SilverStone CW-01-B Vista MCE.

[JonDoms]

Well this project started because I wanted a nice Vista MCE box.
I had several 2005 MCE boxes and loved them. When I purchased my new lappy it came with Vista Home Premium.
I played around with it and really like the interface and integrated Fantasy Football scoring tab.
I recently acquired several pieces of hardware and I figured I can scrap my
current main 2005 MCE box and turn it into a VMCE box.

I started about 2 weekends ago in the garage just laying out parts and moving data around to free up some HDD's to put into my case.
I loaded up Vista Home Premium and it just sat there for 2 weeks due to interruptions and moving large amount of data around to free up
my 2 main HDD's I am using to record TV on. Check the pics:

I also decided it was time to upgrade to a newer HTPC case.
When the box arrived I thought it was empty inside.
The case weighs only 13.3lbs!!!!!
Peep the pics:

That's right dual fan holes on the bottom for dual 80mm Antec Tri Cool Green LED fans!

Silverstone includes' (2) 80mm fans in the rear.

after clearing up HDD space I moved everything into the living room.

At this point I should have taken more pics of the inside of this case.
Oh well. You can search online for reviews of this awesome case.
I did encounter some hassles which took me 3 hours driving around looking for a
long (> 4 inches) size 1 Philips screw driver to remove the HDD cage.

Here's the Antec fans being mounted onto a bracket that goes over the bottom vent area.

This is what it looks like mounted and lit up.

Here's a shot with the HDD cage and HDDs mounted.

Cables tucked in:

Cards added in:

Took a break for awhile.
Then went back and installed drivers for everything. Had a snag with the
Audigy 2 ZS sound card. So I removed it.

Pics of the 1TB space for Recording TV. I also have another 1.5TB formating at home right now for General HD-DVD storage.

Final pics of the build.

Outstanding items:
Either update the video card driver or find the proper DVD decoder that works on Vista MCE because HD playback on the 2560 x 1600 stutters.

Current Specs:
A8N-SLI Deluxe s939 mobo.
AMD FX-55 (4400 dualy due Wed.)
BFG 8600GTS
Corsair 3200 (1)GB Platinum.
Dvico Fushion HD USB Tuner.
Hauppauge HVR 1600 tuner.
Hauppauge USB 2 PVR tuner.
(2) Samsung 500GB
(2) Seagate 750GB
(1) WD 36GB Raptor
SilverStone CW-01-B case with 2 Antec Green LED 80mm Tri Cool fans.
Thermatake Golden Orb (came with mobo).
Zalman Northbridge cooler ZM-NBF47
Antec 550 PSU (Thanks Glen!)
Xbox HD-DVD player.

Links to Gallery where you might see 1 or 2 extra pictures but most of them are here.
http://www.classifiedfotos.com/files/TMC/VMCE/pl_thumbs/

 

[six_storm]

Wow, that is a very nice setup! I like the Silverstone case too. How are your temps regarding all your harddrives being together like that?

 

[JonDoms]

Thanks!
You know I tried to pull the temps for the HDD with Speedfan in Vista but it didn't see any. Must be because I was using the silicon image raid for most of the HDDs.
I have to go back into the bios to ensure that the SMART is enabled there also.
As for proc it was around 39C but with the silent fans on the Zalman 7v bus and the CPU fan unregulated on the motherboard. So noise was there is a slight hum sitting 5 feet away without HDTV playing. With the HDTV playing it's inaudible.

My favorite part of the build is the (2) 80 mm Antec Tri Cool Green LED fans blowing heat out of the case under the HDD cage. If I was sitting close to my desk I use it to warm my toes.

 

[six_storm]

Wish I had the extra cash to build a HTPC, this thread is making me jealous. Guess that will be my next PC project once I can get my CCNA completed.

 

[BX_TECH_GOD]

WOW!! Very nice. I appreciate you taking the time to share this with us. Enjoy. Can you elaborate the issue you was having with the sound card?

 

[Reaper]

I'm working on a HTPC with very similar parts, same case, same heatsink, couple less drives, what kind of dB are coming out of the case? I mainly am curious as to how loud the Orb is

 

[JonDoms]

WOW!! Very nice. I appreciate you taking the time to share this with us. Enjoy. Can you elaborate the issue you was having with the sound card?

Thanks! This parts for this HTPC has gone through a lot of different builds.
Hopefully this will be the final one.

Ehh I think I had a USB PCI adapter card touching the backside of the sound card. Either that or the drivers were giving me crap. None the less I BSOD twice after bootup and decided it was not worth my time to mess with the Audigy 2zs in this case. I might try again some other time after I image the OS drive.

I'm working on a HTPC with very similar parts, same case, same heatsink, couple less drives, what kind of dB are coming out of the case? I mainly am curious as to how loud the Orb is

This case is awesome! Although you will need a fairly long size 1 philips screw driver to get the HDD cage out and mount fans underneath them. I have the Antec Tri Cool LED on Mediums and those are inaudible from the couch 6 feet away.
The loudest thing upon bootup is the 8600GTS fan whining away. But once the drivers kick in and the card spins slower the next loudest thing is the Orb. In the middle of the night if I am transferring files the orb is audible. When watching ANY show or movie it's not an issue being soo low to the ground on carpet. You might get a Zalman fan mate 2 and regulate it to your liking as I plan on doing once I get time to make a trip to the local puter store.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118217

Does anyone else know of a PCI bracket version of this like the Tuniq has?

Edit found it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811992003

 

[JonDoms]

The previous version of my Vista Media Center (clicky here for link) had some hiccups.
My OC'd AMD 4400 would hiccup during 2 HDTV recording + 1 SDTV recording and trying to playback on of the HDTV.
This was no good.

Time to upgrade!

As usual you can view all the pics here in FULL HIGH RES glory!:
Clicky HERE
& AND & AND &
Clicking on these pics below will get you the full blown res!

First I took home my rig I built for work and decided to use the mobo and proc.
Add in some new parts and and some old parts we get this:





I decided to use 3 WD500GB drives in RAID 5 on my Highpoint Rocket Raid PCI-E x1 card.
Here's the drives temporarily while I reload the OS:





New memory was also needed as I will be OCing my rig:





I hooked everything up on my desk to test the hardware and load the OS.





It's Alive!!





I emptied out my old stuff in the HTPC case and taped down some cables a la ripoff Nick style!





The next couple of shots are of Mobo installed,
Harddrive area fans installed, &
Harddrive cage area installed.
I like to use 1 dedicated OS drive and the 3 WD 500GB drives in RAID5 as storage.
RAID 5 because losing shows is GF unacceptable.









The rear of the case:





And reverse shot of everything tucked in:



At this point the specs are:

• 
  Silverstone CW01-B
  Gigabyte P965-DS3
  C2D6400
  Zalman CNPS 8700 LED
  BFG 8600GTS
  Hauppauge HVR1600 PCI @ 33mhz
  ATI HDTV Blunder .. I mean Wonder PCI @ 33mhz
  Hauppauge USB2 PVR
  Highpoint RocketRAID 2300
  Antec Neo-HE 550Watt
  Some 2 port IEEE1394 card with 1 internal header
  Seagate 80GB single platter HDD
  (3) WD500AAKS 500GB HDD
  (2) Antec Tri-Cool 80mm Green LED
  Antec VCOOL

After about 1 week of running this I had some tuner problems with my ATI HDTV blunder and Hauppauge USB2 PVR.
Sooo I remembered that my 1600 was a dual hybrid tuner.
After doing some thinking last night I wanted to redo my tuner setup and motherboard expansion card layout.
Off to Fry's I went todat after work!


This is what I came home with:






The insides before I go to work:




All setup to do some work!!
Check out the brightness!






I decided to use the full length of the Antec VCool.




Here it is all laid out:
From Left to right:

• 
  - IEEE card (you can barely see this)
  - Antec VCool (dual slots)
  - Hauppauge HVR 1800 utilizing PCI-E @ 100mhz.
  - Highpoint RocketRAID 2300
  - BFG 8600GTS
  - Hauppauge HVR 1800 utilizing PCI-E @ 100mhz.

Now I can record (2) HDTV channels & (2) SDTV channels & watch 1 of these recordings at the same time!

Current Running Specs:

• 
  - Silverstone CW01-B
  - Gigabyte P965-DS3
  - C2D6400
  - Zalman CNPS 8700 LED
  - Some 2 port IEEE1394 card with 1 internal header
  - Antec VCool
  - Hauppauge HVR 1800 utilizing PCI-E @ 100mhz.
  - Highpoint RocketRAID 2300
  - BFG 8600GTS
  - Hauppauge HVR 1800 utilizing PCI-E @ 100mhz.
  - Antec Neo-HE 550Watt
  - Seagate 80GB single platter HDD
  - (3) WD500AAKS 500GB HDD
  - (2) Antec Tri-Cool 80mm Green LED

I also have pics of my FreeBSD RAID server Rev1 and I redid it over the weekend and took some pics tonight of the revision.
Look for pics of this tomorrow.

I also redid my work rig and have final pics of this.
Probably post this Saturday.

And last but not least I built my mATX desktop rig.
I'll post these up on Sunday maybe.

Check out my clan's forums for the other build logs.
https://www.mowersclan.com/forum/index.php

 

[reswob]

TMC represent.

 

[Terry Olaes]

Neato burrito!

 

[BX_TECH_GOD]

all I can say is WOW!! Very good post and presentation indeed!!