Building a Media Center

[mknabster]

I'm going to be doing some research over the next few weeks to build myself a media center tower that i would leave hooked up to my TV. Now i know what i want to have in terms of performance, but i'm in need of advice for graphics. Now when i'm at school, this would be hooked into a 36in flat tube TV, and at home a 42in LCD TV. So i would need to have an HDMI hookup for the flat screen, and RGB connectors for the tube. I don't want to have to worry about getting a separate speaker set for the system, so it being able to use the TVs speakers is a must. So what kind of GPU should i be looking for, and since there probably aren't any RGB cards out there, are there converters from HDMI? The tube does have an S-video input on it, so that might help. I guess it might help to say what the tower would probably have in terms of CPU and memory, so it'll have a Core2Duo and 4GBs RAM. I'm not sure yet what i'll have for a hard drive, but i will have an external plugged in via eSATA.

[glc]

A Sandy Bridge processor with onboard Intel 3000 graphics should suffice.

Newegg.com - Intel Core i3-2105 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I32105

Newegg.com - ASUS P8Z68-M Pro LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

[mknabster]

Ok, how would i plug the audio into a tube TV?

[David M]

If you are going to be moving this between school and home then I would get a mini-ITX form factor and not a full tower. This is the same size as Shuttle computers. Computers that play media do not need as much graphics and CPU power as a gaming computer. You could also get a HTPC case and save yourself the weight and volume of a tower case.

[glc]

If the TV doesn't have HDMI, you would have to use a cable from the onboard audio "line out" to the audio input of the TV.

Mini-ITX board:

Newegg.com - ASUS P8H61-I (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

[mknabster]

Even though I do like the portability of a mini-tower, I still think I would rather get a full one, and have the option of expanding it later one if I want to use it for more than media. This way, I can put a few drives in there for storage, rather than one huge one.

[glc]

Then the micro-ATX board would be fine, in your choice of case.

[mknabster]

Well, I ended up getting this tower for use as my media center:

Dell Auction - DELL PRECISION WST3400, CORE 2 QUAD (Q9550) 2.83 GHz, 8 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD,DVDRWNVIDIA QUADRO FX1700 (512 MB), 32-BIT WINDOWS VISTA BUSINESS

Let me know what you guys think

[David M]

How well is it working out for you? That's the bottom line.

[mknabster]

Oh I haven't gotten it yet. I won the bid, and it should be shipping here in the coming week. So once i have it up and running, i'll report back on it. But it has a GPU with an S-video so i can hook it up to my tube, so i'm happy about that.

[mknabster]

Well Fed-ex dropped it off today, and man is this thing heavy. It weighs in at 37 lbs. But i'll be installing Windows 7 in a few days when i get some free time. Here's the specs of the machine:

Core 2 Quad 2.83Ghz Yorkfield
8GB 800Mhz DDR2 RAM
Nvidia Quadro FX1700
2 73GB 15,000rpm SCSI drives
with a SCSI PCI-e x8 controller
16x DVD-RW drive

I hooked it up to my TV via s-video with analog audio, and it works very nicely. The only thing that i noticed, that my other computer didn't do, was that the screen seems a little tilted on the tube, like there are gray sections on the top and side. Anyone know of a way to fix this?

Also, i have a question about the SCSI controller, at least i think that's what it is. To describe it, it looks like a SATA connection, but it has a special connector in which there's a sort-of block in between the power and connector part of the connection, if that make sense. I can take a picture if needed. My plan was to use the drive that came with it and get a 2TB to put in for my media. Now since i have this controller in here hooked up to 2 HDDs, i'm wondering if i should keep both, or maybe just one, and put the 2 TB in one of the 3.5in bays up by the DVD drive, which the manual says i can do.

If this is too vague of an explanation let me know, but what are your thoughts?

[mknabster]

Oh it's supposedly not a SCSI controller but an SAS RAID controller.

[mknabster]

Oh and here's the link to this controller:

DELL SAS6/iR Integrated SAS Controller Card for Dell Precision Workstation R5500 : Computer Components | Dell

[MaxRat]

go into the video card setting and see if it has Underscan... you set that to fit the screen...

Some drivers will do it automatically... I know both nvidia and ATI have for me and our main TV is a real old Pioneer RPTV from 1999... I use S-video and set the max resolution in Win7 and its perfect...

[mknabster]

Originally Posted by MaxRat go into the video card setting and see if it has Underscan... you set that to fit the screen... Some drivers will do it automatically... I know both nvidia and ATI have for me and our main TV is a real old Pioneer RPTV from 1999... I use S-video and set the max resolution in Win7 and its perfect...

I'm glad i'm not the only one who has the same goal in mind to use our old tube TVs. I do try to search for an over or underscan feature in my nVidia driver, and I can't find it anywhere. I did Google it and Nvidia recommended this TV tool, but i really can't see any of the settings on my TV, but it really doesn't look like it does much.

[MaxRat]

in the Nvidia drivers it is there... it is in the advance drivers settings...

I had to click it to force detection and then the setting popped up... it is burried in an option and not very out in the open...

Win7 works much better for this than any other and installing the drivers and setting the Max resolution in the properties and it usually pans the screen very close...

ATI seems to be perfect and I use them in all my HTPC builds because the colors are more vibrant

[mknabster]

Thanks for that tip MaxRat, I was able to find those advanced settings. I was able to get it to fir the screen, and everything looks great now. Thanks