Spritanium

Please excuse the logo, I haven't touched GIMP in awhile.

This build is named after hitman1985, the delightful man who provided me with u-channel. Thanks to him, my cables won't be sliced open by razor-sharp metal. That's always a plus.

This will be my first HTPC, and my second from-scratch build overall. It's also the first client build I'm doing, though the client is my grandmother. I'm counting it anyway.

PARTS
-GIGABYTE G41M-ES2L Motherboard
-Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6300 CPU
-Patriot 2x1GB DDR2 800 RAM
-Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB HDD
-ATI Radeon 4350 512mb Video Card (FREE)
-Antec Smartpower 2.0 400w (FREE)
-LITE-ON DVD Burner
-Cooler Master Elite 360 Case
-Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM
-Thermaltake A2018 Blue LED 120mm Case Fan
-Some ATX 4-pin extension

The video card will be coming from my personal rig, and the PSU was just something I had laying around. I might have her order an earthwatts, because I've heard bad things about the smartpower series...

As soon as the parts are here, I'll post plenty of pictures. Unfortunately, I have no idea when that will be. I just wanted to make the topic now

__________________

hitman1985

thats pretty damn cool thanks for the dedication i suppose


cant wait to see it in pics, looks like it will be a nice rig!

+subbed :P

Spritanium

Indeed.

Unfortunately, the "client" hasn't ordered the parts yet...having an empty case sitting in your room is like waiting for Christmas times a thousand.

but I figured that since I have the case and PSU, I might as well start the cable management. Not the best idea I've had, but I think it looks pretty nice so far. All of the cables are hidden behind the PSU, except the 4-pin which I'll be running behind the mobo tray once the u-channel gets here.



This isn't a very exciting picture, as you can't see anything. But that's just because I'm a cable ninja.

And no, the case isn't black inside; there's just no light in here.

__________________

Spritanium

Update: just got a text from dear old granny. We're ordering the parts this weekend.

That means I'll be building it by next week, and then I'll provide that bounty of pics I promised.

__________________

Spritanium

The build was finally completed today. There was a slight change of plans, though, and we bought everything at fry's. The build actually turned out to be better than I originally planned, albeit a bit more expensive.
The following things were changed:

Gigabyte G31M-ES2L -> Gigabyte G41M-ES2L (they look the same, but the g41m has a different NB heatsink)

Mushkin 1x2GB DDR2 800 -> Patriot 2x1GB DDR2 800

Intel E5200 -> Intel E6300

Lite-on DVD Burner -> Some other Lite-on DVD Burner. It was on sale for like $27.


The build is running great, I installed firefox and avast to keep grandma protected. I was thinking of installing noscript, but that might be confusing for her. I might install siteadvisor, since I feel so insecure browsing without it.

I will post pictures tomorrow when I go over there to transfer her files. I still need the 4-pin extension, because the 4-pin is really struggling to reach. Fry's didn't have any 4-pin extensions; just 4-pin to 8-pin adapters. And I'm sure as hell not soldering anything.

The thermaltake fan was a great choice. It moves a lot of air with little noise, or even more air with a lot of noise. I plan on installing HWmonitor just to check out temps.

All in all this was a great experience, and it won't be long until my next client build. Stay tuned for pics.

__________________

Spritanium

Okay, I finally have a picture. Not a great one, but a picture nonetheless.



If I can ever get a good camera and this htpc in the same room together, I'll post some good pics.

But for now, check out the cable management. It turned out pretty well, but I still need the 4-pin extension.

__________________

zhevra

Looks pretty neat man, Good Job : )

__________________

hitman1985

nice, very clean!

Rebel4055

Looks good! Subed!

__________________

e4600 3.2GHz
q9400 3.5ghz

Spritanium

Thanks guys

I just need to find someone else who needs a computer now

__________________