OK i am going to be doing a Media PC or home theater PC as one of my now 3 projects going on. I was inspired by Zaps media pc and a few other projects going on at bit-tech... I will be doing a lot of electrical mods, and may need some help on a few The components i will use are as follows: GigaByte GA-7N400-L (had it lyin around, nice looking mobo) 512MB pc2700 RAM AMD Athlon xp 1700+ Tbred core ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro 1U Rackmount 300w PSU 4x DVD (more on this a bit down) To show where its home will be i have a few pics: I will be putting it in that wide cubby above the TV The stereo will go in the entertainment center and the speakers around it (they look kinda smaller in the pic, but they are either 3.5 ft or 4 ft tall, and double sided) actual stereo components The only live pic i have right now is the motherboard, but expect more to come: This case will be slightly different from some HTPC cases.... for one, i am going to try to make it about 3.5" tall at most.... i am going to slim up the AIW by using this riser card: this will put the AIW over my excess PCI slots, i will then do a duct mod to help give it proper cooling I will raise the motherboard about 1" off the floor of the PC and house the HDD in there and probably some of the DVD. The DVD: quite a rare item and much looked for: an Apple iMac/Cube 4x SLIM slot load 4x DVD Drive with an IDE adapter to it... The Case: I will be building the case myself out of aluminum.... my brother has a lot that i will ask to borrow, if not i will buy some... the case will be in 3 pieces all together... the dimensions will be about 14" wide 12-14" Long 3-3.5" Tall.... but more on this later For control i will have lots of wireless devices: The ATI Remote: seen here This will be able to control various things and i will house the IR receiver on the front panel. The IOGear RF Mouse: This is quite an odd item... used for office presentations and such and is a handheld RF mouse that has enough options for me to control everything a normal mouse can besides gaming (its possible, butd be hard as hell) but i wont be gaming on this anyways, and if i did i would just plug in a normal mouse you can see it here and it will serve as sort of a remote.... you can see the IR receiver in this pic i will also house that in the front panel of the case.... along with a wireless keyboard receiver but am undecided on which wireless keyboard to get.... any ideas??? I will have a switch for having the IOGear mouse and a USB port on the front that i can plug in a normal mouse to. The motherboard has 4 onboard USB's and 2 expansions... so i dont necesarily need to do this, but i think if i have 2 mice in at the same time... will there be IRQ or compatability conflicts??? I am going to be using a 1U 300w Rackmount PSU this will be mounted vertically alongside the motherboard... only about another 1.5 inches I am undecided on any LCD's i will be using on this project... if any. None seem to fit my wants... and trust me i have searched every freaking LCD site and seen every graphic, character, color, and touchscreen you can imagine... however if oyu have any suggestions feel free, but you have to keep the costs down. In Nexxo's Metaversa he uses "tenderfeet" on his fans to creat a turbine look.... i am thinking about using them for their actual purpose.... i thought the small silver ones looked pretty nice to use as feet, i will then use 2 CC's and create a "UFO" Glow with them... i am not sure if what else is going on the front panel however i still have one complete side free (i think) and im still working out posibilities well that is about all for now, i will be doing a few things on it soon and expect lots of pictures soon.... comments, ideas, or whatever is welcome
You have a pretty sweet setup already, I see, but it's going to be complete with this HTPC. Have you thought about design yet? (Have you e.g. made a 3D model of it?). Do you have any plans for hardware mods and relocated connectors?
thanks... im working on a 3d model... it will be in my next update, but im not a genius with that program yet so... might not turn out that great... as for hardware mods... yeah i will relocate lots of connectors.. similar to this off zaps media PC: i will be relocating lots of USB's and connecting them to devices in teh computer such as the remotes, keyboard, etc. i may take some of the ports from the AIW and relocate them to the front but im not sure i need any of them in the front right now... and as time goes on i will get more ideas, find new things, etc.... its still in its beginning stages...
ok a quick update..... i went on sketchup and did a BASIC layout for where everything is gunna go... this is the 2 main pieces of the case... i will be using .09" thick aluminum and one sheet for each piece... i will bend it using a 30" bending brake the piece on the right will be the front/top piece that will slide out and be connected using thumbscrews the front of the case definately isnt final yet... but thats the basic idea i have so far.... the center thing is obviously the slot for the DVD, above it is the power and reset switch... the power i think will be a vandal resistant switch and the reset will be this or something similar... im also ordering some other things from allelectronics the 6 circles with a square aorund it, then the 3 other circles is where all the IR receivers will be... im not exactly sure how im going to do this i might just take the IR and put it out the case or take some tinted plexi and make a square that has all of them in it.... the 3 larger circles outside the square are the switches.... one proposed for switching to empty USB or to the RF Mouse/Laser im thinking of using a rotary switch along with this knob the square on the right is where a VFD/LCD would go if i decide to get one.... im starting to decide against it because of the high cost/benefit ratio i think it owuld have (though it would look sweet ) and if i dont get one... i need to think of something that would fill up this hole.... also on the vandal switch im thinkin of makin my own because all of the places im ordering from dont have em and im not sure if i wanna pay that much plus shipping for a switch... this shows the basic layout the case is going to be in... the red box is the PSU and the brown is the motherboard.... you can see it raised up off the floor of the case.... it will be an inch off so i can fit the HDD under there and however much of the slot DVD i feel i should if your wondering... where is the piece that goes in the back of the case??? well ill tell you i am going to use bit-tech's own mnpctech's modders mesh (rounded, not honeycomb) and have that be the back panel of the case.... i am doing this because this will provide great ventilation for the ductmods and let the case not have a vacuum to it... or if it does, it will just collect air from that... though i think it might get pretty dusty in there after awhile... dont you??? ahh well
As for your 2 mice conflicting, this wont happen. I had a trackball (PS/2) and a optical rodent (USB) plugged into the same machine for a long time (1 for games, 1 for everything else) and never ran into any snags.
Niiice. For the dust issue, just filter your intakes if you can and it should cut down internal dust build up. I've been thinking about using speaker cloth over my modder's mesh for this but I guess yours is on your outlet. Not sure from the pics though. Looking good, mind (and I love the setup it's going into).
Looks very promising there, keep us updated on the progress. I'm envious of your nice entertainment center setup as well. As said above it should not be a problem, I setup a wireless Gyro mouse and keyboard for a lady at work and she continued to use her PS/2 mouse at the same time, both work without a hitch so yours should be fine as well (that Gyro mouse is pretty freaking sweet as well).
We have the same TV! Sony 48V90? Or do you have one of the larger models? Do they make larger Riser cards so that you could fit a PCI card in there too? Just wondering how/if you're planning on putting card for cable in? ( or does the AIW do that? )
Could you please host those images on your own place? I'm sure the owners of the server you're "ripping" those images from aren't quite happy with the fact that you use their bandwidth Otherwise: everything lookin' good 'n' thight
one thing you may want to consider, 300 1U PSU's are LOUD. Mine has two fans in it and is by far the loudest thing in one of my systems.
im confused.... wha?? lol wow thats something i wasnt aware of... i already bought the PSU if it is loud i will try my best to quiet it up... cuz i dont want this to be too loud.... any links???
STellY, several of the images you have posted are hosted on other websites e.g. one is from Zapwizards site. This is called Bandwidth Stealing as everytime someone views this page it uses (in this case) Zapwizards bandwidth (which he has to pay for). 1) Please download those images and host them yourself or use uploadit.org or other free image host. I'll check back and will be deleting any images that are still stealing bandwidth. 2) In accordance with forum rules this doesn't qualify as a Project Log yet so I am moving it to modding. It was left this long in the hope that some actual modding work would be posted. To quote the 'Read BEFORE posting' sticky: When you fix the pics and have the project underway email me and I'll move it back to the logs. Thank you
ahh ok... will change the pics lol... no pics of modding yet but i bought a few of the things and once i get the aluminum i will start... thanks
np STellY. Your designs look pretty cool. I'm sure there's a lot of members here keen to see how they turn out
That would be a great idea, I made my own for nothing and all I used was a small piece of plexi, an old momentary switch, a steel ring from a dismantled hard drive, and the head of a tack to make my power button. I forgot where I saw the guide I used to make it, I could swear it was here but I looked and could not find it. Also here is a link to that Gyro mouse, it is expensive ($100 with a wireless small keyboard, should be able to find them cheaper somewhere else though as we got them for $89) but it has a 25FT range and you can move the mouse in the air: http://www.wirelesspointers.com/
That's some cool sh*t STellY. Wish I had the expertise to do something like that myself. Keep the pics coming. It 's gonna be awesome!
yes they make a lot of PCI riser cards.... however the AIW has a built in TV Tuner card and will do all i want... and i will have to research more on that to figure out all i want.... and thanks TITAN... i just hope i can get the case underway soon....
QUESTION: ok well i was wondering... with the AIW 9600 Pro ... (OOH its on sale too ) can you hook it up to your TV, etc. and also your monitor and have that be able to use windows with the comp screen while watching TV through the card and if so with how good will the performance be???
I can do this with my GF4 and I think that the 9600 has slightly better performance. So you should be good. I can actually record ( though I have a seperate PVR card for that ) live TV while doing things on my regular monitor. I don't think you'll have a problem.
