Home Theatre PC

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-Update: I have my Video Surveillance completed-

I recently had purchased a HDTV and Surround Sound for my living room. It was only a matter of days before I had a HTPC in the plans. But it needed to be a dead silent PC.

The goals:

	Watch computer recorded movies
	Backup  DVD's
	Backup Audio CD's
	Play Internet Radio
	Record from Cable Box
	Control Home Automation/Security
	Burn CD's / DVD's
	Edit Movies
	Store family photo's / Display photos
	File Server
	FTP Server
	HTTP Server
	Video Surveillance/Recorder

First the specs:

	AMD Athlon 64 3400+ 2.2Ghz with Cool'n'Quiet
	Gigabyte K8N Pro
	1GB PC3200 DDR
	ATI Radeon 9600 128MB Graphics Card
	ATI TV Wonder
	Broadcom 802.11G Wireless NIC
	200GB Maxtor 7200RPM IDE Harddrive
	200GB Maxtor 7200RPM IDE Harddrive (2nd Drive)
	80GB Western Digital 7200RPM IDE Harddrive
	Pioneer 120S Slot Load 16X DVD Drive
	Pioneer DVR-108 Dual Layer DVD Burner
	8-in-1 Media Card Reader
	AMS G-Mono Mid Tower Case
	300-watt Clever Power Silent PSU
	Zalman Flower Heatsink
	Gyration Ultra GT wireless keyboard and mouse

I won the Gigabyte K8N-Pro motherboard at QuakeCon '04, but it end up being a perfect motherboard for a HTPC/Server. It has 4 IDE connections, and 2 SATA connections, for a total of 10 drives.  It also has Gigabit LAN, and sound card with optical output.

I choose the Clever Power power supply as it is nearly totally silent and has four extra power sockets that I can utilize for other home theatre devices.

The AMD G-Mono case was used as it's beautiful silver paint job matches my TV, it's Plexiglas faceplate is easy to customize, and it only costs $40.

A custom laser cut faceplate was created to match the existing faceplate.

On the rear of the PC you can see the power supply with it's extra power plugs.  The stamped fan grills were removed, and quieter rounded wire grills were installed.

The entire PC only requires only four external connections: Power, DVI Video, Optical Audio, and USB to the wireless Gyration Receiver.

To make the entire PC run dead silent a AMD exclusive processor feature called Cool'n'Quiet is essential. Cool'n'Quiet allows the 2.2GHz CPU to run at a few different speeds and voltages, down to 800Mhz when Idle. Akasa sound deadening material was also installed to add an extra layer of sound isolation. I use the freeware program Speedfan to control the CPU fan.

At idle the system specs are:

	CPU Speed: 800Mhz
	CPU Temperature: 38C
	CPU Fan Speed: 1140 RPM
	Case Temperature: 25C
	Case Fan Speed: 1300RPM
	WD Harddrive: 46C
	Maxtor Harddrives: 40C

The case airflow was improved by cutting a faceplate that allows air to be pulled into the case across the two heat generating 200GB harddrives.

One of the greatest things about having a DVD burner is backing up your DVDs.

In this case I am taking one of my oldest DVDs that has started to crack in the center, plus the DVD is a double-sided disk with a tiny center label.

Since I don't need the "Full Screen" side, I can make a copy of the Wide Screen side of the disk, and make a better looking DVD with a full label.

I used a program called DVD Shrink that can shrink a full sized DVD onto a single layer DVD. I could also of course make an exact copy by using more expensive Dual-Layer DVD Disks.

Here is the HTPC at home in my living room.

The Gyration mouse and keyboard allow me to use it from across the room.

The PC is connected directly to the TV using a DVI to HDMI adapter. The Sound card is connected directly to the surround sound system using an optical cable.

This PC is so quiet that the harddrive in my Time Warner HDTV DVR is louder.

In case you are wondering the HDTV is a Samsung 47", the surround sound is also a Samsung with a 5-disk DVD changer.

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