My HTPC Project (56k warning)

Dohc-WP

Dohc-WP

Ron Burgundy
Firstly this started out by pure accident.

I was busy chucking out some old stuff and then i came across the case of my first mecer 6000, 486 pc i got back in 1996. over the years i upgraded it from a humble 486 sx 33 to a super 7 mobo with an amd k6 3 cpu eventually, that was sadly as far as i was able to upgrade the pc because AT mobo's were discontinued after that and atx boards didnt fit in the case.

Fast forward to 2010 and i still had the case lying around deteriorating and i still didnt want to chuck it out due to sentimental value, eventually I had an epiphany after seeing an htpc made out of an old amplifier online, i decided to turn my old case into a modern HTPC.

first i had to find a board small enough to fit next to the psu, i eventually came across a micro atx amd athlon 64 board and cpu i had lying around, I had to cut out a large rear section of the case to make the board fit and i had to replace the psu with an atx one.

First thing i had to do was strip the case and give it a fresh coat of paint, but first i had to sand it though. Initially i wanted to spray it matte black but eventually settled on a satin black (actually car spray)

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I had to drill holes in the lid for the cpu fan to suck in air

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this is how it came out afterwards (i was still waiting on components card reader, black dvd burner, case lcd etc)

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Eventually it arrived

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this is the end result

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i dont think it came out too bad for a case i was on the verge of chucking out.

so to sum it up, I now have a htpc capable of browsing the net, playing hd movies, music and very light gaming :)
 
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Nice!

Hope that LCD isn't as annoyingly bright as the pic makes it out to be... HTPC's are meant to fit in with the rest of your equipment which are dimlit so that you can watch stuff without a light blasting your eyes.

You should also look at getting a Media Center Remote so that you don't have to get up and fiddle with that mouse.
 
Dude, good job on the mod! Just curious though, why didn't you put a mini iTX in there if size was a contraint?

I'm very keen to build an HTPC around this:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/E35M1I_DELUXE/

That is, as soon as someone sells it at a decent price. R2k+ seems a bit much, even considering the features. It's going for about GBP130 in the UK, which is pretty much on par with other Brazos boards.

That paint-job looks quite professional on the photo's.

I was planning to buy an iTX case, but maybe I should look around and see what other options there are. Modding an old case seems like a fun project :)

Juice
 
DarthSWNT said:
Nice!

Hope that LCD isn't as annoyingly bright as the pic makes it out to be... HTPC's are meant to fit in with the rest of your equipment which are dimlit so that you can watch stuff without a light blasting your eyes.

You should also look at getting a Media Center Remote so that you don't have to get up and fiddle with that mouse.
Click to expand...

The lcd has a button that allows me to control the colours on it , some are bright others are dim, media remote has been ordered but the supplier dont have stock of the particular one i ordered. also ordered a wifi dongle and a wireless keyboard, hopefully it will arrive soon
 
Haha dude almost never read gaming at...

so to sum it up, I now have a htpc capable of browsing the net, playing hd movies, music and very light
Click to expand...

Was like those things are kak heavy O.o

But awesome job dude.
 
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