How To: Build Your Own HTPC

Despite Singapore being called a geek central by CNNGo, it’s been a pretty frustrating experience trying to build a HTPC here due to the lack of demand. Why so? Beats me, but there’s one thing in common I notice among Singaporean homes(or at least the ones I visit), is the lack of big screen TVs. I’m not going to tread into everyone’s definition of big or small TVs but you know what I mean.

Chapter 1: Choosing my hardware

Oh boy, this part is probably the most important of all. If you ain’t no adventurer, don’t even bother looking for individual hardware parts. Trust me, it’s gonna be quite a roller coaster ride if you do not research enough. Remember the parts I mentioned here are selected based on what I already have in my living room. So be prepared to do some heavy reading if you are serious about it, otherwise save the hassle and go for ready made solutions like A.C.Ryan Playon devices or Zotac Zbox. I personally owned an older version of Playon device and it is utter rubbish imo but hey I’m quite a techie geek here so don’t go sending me lawyer letters now. Here are my choice of hardware parts:

• Motherboard – Asus AT5IONT-I Mini ITX Non Deluxe version
• Casing – Lian Li PCQ09 Black
• Harddisk – OWC 40GB Extreme Pro SSD
• RAM – 2 x 2GB Kingston DDR3 1333Mhz
• Ext. Harddisk – 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green with Vantec Nexstar USB 3.0 Dock
• Keyboard + Mouse – Logitech Dinovo Edge
• Extra Fan – Scythe S-Flex 120mm 1200rpm fan

Chapter 2: Why these hardware?

Motherboard: I chose the Asus AT5IONT-I simply because it’s the fastest mini-itx form factor motherboard with integrated CPU and GPU. The processor is an Intel Atom D525, a 1.8GHz dual core processor(the fastest atom as of writing) and the GPU is a Nvidia ION2(GTX218) equivalent to the specs of a 9500GT. With this kind of specs, there shouldn’t be any problem running 1080p MKV movies on it.

Casing: I wanted something decent to match the rest of my devices and the Lian Li PCQ09 fits my requirements perfectly immediately after spotting it and reading through a review on it. I have high expectations for Lian Li casings as I have set up a few before for friends but the PCQ09 falls a tad short on quality with some rough edges but I’m just nitpicking. It is small, horizontal and sleek looking not forgetting it also has 2 front USB 3.0 ports in front and a 120W brick power supply. There’s also a low powered silent 80mm fan to draw out some heat from the casing.

Harddisk: I initially wanted to get an Cosair F40 SSD but after reading through StorageReview.com leaderboard, its review and checking out the price on macsales.com(official site for OWC), I’m surprised to find the OWC 40GB Extreme Pro actually cost less than the Cosair F40 even after shipping included. Although you might argue there’s no warranty, it’s actually not true as they do offer 3 years international warranty but the downside is you have to send it back to them in USA, seriously what are the chances…

RAM: The ram compatibility with this motherboard is quite tricky as reported across a few forums and reviews but I managed to get the system booted up using Kingston DDR3 with KTC ram chips. Ran memtest86+ for couple of passes without problems. I did not quite follow the QVL list provided by Asus but if you are buying this motherboard be sure to check it out.

Ext. Harddisk: I don’t need the fastest drive for storing and watching my movies so I chose the Caviar Green, which supposedly is rated at 5400rpm and runs cooler with less power. Perfect for living room environment. Noise wise it as quiet as any drive I have heard. I chose WD simply because of their reliability, I had a lot of bad experiences with Seagate and Samsung. I really don’t mind losing movies but I totally hate the hassle of sending in the drives for RMA. For the dock, I was looking for Astone DOC-130 but it ran out of stock everywhere so I ended up getting the Vantec Nexstar, nothing much to complain about since I got it at the same price but if you watch a lot of movies in the dark, the Vantec dock can be a bit distracting with it’s huge power LED lights. I will probably rip it apart and disconnect the LEDs some day but right now I’m turning it sideways.

Keyboard + Mouse: I got a refurbished Logitech Dinovo Edge off eBay for a decent price. It’s quite an expensive keyboard to purchase it brand new, a whopping S$340 if you can afford it. The one I got works fine, Logitech make fine wireless keyboards and this one comes with an integrated mouse touchpad on it.

Extra Fan: The Asus AT5IONT-I has a huge passive heatsink but apparently it is not quite enough to cool the CPU based on what I see on the temperatures. Without a fan, it can go around 50+ degrees on idle and 60+ on load. That is a bit worrying so I slapped on a 120mm Scythe silent fan and the temps drop a good 10 degrees on idle, haven’t tested full load with the 120mm fan yet but I will update when I done that.

Update: Watching movies/animes for a few hours and the CPU and GPU temps stay around 45 degrees but XBMC’s actually uses DXVA GPU acceleration and the CPU usage doesn’t go above 10%.

Chapter 3: Putting it all together.

After deciding on the hardware, there isn’t much to talk about other than assembling them altogether and booting it up for the 1st time. The only problem I had with this casing was adding the 120mm Scythe fan. I thought the fan height would fit into the casing but I was so wrong. I only manage to screw on the top cover after using some force, I’m hoping it doesn’t crush the processor over time. Also the metallic top cover is so close to touching the fan’s motor that if dust were to accumulate there, I’m praying it won’t jam up or damage the fan. I might change to a low profile fan in the future e.g. Scythe Slip Stream Slim but by doing that I will lose around 20CFM worth of air circulation.

Chapter 4: Choosing your software.

The choice of my OS is Windows 7 32bit. This processor is capable of running 64bit windows but since XBMC(the media center software which I will explain later) runs on 32bit, it offers no extra benefit at the moment. And if you are thinking my setup is limited to 3GB with 32 bit OS, there’s a nifty hack that enables 4GB ram or more on 32bit OS. I did ran into some issues when I tried to play some huge 14GB 1080p resolution MKVs initially, I have always installed CCCP with CoreAVC to ensure my GPU is crunching out the video and not just the CPU alone. Apparently it is a bad idea to do that on an Intel Atom setup. CoreAVC utilizes CUDA on my setup but it turns out it still uses processing power from the CPU for memory copy as highlighted in this thread:

“The CoreCodec CoreAVC codec supports GPU hardware acceleration, but it uses the NVIDIA CUDA platform for mathematical processing. The CUDA decoded content needs to be copied to GPU memory, resulting in higher CPU utilization”

With this problem hanging around, I get a lot of video and audio stutters and it nearly got me thinking if the motherboard was faulty or just not powerful enough to play 1080p videos smoothly. After reading through this separate article that reviews and tested software players on the same motherboard, I’m guessing it might be CCCP filters that didn’t use GPU hardware or that CoreAVC still require a powerful processor. I went on to install the standalone MPC-HC and XBMC as suggested in the article and it worked perfectly.

If you haven’t used XBMC before, this is probably the first and only media player you will want to install in your HTPC. There are a few reasons why I choose XBMC:

• DXVA 2.0 Hardware Acceleration – Similarly to CUDA, CoreCodec explains the key differences very well here. DXVA2 works well with my setup and plays 1080p content very smoothly.
• Ability to pass AC3/DTS signals through HDMI – This is important for my setup as I connect my HTPC through HDMI to my A/V receiver. It works perfectly the way I wanted.
• Multiple codecs - XBMC can support any kind of video formats you throw at it. I play a lot of MKVs and FLAC audio works on it as well.
• Clean simple interface – The default interface is user-friendly and easy to navigate. Organizing media is a breeze as well, no steep learning curve. There are tonnes of themes to choose around if you get bored of the default one after some time.
• Big open source community – With a huge community supporting and developing XBMC, there’s little worry on the stability and new features are always implemented to ensure the software is keeping up with the latest technologies.
• It’s 100% FREE!

Chapter 5: Sit back & enjoy!

Once you completed your setup and tested it thoroughly, it’s time to sit back and enjoy some high quality movies on your HTPC! Don’t forget the popcorn!

If you have any queries on my setup or if you run into any troubles with your HTPC, do contact me at my email laurent [at] howorks [dot] com and I will try my best to assist you.