The Case, For A Case..... HTPC Case That Is

Lets start here; the silver version of my main HTPC's case. Why the silver version, vs. the black that I actually own? It's easier for you to see what I'm talking about. It's very high end, but not well known. The style and execution completely mimics that of top notch audio gear. Machined, billet aluminum, and heavy duty. Really nice! What's the problem?

Notice anything about it.... other than the really nice finish? Notice the almost complete lack of ventilation!?! Fine for my old machine based on AMD's first generation APU. The Zacate core machine had a TDP of 18w. My replacement is from the Kavari generation and the draw is 45w. It's a whole lot more powerful, but that's still quite a bit more heat to get rid of! The interior of the D.Vine5 is large, but it doesn't flow much air. You can barely see the vents under the drive cage for intake and the exhaust are 2 60mm just above the I/O shield. Can you say "high-pitch whine"? Not very good situation. Oh yeah, the case only takes an SFX power supply! There's some nice ones out there now, but they are pricey!

So, the whole time that the build finishing and doing my OS load, I'm nervously watching the processor temps on Piriform's Speccy utility. .....and it's not looking very good. We're talking 78 to 80+ degrees. That Celsius!!! I try reapplying thermal grease, and even changing heatsink/fan. It's not getting much better.... a little bit, but not much. At this point, I'm trying everything from reading the forums, seeing about a returning of the APU to the seller and  different cases. 

In the end, it was more than one thing and a bit of luck. After reading a lot of forum traffic, I came across some discussing the fact that AMD's APUs often gave erroneous reading to monitoring utilities like Speccy, CPUID, etc. And that you need to use AMD's own software such as their Vision Engine Control to get a fully accurate readings, plus these APU can and often did have momentary spikes where the temps would jump from the 50s (c) to over 80, then back down seemingly at random. This and good old fashion experience showed me that there wasn't anything really wrong. ??? What I found was that even when the temps were showing to be very high (over 80c), I could hold my hand over the CPU fan and the air was cool, plus I could actually put my fingers on the heatsink which was only warm. 

Of course, paranoid me, what's my other reaction? Another case! OK, there have always some issues with the D.Vine case that have irritated me. So, I found this nMedia 7000b on Craigs List (more on this later) for $40. Note the 2 USBs on the front. Can't tell from this image, but that display actually connects to the motherboard and shows stuff! The guy also included his IR receiver as well. Now I have to find drivers for it. Funny story about this case. Like I said; I saw it on CL, but it was in WACO!!! That's an hour and a half south of here, but I contacted the guy anyway. Turns out that he needed the money quickly and was willing to drive it up here if I paid for the gas. I figure getting it immediately and not having to go get it was worth the $10 extra.. making the total $50.

Here's the main reason I switched though. See all the ventilation? And the two big (120mm) fans? And the full-sized power supply opening (ATX)? WooHoo!!! Can you say Goodbye to the molex-8pin EPS adapter!?! However; I can't emphasize enough..... it's all about the air-flow. How do all these extra features make their way into a case and not only is it NOT bigger, it's actually smaller? It only takes a micro-ATX or smaller MB, which conveniently I happen to have. There's also virtually no wasted space in it..... at all. I love efficiency! I sure feel a lot better now that I know that my processor isn't about to melt, plus it's be a lot easier to keep it cool.
 

The "How" and "Why" of Upgrading My HTPCs

There's a price to be paid; both literally and figuratively, to having lots of computers! It's not a static hobby! There's are constant changes which is both the fun and the frustration of it. Now that my workstation, all of the laptops and the server are either in "good shape" or at least "in process", what about everything else..... my non-personal PCs?

Let's look at what's out there. Other than the server, there are 3 HTPCs and their job is pretty much to run Kodi and to server as the front-end to our media which will reside on the replacement server (aka Globemaster). It's actually a bigger job than it appears since all of our TVs are now at least HD with one that's 4K spec. Pushing pixels to those displays is not nearly as easy of a task at what it used to be! So, let's take a look at the players involved.

 

The whole situation is kind of "a house of cards" really so lets start with the simplest situation. Part of my main A/V system in the upstairs media/game room is the "Hawkeye" HTPC. It's a Asus E350M1-Pro motherboard living inside of an Ahanix D-Vine5 case. That board was AMD's first generation of APUs which combined an actual GPU inside the same die as a CPU. As you can surmise from the bare heat sink w/o fan, it's not very powerful. However, it does the job. If you don't mind the 3 minute boot (on SSD.....ouch) and the 1080p limitation (it's connected to the 55", 4K Sony), then you're good. However, if you compare what those first gen "Llano" chips can do vs. the current ones, it's not pretty. 

The reason all this happened in the first place was that, recently, while looking around at other things, I came across this: a Gigabyte F2A78M-HD2. That's an A78 chipset board with a FM2+ socket capable of taking AMD's then new for 2014 "Kavari" series of APUs. These chips 4 generations down the road from my old one, are built on a 28nm process with a 45w TDP. It was also $20! So, after a month of patient watching and waiting, I was able to nail down an A8-7600 processor for $55. What's so special about the this little "Kavari" chip? Here's the thing. This particular SKU can not only be run at the designed 65w TDP, but also at a 45w low power setting. It has 10 total cores, allocating 4 to the CPU and 6 to the R7 GPU giving it plenty of power. Enough so that AMD advertises as capable of driving 4K specs, but in reality their goal is the HD one, which is 1080p at 30fps while gaming with challenging titles. Given that it's going to be an HTPC, that's more than enough. Warts? I wish it had 4 instead of 2 RAM sockets, and it lacks an optical digital out for sound. I use that to send the audio to my home theater receiver for much cleaner decoding, but hey; I can spring for an stand-alone soundcard for that!

 

What about this? I have 2 other TVs in the house: one in the downstairs living room and one in our bedroom. Our TV watching habits are basically spit between, cable TV, movie watching (via actual media like DVD), and content over the internet. This split varies between the location AND is slowly changing from more cable to more internet with movie watching via media staying the same. Strangely, unlike others, we don't stream Netflix or use Roku, we'll watch TV via the network's sites, Youtube and Kodi (formerly XBMC). So obviously, having a computer connected to these TVs is kind of a need. Some of you might remember my "Viking" build in the Silverstone SUGO SG-08B Lite case. Inside is a very low-powered motherboard, the Gigabyte GA-C847N-D with an onboard Intel Celeron 847 CPU (17w TDP). I do have a DVD drive in there, but not sure why. The onboard graphics seems to do an adequate job, but the engine is the aging "Ivy Bridge" processing. This machine will stay the same.

Last summer, while I was in Taiwan, my brother gave me this. It was one of his spare boards. An Intel DN2800MT mounted in a little plastic generic case. Don't be confused if you've never heard of it, much less seen anything like it. Boards of this type are made for "industry" typically used in computers that run automation of one kind or another, hence the very low-profile everything! Oh, and it's powered by an Intel Atom N2800 which is a dual core processor running at 1.86Ghz drawing 6.5w TDP!!! I've got it running HTPC duties on the 3rd TV, but it struggles some. One of it's issues is that the chipset only allows it to address 4Gb of RAM running on a single channel..... and that's despite the 2 SO-DIMM sockets. It's nice to have versus not having a machine down there, but that's about it.

  

Enter the Silverstone SUGO SG-05 and Gigabyte GA-B75TN. What? Another weird board? Yes, a $30 (local Craigs List) complete with power supply case and....... wait for it....... $24 board! Quite often, "weird" means cheap! In this case, this one was brand new even. OK, let's look at this MB. It's LGA-1155 meaning anything from the Sandy/Ivy Bridge generation of processors. This not only gives very decent power, but pretty good onboard graphics if the CPU is chosen wisely. On top of which, it has an onboard mSATA socket thus allowing the primary storage to be right there as well. It doesn't even require a regular power supply, capable of using any barrel-plugged outboard adapter between 12 and 19v. There's even an LVDS connector for driving LED/LCD panels. They were part of a spec designed to fit inside the all-in-ones. 

Appropriately enough, also for $24, I picked up an Intel Pentium G2030T. This 2.6Ghz dual core processor only draws 35w TDP making it very cool-running. This chip also has Intels HD Graphics with 6 execution units. It won't get any gaming done, but that won't be an issue for it's intended purpose. If I want/need more power, I can go all the way up to i7 from this board. 

When you add it all up, I will have spent about $200 total to update 2 of our 3 HTPCs. They'll all be from the "Core" generation of processors with attendant capabilities. I think we're pretty much set to go!

Family Portrait Part 3: ..... Impersonal Computing?

OK, the title was a bit of a joke, although, I'm not all that certain what to call this category of all our various computers that are not routinely used by a particular person. Last time we talked about the fact that in many modern American homes, people have one, and in many case, more than one digital device that they use on a regular basis. Regardless of form, be it notebook, tablet, or phone, these are personal computers, by definition. So, then what are the other various machines that are scattered about our houses that don't belong to anyone? For us, they are generally something that's connected a large display so that they can access media content either distributed through the internet or our own network. 

For our system, I'll start at the core; the server. Ours has grown from a bunch of scrounged together parts running the first version of Windows Home Server which was housed in a cheap case, to what it is now through a series of steps. The first big step was the addition of a caching RAID controller that allowed for a degree of redundancy. That was back in the mostly backing-up stage of it's existence when I was just experimenting with serving media. However, as things went along and I went from just a bunch a ripped CDs to movies, the server has taken on a greater role. In the last year, I've ripped more and more of my movies from their original optical format to something that can be accessed throughout the house as well as be easily portable. This has taken the amount of necessary space to a whole different magnitude. I just thought I had a lot of storage when I had 2, 2Tb drives in the old server. The new server will have 5! It will be built in a Fractal Designs, Define XL R2, partially because it has 8 drive spaces, but mostly because it's one of the few on the market able to take the EATX sized SuperMicro server motherboard that will run it. I haven't decided whether it will become a 24/7 server or continue as a Friday to Sunday machine as in the past, but suffice to say that it's grown beyond what it was!

 

The next type of machines are actually the fastest growing category in our house, the HTPC (home theater PC). They've gone from 1, to the soon-to-be 3 in fairly short order. Granted I've had one for quite some time. It came about back in the days when there wasn't an "HTPC" term and the purpose built cases didn't exist. I had to use a Antec "desktop" case for it. But it remained at 1 for a very long time. A few years ago, I got the Ahanix D-Vine5 case you see above from my friend Pat and it has remained the home for the HTPC in my primary A/V system for quite awhile, suffering through 3 motherboard changes in that time. A couple of years ago, I picked up an Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini-ITX chassis to create a second unit when my brother sent me one of his technology cast-offs; a first-gen "Core" i3 processor on a Zotac motherboard. Later on, I picked up a low powered Gigabyte board with a Celeron CPU and it went into a much nicer Silverstone SG-08Lite case as befitting the master bedroom. It's current purpose is for us to catch up on TV show episodes that we've missed or occasionaly bouts of YouTube watching.

The third, will go into service as soon as I locate another HDMI cable so it can attach to the downstairs TV. It came to me this summer when I was visiting family in Taiwan and my brother gave me his "spare mini-server". He has a couple of interesting behaviors that has benefited me over the years. He works in technology and has the wherewithal to dabble in whatever he's interested in.... which includes low-power computing. ......And he tends to buy things in multiples whether he needs it or not! So, this last trip, he gave me an Intel Mini-ITX MB with an on-board Atom processor. Not terribly powerful, but enough to run a small HTPC. It's in an ugly plastic case, but I'll eventually find it something appropriate like the Habey cases that are clearly Apple Mini knock-offs! We have 3 stand-alone televisions, and there is a PC connected to each of them. Is that all?

No, not yet! This kind of ugly "beast" of a ThinkPad came to me recently when a friend dropped it off for me to retrieve files for him. Like many ThinkPads, it started life as his work machine, then went on to be his personal PC when his company retired it. After a long and fruitful life it's fan had given up the ghost and he bought a new computer. Like so many others, he hadn't backed up his files and needed me to get them off; after which, he left the old girl with me. Unbeknownst to the beasty, it's about to become the "garage computer"! There'll be a post on the "garage computer", so I'll leave it at that for now.

I know that this is actually under a different category and post, but let me pay a quick homage (the French say it so much nicer) to the little guy that made all this happen: Powerline Networking technology. The original owner whole built our house and spent quite a lot of money installing speakers and running wire everywhere should have done that with networking..... but didn't. So I have a 2 story house with no networking to the second floor! My options were to spend hundred (thousands!?!) for an electrician to run it, but I was able to call on this little known technology that uses the electric wiring in the house to move data as well. In the past, it had been a little glitchy, but the current version is pretty darned reliable and fast to boot! My ability to have all the various computers everywhere is very much thanks to the Trendnet 1200 AV2 kits that came in the mail a couple of weeks ago! Nothing like "wired" networking!