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It’s been a couple of weeks now and we have the new Home Theatre PC up and running! Presently only the Windows 7 system is running as we’ve been having a few problems getting the Ubuntu 10.04 to drive the i5 650 gpu to 1080i resolution .  So far I’m impressed with the setup, we cut Rogers cable loose since it was costing us in excess of $80 / month. Now we get our live tv from an over the air HD antenna setup.  Let’s have a look at the assembly so you can build one too.

SilverStone HTPC case

So here we have the case made by Silverstone.  It has two bays on the front for dvd or cd drives. The case will accommodate a micro ATX motherboard and ATX power supply. My choice was the ASUS P7H55 motherboard with an i5 650 cpu. I tend to over engineer machines – this one is very energy-efficient ( the cpu runs at 73 watts max ) but still has plenty of muscle to handle intense applications and games. The motherboard has the capability to upgrade to more powerful i5 and i7 Intel cpu chips down the road.  Lets have a look at the guts…

ASUS Motherboard P7H55

Here’s the engine that makes it all go. For the novice folks; the cpu chip has already been mounted to the board under the fan. To the right you can see two sticks of memory (ram) .  And on the left hand edge of the board we have all the ports and connections out to speakers,  keyboard etc.  Ok let’s stuff this turkey!

Left hand side of case with motherboard installed

This is the left hand side of the case with the top cover removed. You can see the two 500 gigabyte hard drives that sit on the bottom and to the right of the motherboard. Behind them is a small fan to pull cooling air between the hard drives. I opted to leave the fan unplugged because the drives don’t generate that much heat and the fan is too noisy. We’re not finished stuffing this beast, we need POWER….

Garden variety ATX power supply 550 watts

Here we have the ATX power supply that runs the machine. It has a ball bearing fan which runs smoother and quieter than the cheaper sleeve bearing fans that fail sooner due to dirt. Your most common PC failure can be attributed to cheap power supplies where the cooling fan fails and then the power supply burns up. Never let your PC repair guy steer you to a new machine when your present broke machine may only need a new power supply costing roughly $40!

Fully loaded with network card

This picture shows the machine fully loaded with room to spare. That green card on the left is a wireless network card which means no network cable (yeah! It’s PORTABLE – let’s take it to the BEACH!! )  I tied the loose cables up to improve cooling airflow though the case, with my aircraft electrician background I like neat wire cable runs.  It’s test drive time!!!!

HTPC in operation

Here we have our baby perched precariously on top of the tv. What you don’t see is the wireless keyboard that has become permanently attached to my lap while reclined in the comfy couch  behind this shot

The few short weeks we’ve had this machine operating I’ve found I’m exploring a greater diversity of programming through use of the Windows Media Center, Boxee, Miro Player, Live OTA broadcasts, DVD and finally on the net through Firefox such as Ustream, Justin.tv and Vimeo to name just a few. The under used projection tv now has become a huge internet media portal complete with 5.1 audio.

Interested in taking back control of your entertainment choices? You may want to explore this route. The initial outlay is high ( probably around $1k Canadian ) but I feel in the long run the system will pay for itself compared to the commercial alternatives out there at the moment.

If you have any comments or questions about the project please leave them with us here on the page. Thanks for visiting this site!

Jim  -  Geary Computers Inc.

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