blurpenguin

HTPC you say... Home Theatre PC, or more a less a computer built to hold all the media/video/photo/music files which i have, so the entire family has access to it.
Of course the Home Theatre part... where u hook it to a TV/LCD screen, and sound to a nice set of speakers... for some home entertainment...

heh... so here is my worklog/ picturelog of my project which began early this year...

Please bear with the grainy pictures... i did most of the installation in the middle of the night...


First of, the processor - the heart of the machine, so to say... Thankfully some bloke was upgrading and i got this decent Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 @2.53Ghz for RM280, 2nd hand. This is almost overkill for running the media centre, but who knows... the extra power will be there if you need it later...


It is actually my first time really getting my hands down and dirty at installing/building a computer myself... most of the time, i just customize and let the shop people assemble it.

I didn't really had any proper place to fix this, and just used my desk to prop all the stuff... heh! didn't even ground my self properly, but i did take some precautions like touching my other computer metal case prior to handling the motherboard... (to get rid of static)


Inserting the chip! I really looked at the manual a couple of times just to make sure I was doing the right thing... heh... 1st time mah... but it was straight forward lah... almost impossible to get wrong.


Next was to apply some thermal grease and installing the cooler fan. Here I again referred to some online guide to apply the correct amount of grease. (the grease is to maximise the heat transfer from the chip to the cooler)


Whilst shopping for a decent computer case to be my media centre, i came across this obscure shop selling some old stock of Lian-Li PC-V850 case!


It was a steal at RM150. Normally Lian-Li full aluminium casings are sold at a premium side... but somehow i think the shop was trying to get rid of old stock, thus the rock bottom price.


You have to remove the drive cage, to install the DVD/rw (LG-RM75), i also took the opportunity to replace the floppy adapter with a plain bezel i had (from my other Lian-Li case)


Here, it is installed back with no ugly floppy adapters...


The Green Drive... heh... marketing! anyways... it's a 1Tb WD Harddisk (RM345) for my rapidly growing accumulation of HD video files.


The case has 2 HD drive cages at the sides... U screw in some studs in the drive, slide them in this cages... and lock them... DONE! simple and easy. Only when u need to increase to 3hd's is when u need to think further...


Motherboard installation: first of it to screw in the standoffs... points where the motherboard will be placed...


Then place in the mobo... with the back plate too.. tighten! & we are almost done...


I bought some decent RAMs, Kingston KHX6400LLK2 44412 (2x2Gb) for RM240 - it came with some cool aluminium heat spreaders attached to them... i still prefer the corsairs with extended fins... but they were more expensive...


Next up... fixing all the case connectors to the mobo, and preparing the space for the Power Supply.... (note: yeah the PSU is located in the front of the case)


U have to attach the plate to the PSU, in order to fix it in the slot allocated for it in the case... special design... (I bought this PSU 2nd hand... a Enermax Liberty 500W for RM120)


Here it is, fixed in the case... next up will be all the other wiring connections...


I wasnt very good in making it all neat and tidy... but i mostly crammed all the excess wiring under the DVD/RW... allowing lots of air-space.


I fitted in the primary HD at the back (a smaller 160Gb hd as a primary OS disk) and it's about complete!


Lastly i fixed in a wireless card, and found this keyboard to complement the system... (card-RM100, keyboard-RM70)


The keyboard was a plesant surprise... the pointer needs getting used to... but overall a decent compromise...

Hannah Celebrated her birthday... just before Chinese New Year! after a horrible 6 hour journey back to penang...

WHOA!... she's 6 going to 7... gosh... time has certainly passed by at a supersonic speed... soon she will be in school... then "dread" brrr....

the year too certainly flashed past very fast... within moments the first month of the year is over... and this is my very first post of the year... talk about total change of free time...

after all the busy shifting back to KL from kuantan, starting work again in Church... and settling back into faster paced city life... whoa... time is moving fast.

Hannah of course is still oblivious... totally enjoying her time back in Tadika Suria... and thankfully has regained her appetite and eats like before... and has gained back her lost weight...

Chinese New Year this round too was a quiet affair... since my parents weren't around... heh... sendiri went galavanting in Europe during the holidays... so CNY was spent totally in Penang this year...