Finished my Mini-ITX XBMC Build
#1
Went with as small a form factor as I could. Mini-ITX.

Note the Pico-90 PSU. super small 90W jobby job

Here is my parts list. Thanks to this forum for helping me.

Image
Image
Image

This case is ~8.2 x 7.5 x 2.4 inches

Total system power is ~27w idle and ~34 load although load isn’t full load because the CPU still stays in ULV mode ~1.6ghz even when playing HD content.

I’m running 2GB RAM just because it was $3 more than 1GB but it never goes over ~350MB used.

I had to mod the CPU fan a bit. The case claims to fit a stock Intel HSF which it does if you don’t have a hard drive LOL. I could have gone with a USB Live based version since its a Linux based OS to avoid purchasing a HD but opted for a fairly cheap 32GB SSD since album art, fan art, etc.. can be stored on it and it makes the system very snappy. I haven’t measured boot time but its <10s because my LCD takes ~8s and it up when the TV is ready.

I won’t get into the XBMC interface here because you can search that on your own but it’s an awesome interface. Well worth the time/money. I had a WDTV Live before and this blows it away hands down.

I did have to get a bit hard core with some Linux comfit since I’m using the Ubuntu based version and decided to use the Eden beta 3 version instead of the stable version from early 2011. It worked fine OOTB but the tinkering I needed to do was mostly oriented around getting the infrared remote and SMB shares to my NAS to work on suspend from S3. it would hang until I configured some stuff like autofs and sleep’s scripts to shutdown/start daemons.

No watch for scale but you can see my overall setup in my closet under the stairs. All wires run through walls.

I need to clean up some of the wires and such around the unit but I have my Kill-O-Watt and other speaker wires a bit messy because I was re-arranging it in the closet.

If you are curious about the details of the suspend/resume problems I mentioned let me know and I can tall you what I did. It basically involves using autofs to mount my smb shares and recycling the lirc services (infrared remote).

You’ll also notice a Zotac card in the purchase list but not in the case. I bought that based on issues I read about Intel HD Decode ~24fps instead of 23.976 fps which resulted in dropped frames and studder every 40s but I've watched several Blu-ray and 1080p content over the last few weeks since I built this and haven't noticed an issue so I decided to return it. Plus it won't fit into the case! LOL oversight on my part. Seriously though maybe it's my 120hz TV, maybe it's the HD2000, etc.. but I don't see any studder or skipping problems and I'm pretty anal about that because I *do* notice it on some HD content from my UVERSE DVR.

Last comment. Vevo videos in HD is the biggest features I didn’t expect. I had never heard of Vevo before. Its spectacular. Basically like Pandora or Last.fm but videos... Love it.

Pictures are out of order.....sorry about that. XBMC has a picture attachment limit so I linked these.

Thanks for looking

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/7674/1img0528.jpg
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9001/1i...600013.jpg
http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/218/img0537pj.jpg
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/8955/img0531ti.jpg
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/758/img0536qa.jpg
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/334/img0529oh.jpg
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/2989/img0530vp.jpg
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4388/img0535td.jpg
http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/7851/img0534jj.jpg
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/7647/img0532zn.jpg

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/7956/img0543dn.jpg
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9303/img0542rg.jpg

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/8308/img0540ab.jpg
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/2068/img0538vx.jpg
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/6627/img0539rn.jpg
Reply
#2
Cool looking HTPC. Good job.
Reply
#3
nice job! cool HTPC bro, FTW! Smile
Reply
#4
Nice...I have that same Dremel tool
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
Finished my Mini-ITX XBMC Build0