Working on a HTPC

[Drac]

Good day all,

I currently am running a home built HTPC with a Gigabit MB (can't remember which one), an Intel 2.8 dual core, 4g ram, an ATI HD 4650 with a gig (using the HDTV as a monitor), 2 1.5 t HDD, Plextor Blu Ray, OEM DVD, Soundblaster card, and wireless NIC.

I thought that this hardware would keep up but so far I have burned out a fan on the video card (and I assume soon the video card), a Blu ray player and am generating more heat due to over utilizing than I can deal with in the machine.

Looking for advise on decent pieces to use for redoing the machine. Want to use a quad processor, good GPU that can handle the work, good spacing for the cards (current MB didn't help with the NIC card next to the video card with no room for air movement), RAID 5, SATA 3.0 for SDD and heat control, lots of heat control.

Thx,
Drac

 

[diduknowthat]

Good day all,

I currently am running a home built HTPC with a Gigabit MB (can't remember which one), an Intel 2.8 dual core, 4g ram, an ATI HD 4650 with a gig (using the HDTV as a monitor), 2 1.5 t HDD, Plextor Blu Ray, OEM DVD, Soundblaster card, and wireless NIC.

I thought that this hardware would keep up but so far I have burned out a fan on the video card (and I assume soon the video card), a Blu ray player and am generating more heat due to over utilizing than I can deal with in the machine.

Looking for advise on decent pieces to use for redoing the machine. Want to use a quad processor, good GPU that can handle the work, good spacing for the cards (current MB didn't help with the NIC card next to the video card with no room for air movement), RAID 5, SATA 3.0 for SDD and heat control, lots of heat control.

Thx,
Drac

Question, why run a quad core CPU on a HTPC? It'll just produce more heat and makes it so that you need more fans (more noise). I built an HTPC with a low powered core 2 duo chip and some passively cooled graphics card. It plays HD contents perfectly and it practically silent (which is key cause it's on 12+ hours a day).

 

[Drac]

I do a lot of ripping and when I did it I watched the temps and usage of the CPU and GPU skyrocket.

Just in case I only rip disks I've bought. I also do not share the movies. No pirating. I put them on the computer only for convenience of watching and traveling. I travel quite a bit between personal, business and military.

With the dual core I saw the usage soar up over 50% and that was without multitasking such as watching a movie. Same with the GPU. I would see the temp jump 20-30C while ripping. Multitasking would also cause freeze ups and staggering video.

Drac