My HTPC

I just finished this HTPC recently. One of my goals was for it to be as silent as possible. The only fans are the CPU (which is inaudible from just 1 foot away), and the power supply. Most of the time I have the volume up anyway, but I prefer not to have to turn up the volume just to drown out the computer.
I bought a some things, but I mostly tried to use parts I already had.

Here's the specs on mine:

Components I already had:
AMD Athlon II x2 245
Rosewill Fan speed controller
Asus M3A78-EM
Mushkin Silverline 2 GB DDR2
OCZ Vertex 2 120GB
Logitech Harmony One Remote Control
Homemade LIRC IR receiver
Running Windows 7 using XBMC as a media centre
Remote control software is WinLIRC and EventGhost


Components I had to buy:
SilenX Effizio EFZ-100HAI Low Profile Silent CPU Cooler
Samsung Blu-Ray SH-B123L
HIS Radeon 6570 Silent
Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250
Silverstone ML03B
Silverstone SST-ST40F-ES 400W
Logitech M515 Couch Wireless Mouse
Logitech K340 Keyboard


It was tough to fit that video card in there. I wanted something better than a 6470, and the HIS model was the ONLY half-height, slient, 6570 that worked. And even this one had to be shoehorned in there. The massive heatsink touches the inside of the case and the tv tuner next to it. But it works great. The SSD keeps the noise to a minimum, and helps make it run much more responsively. I don't need much space on the pc itself, because I've got a 500GB RAID 1 NAS, where I actually store all movies/videos/photos/music.

I built my own IR receiver based on the LIRC serial receiver. My previous HTPC case had a front mounted USB/headphone port, with an unused spot for a IEEE port. It was the perfect place, so I built my receiver onto the unused portion of the PCB. And I cut the IR cover off an old car radio and glued it to the front. It was great on the old case, but the new case has no external 3.5" drive bay. So I need to find a new permanent solution for mounting that, right now it's just sitting on top. I might do something like drill a hole in the bottom corner of the case and mount a new receiver there, haven't decided yet.

I was originally looking for a low profile 120mm fan for the cpu, but when I finally tried one, it turned out that 120mm is larger than the size of the opening on the top of the case. Which means non-optimal airflow and unnecessary noise. Plus most of those are too large to fit the support crossbar in the case (pictured below).
I saw the SilenX cooler on sale one day and figured I would try it out. I was initially unsure about this brand, but the specs were all good, and it turned out to be perfect. The fan is a 100mm FDB and fits perfectly inside the case. I was using the boxed fan speed controller, and had it set to around ~1100rpm, which is completely inaudible at 2 feet away. But I swapped it out for a Rosewill controller I had laying around, because the Rosewill can be mounted in one of the spare pci slots with rear access. But the Rosewill has a minimum speed of 1300rpm, which is still extremely quiet, and probably a good thing since this is the only source of airflow for the entire case (Power Supply is self-contained).

Front:


Rear:


Inside:


Mouse, Keyboard, Remote:


Homemade IR Receiver (the glue is only visible cause of the camera flash):

Edited by wedge - 2/8/12 at 4:12pm

I agree. If I were building from scratch, that's totally what I would have done.
But you're right, it is good enough for some light gaming. I've started throwing on some of my old games, like Pod Racer, that's really fun to play on the big screen and the big speakers.
Edited by wedge - 2/27/12 at 4:32am

Yeah, I'm using the bundled PowerDVD 9 for Blu-Ray playback only. Since I couldn't get Blu-Ray to work in XBMC (I'll give that another shot at some point). But EventGhost and the Logitech Harmony are great, I just set up some activities in both and I can switch from XBMC to PowerDVD with the press of a button and keep using the remote for everything in a nearly seamless manner. Of course I run PowerDVD in Cinema mode rather than classic as it gives a significantly better HTPC experience.

Cinema Mode in PowerDVD completely changes the interface from a typical "pc-style" interface to a media player style interface.