In the same week that I picked up a used HP 3.0GHz P4 computer, my old Athlon 2600-based HTPC bit the dust. So I ended up taking the Biostar/AMD computer I had built for my daughter last year and turning that into the new HTPC. She ended up getting the new HP. The computer works great for her and her games but doesn’t offer too many options for tweaking, since it’s basically a bone stock HP D530C desktop with integrated graphics and built around the old i845 chipset. It’s got a Northwood core Pentium in it and 1GB of RAM, running Windows XP and it works great for a kid’s PC. The computer I had built for her last year sported a Biostar TForce 6100-based mobo with a 16x PCIe slot and the now-obsolete 939 socket for the older AMD Athlon 64 CPUs. I built that whole computer for about $160 with an Antec case and although it’s definitely not the fastest machine in the house, it turned out to be a great starting point for the new HTPC build.
I thought I was going to have to pick up a new sound card since it didn’t appear that this board supported S/PDIF, which is essential for delivering 5.1 DD/DTS sound. I lucked out when I realized that it actually had the S/PDIF output after checking over the manual online. Since I had bought it as an open box special from Newegg, I didn’t get the adapter that allowed you to use the S/PDIF out, so I didn’t even realize it had it. From the manual I found which pins on the S/PDIF header were for the coaxial line and soldered my own header together with an RCA jack on the other end. I plugged it into my coaxial input on my Sony DD receiver and voila, I had 5.1 surround sound. Biostar does sell the cable for $15, so either way I would have been able to get it to work, just this way was cheaper.
I bought a new Western Digital 3.0 Gb/s SATA 640GB HDD to replace the old WD IDE 320GB one I had been using for the last couple of years. This new drive is made up of two single 320GB platters and offers cool, quiet performance. I partitioned off 40GB for Windows XP and left the rest for data. So far the drive has been great, and the clean install of Windows makes for a speedy-feeling new PC. Later on I plan on upgrading to Vista and using Media Center, but for now it’s just XP. I also will get an HD TV Tuner card sometime soon, though for now my HD DVR is working fine.
The biggest complaint I had with my old HTPC was more or less the fault of my Sony HDTV, which put a 1″ black band around the picture when using the VGA input. Sony apparently did this on purpose since they assumed since you’re hooking up a PC that you wouldn’t want any overscanning. Which is true, mostly, unless that PC is going to be playing back movies, home videos and viewing pictures, in which case you do want a certain percentage of overscanning. But the 1″ underscan was just annoying. And the only way to really get rid of it properly is to not use the VGA input at all and instead use the HDMI input. Which meant, I needed to buy a new graphics card to replace the integrated graphics of the 6100.
I basically wanted the cheapest graphics card that was HDCP-ready, had HDMI out and fit a PCI Express x16 slot, since I had an older motherboard that doesn’t support the latest 2.0 standard. Most people like to go with fanless cards for HTPCs since they are obviously quieter, but I’ve found that fanless cards tend to run hotter, and that heat just makes everything else in your case hotter, so what you think you may be gaining in noise, you’re losing in having to deal with some extra heat. In reality, a quiet fan can be just as good or better and still not be noticeable above the noise of the other fans in the system.
The card I ended up picking was a Radeon HD 2600PRO from ASUS. It was $54 with a $30 rebate, so I thought, what the heck, for $24 maybe I can finally get rid of that stinking 1″ black border! It’s not the sportiest graphics card for gaming, but should be capable of fluid playback of 1080p video, which is all I really need. I have actually been really impressed with the card so far. It’s nice and small, so it should fit in just about any case, even the smaller HTPC cases. It does have a fan, but it spins quite slowly and is inaudible above the other 3 fans in my case, which are also set to spin as slowly as possible while still maintaining decent operating temps. From 3 feet away, the whole thing is completely silent. (Update: This card is now obsolete, but the Radeon 2600 XT can still be had and is actually a better card with a higher clock and GDDR3 memory. Just don’t forget to pick up a DVI->HDMI adapter since for whatever reason, the XT doesn’t come with one).
I downloaded the most recent Catalyst drivers and have been having fun messing with the settings. The best option this thing has is the ability to select exactly how much over/underscan you want with a simple slider. With the HDMI out running into the TV, I was able to set the card to overscan just enough to get rid of any borders, but still allow me to get to the Start menu in Windows and hit the X to close down apps. I couldn’t believe that I wasted hours, days, even weeks messing with PowerStrip trying to get my old card to lose those black borders and with this card I did it in less than 1 minute. Amazingly simple. And the HDMI picture looks flawless. I don’t believe I’ve got 1:1 pixel mapping, since the text is somewhat blurred, but the intent of the HTPC is for TV, movies and pictures, not writing text. I’m sure you could get 1:1 pixel mapping, but for me having the overscan right where I want it is more important. The resolution is set to 1280×720 with a 60Hz refresh rate, which is native for my 3 year old 720p HDTV.
Just for kicks, I ran the Auto Tune Overclocking feature which took the GPU core clock from 600MHz up to 790MHz in 5Mhz steps and then bumped up the memory from 500MHz to 550MHz before telling me the auto tune was complete and the settings were optimized. Everything worked fine till I tried running 3DMark05 when it crashed. OC’d too high apparently. So I dropped it down to 700/525MHz and it ran just fine. I hadn’t even intended on overclocking this card, since I really don’t need it, but it’s kind of fun to have it overclocked, though it didn’t make much difference playing back DVDs or WMVHD files. I ran 3DMark05 and got a score of 6455.
My CPU is an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice core which is overclocked to 2.40GHz with a Vcore of 1.425V up from the stock 2.0GHz and 1.40V. I’ve got the HTT multiplier set to 4x which gives me an HTT speed of 960 MHZ, right in between the recommended 800-1000MHz. My memory speed is set to 166MHz, which operates at 200MHz with the stated bus OC. There aren’t a lot of multiplier options for the RAM with this mobo, but running the DDR400 at 200MHz essentially represents stock speeds. The only next higher option is to run it at 240MHz, which my RAM didn’t seem to like. Thought I didn’t mess with the timings or voltages. They are stock at 2.5, 3, 3, 8 and 2.6V. I’ve got 2×512MB of Corsair ValueSelect running in dual channel mode for a total of 1GB, which is plenty for running XP and playing movies. I spent quite a bit of time messing with the overclock options in the BIOS and getting plenty of beeps and booting issues until I settled on a reasonable overclock. My Venice core didn’t like running at 2.6GHz, but was stable at 2.5GHz, though my S/PDIF seemed top drop the audio more often with it that high. So 2.4GHz seemed like a decent OC while still allowing me to keep things nice and cool. I calculated pi to 1M places in 36 seconds (using the super-cool Super Pi), the same time it takes my P4 which is OC’d to 3.5GHz. AMD certainly had something going for it back in the day. In reality, I need to keep the OC at a minimum, since power efficiency is also important for a PC that typically might be powered on most of the day. I just think it’s fun to push it and see what it can do.
CPU usage while playing DVD movies (480p) is around 3-10%. While playing some 1080p WMVHD stuff from Microsoft in Media Player 11, CPU usage went up to about 25-35% and playback was still smooth without hiccups. While watching some HD trailers from Apple in Quicktime 7, CPU usage went up to over 60% and playback was interrupted a couple of times most likely from the stream coming in too slow. Playback still looked fine otherwise. I have in the plan to buy a Lite-On Blu-ray DVD player as soon as I can come up with an extra $100 bucks to spend. I’m hoping that this setup will be capable of smooth playback of at least 720p of the latest Blu-ray titles, since that’s all my TV can display. Based on what I’ve read, they recommend a faster CPU than what I’ve got, but I think with it overclocked like it is, I think I’ll be able to swing it. My new 2600PRO should be up to the task though. The GPU usage during my sample 1080p stuff was only 10%, so apparently it doesn’t take much to playback 1080p in reality. Obviously if I were building a new HTPC today, it most likely would not incorporate any of these pieces of hardware, since most are obsolete, but it just doesn’t represent the latest and greatest of what’s available or what could be built today. But it also goes to show that it doesn’t take a lot of cash and the fastest processors and graphics cards to make a decent home theater PC. Even an old PC can become converted with just a few minor hardware upgrades.
So to sum up, heres’ some quick specs on the new HTPC w/links to Newegg for more details:
Biostar TForce6100-939 Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3200 OC’d to 2.4 GHz
2×512 MB Corsair ValueSelect RAM
Western Digital 640GB Hard Drive SATA 3.0 Gbs
Asus HD2600 Pro 256MB Graphics Card
Antec NSK4400 Case and 380W PSU
Windows XP SP3
Here’s a couple of pictures:



