Your Very First HTPC? But Where do You Start?

Spectre has some good points although I'm not sure how hot the Zacate fanless gets. The ION get very hot :o

I've looked at buying the ND22 for months but didn't fancy running the fan at quiet and letting temperatures rise to 80-100C so I ended up with a self build based on the IONITX-P-E, I removed the wireless-N adapater as I needed the machine to be a htpc/nas combo so gigabit was the best option.

Temperatures are always going to be an issue with very tiny cases like the Zbox and the one below but nothing a silent Scythe Mini Kaze can't fix.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthr...t=18247761

I'm thinking of ripping the ICE heatpipe out of my shuttle and using that but tbh it will make the whole thing look like a hovercraft

Subliminal Aura Wrote:Spectre has some good points although I'm not sure how hot the Zacate fanless gets. The ION get very hot :o

I've looked at buying the ND22 for months but didn't fancy running the fan at quiet and letting temperatures rise to 80-100C so I ended up with a self build based on the IONITX-P-E, I removed the wireless-N adapater as I needed the machine to be a htpc/nas combo so gigabit was the best option.

Temperatures are always going to be an issue with very tiny cases like the Zbox and the one below but nothing a silent Scythe Mini Kaze can't fix.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthr...t=18247761

I'm thinking of ripping the ICE heatpipe out of my shuttle and using that but tbh it will make the whole thing look like a hovercraft

That IONITX-P-E board setup, is that newly released? I don't remember seeing it lately.

Superorb Wrote:That IONITX-P-E board setup, is that newly released? I don't remember seeing it lately.

It's old old old Came out last year sometime ?

It's ION1 and does what it says on the tin, almost flawless. My only gripe is with temperature.

Thanks for the hardware tips. I'll definitely take a look into them. One thing I don't understand is how do I make my custom system remote control friendly. I assume that some sort of receiver card must be installed in the case and that it must have a sensor on the front of the case, but I rarely see any specs about this when looking at PC cases. I also don't see many people mentioning what IR receiver card they are using.

I have this built into my current case. Just one cable which you need to deploy somewhere for the IR receiver. The nice thing about this receiver is that it can also power on the HTPC.

My next case should have an IR receiver built into it already. There are some who have this, often together with a VFD.

Hammi Wrote:I have this built into my current case. Just one cable which you need to deploy somewhere for the IR receiver. The nice thing about this receiver is that it can also power on the HTPC.

My next case should have an IR receiver built into it already. There are some who have this, often together with a VFD.

I use the standard Media Center remote and receiver (a cheap knockoff from ebay) and it will wake the PC as well. It cost $12

One of the questions I had was how the IR device connects to the motherboard, but after a little googling it seems they often are connected to a usb header on the board, though I did find some mentions about IrDa ports or something.

(Internal) USB or (internal) serial are quite common. If you want to be able to switch on the htpc via the remote, you need to get power for the IrDa even when the PC is switched off, and often some kind of connection to the power button as well. (Some also use WOL or similar mechanisms.)

I don't need WOL or any other trickery. My motherboard (and it's a 12 year old board) supplies power to the USB ports when the PC is sleeping, so I wake it by pressing the power key on my media center remote. Suspend draws almost no power, and it's nice to not have to go into the other room to tuen on the HTPC.

Yep. The WAF here required me to implement something which works regardless of the state of the PC (on, off, sleep, hibernate).