying from newegg, had they not been sold out) for $70 shipped, a very good price. I decided that I couldn't pass it up! So at this point everything is basically together. Still need a second tuner card and a sound card (using onboard sound) but it's all in a working state. Only problem is that the system won't sleep right, but I avoided that issue until after getting the software all setup. Software setup has been going on all along the way, but I won't bore anyone with the trials and tribulations of it. Lets just say that the HTPC world is far from a stable state when it comes to software. Anyway, here is the system in the new case:
(what has happened up to this point, current issues and new pics and progress are in sections 2 and 3)
Rage seems to be encouraging us to open up this section and make our own threads, so here goes! This is a worklog of my HTPC in progress. This is in the gallery since the thread is only mean to show off my project and i've got lots of pictures here and lots more to add soon. I'm going to try and fill in the gaps a best as possible, I know i'm missing a lot of pictures.
Current Specs:
1700+ TbredB DLT3C @ 200x11 (2000mhz) / 1.6v w/SK7+80mm case fan
2x256mb DDR (one is BH-6, one is Infineon 6A) @ 200mhz 7-3-3-2.5 / 2.6v
Biostar M7NCG 400 nForce2 MCP mATX motherboard
BBA Radeon 9600 non pro - fanless model
ATI E-Home Wonder w/capture TV tuner
Toshba SD-R5112 4x DVD-R/W Drive
Seagate 60gb 7200rpm hard drive
Coolermaster ATC-620 HTPC case
Antec SL350 PSU
Lite-on Airboard + USB-UIRTl
My HTPC project truly began a couple months ago, after I sold my last htpc attempt that was sitting in the closet. What stopped me last time was the realization that a quality HTPC isn't going to squeeze by on a 600mhz celeron, and that real cost was going to be involved. My plan was to buy the best possible budget parts and squeeze a decent system out within a few months timeframe. I began to formulate a plan... Here was my old project:
Current budget: $0 -The first step was to decide how to base the project. My initial idea was to take this dell 2.0 and add a tuner card and a few other peices, but lacking a VGA slot made it less than optimal. I end up selling it for $165 without the 60gb hard drive, pci video card, or dvd-rom drive, and selling or keeping each of those peices to keep the project going. The video card and dvdrom were sold for a total of $36. Here is a pic of the dell that I started with right before I sold it. I actually paid $135 for this thing on a dell deal
Current budget: $201 - Time to start buying! Well as is the case with most HTPC projects, the case is what makes you drool the most. I was going to buy a case and power supply, but newegg had a great deal on the SLK3700AMD for $67 shipped plus $13 for a fron 120mm fan for it. This included a 350 watt Antec power supply that I could use for the HTPC, and I could get my main rig into a good looking case. I'll throw in before and after pics later if possible.
Current budget: $121 - So my HTPC had a case (the blue cheiftec) to reside in temporarily and a PSU to use (the Antec 350). It was time to find some guts! Right now all I had was the case, power supply, hard drive, and an old stick of pc2100 to test with. I hit anandtech forums and started looking for used parts! Almost immediately I found a 1700+ and SK-7 for $45 shipped. Not the lowest price, but this chip was told to hit 2.3 @ 1.65v. In the end I think that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it wasn't too far off. At the same time I bought a Biostar M7NCG 400 "new" there for $55 shipped. I say "new" because it was bought from ebay by the seller, could a cleaned up refurb or used, will never truly know.
Current budget: $35 - Getting to the bottom of the barrel! Well now that all those parts were here, I needed a way to run this system at a decent speed and get some overclocking done! I was using a keyboard and mouse out of the closet and an old 128mb stick of pc2100 for testing, and neither of those were acceptable. So I hit anandtech once more and found 256mb of corsair xms platinum pc3200 for $39. I also hit newegg and spent $23 on a lite-on airboard. Now this is a bit more than I had budgeted, but I went ahead and budgeted ahead with my paycheck to spend a bit. In fact from here on out pretty much all expenses are out of pocket.
Current spendings: $62 - Time for ebay! Found me 256mb pc2700 (that runs at 3200 just fine) for $20. I actually bought this (it had no descriptions of speed or chips) at random and decided to give it as a gift to my parents if it turned out to be a slow speed, but I got lucky. This was the only picture given, and based on it I decided that it probably had 6ns chips.
Current spendings: $82 - And this is where the office max 4x dvd-r/w drive came in. They had a deal for a Toshiba (mad dog branded) burner for $8 after rebate (shipping and tax cost) that I had to jump on. It makes a great quiet and reliable player and its easy to make dvd-r backups of data and video from it. The rebate was $40 and I haven't received it yet, so it's still counted as a $48 spending.
Current spendings: $130 - Ok so now things are coming together. I've got everything needed thus far except a tv tuner and a case. I was going to buy a PVR-250 with SageTV @ pcalchemy, but the cost was a bit much and the e-home wonder was available for so much less. Newegg had a refurbished one with FM and svideo/composite input (the more expensive of the two models) for $56, half the cost of a PVR-250 without software if you factor in shipping. I went with this.
Current spendings: $186 - Things are wrapping up! Still need a HTPC case and remote, thinking about a sound card and second tuner but don't have a desire to buy them right now. I bought a niveus remote from pcalchemy for $48 with shipping, shoppped around for a case but didn't find anything I liked. Here you can see the niveus and the above mentioned lite-on airboard:
Current spendings: $234 - The Niveus sucks
Went ahead and sold it for $30 and bought a USB-UIRT which would allow me to use my own universal remote. That put me back $15 after what was in my paypal account. Here is where the current project is at at this stage:
Current spendings $249 - Time for the case! A member here had a Coolermaster ATC-620 (the case I was looking at buying from newegg, had they not been sold out) for $70 shipped, a very good price. I decided that I couldn't pass it up! So at this point everything is basically together. Still need a second tuner card and a sound card (using onboard sound) but it's all in a working state. Only problem is that the system won't sleep right, but I avoided that issue until after getting the software all setup. Software setup has been going on all along the way, but I won't bore anyone with the trials and tribulations of it. Lets just say that the HTPC world is far from a stable state when it comes to software. Anyway, here is the system in the new case:
