Best HTPC case?

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Devonavar

Post Reply
Justchill
Posts: 61
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 1:46 pm
Location: Belgium

Best HTPC case?

Post by Justchill » Fri Nov 09, 2007 7:43 am

Hello,

I'm looking for a HTPC case. Can you help me choose one? Here are my specs:

* not a tower model
* very silent ofcourse
* good airflow: preferably 120mm case fans
* black
* nice design, not 2 much blingbling
* preferably room for 4 hard drives
* preferably ATX suport
* room for cardreader
* no PITA assembly

What HTPC case do you guys have and why?
In general, what cases do you recommend?
Which brands do you recommand?

tkz

jhhoffma
Posts: 2131
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2005 10:00 am
Location: Grand Rapids, MI

Post by jhhoffma » Fri Nov 09, 2007 8:48 am

120mm fans are hard to come by on a HTPC cases. Mostly, you're beyond lucky to get 92mm.

80mm can be made quiet enough with some undervolting. I have the OrigenAE X11 (from which the Zalman HD160 was based). It's a decent case, needs more intake airflow. But the 80mm fans aren't too bad at 5v. It will fit 4 HDDs, but it wouldn't be cool or quiet doing so. It's an ATX case and can be bought with a card reader.

There are similar cases from Zalman and Silverstone, and all will be a PITA to assemble. Lots of stuff being crammed into a small space...

I like my X11 because it's simple and stately, the VFD isn't obtrusive (but mostly useless) and the Power LED can be sufficiently dimmed with a couple resistors being soldered on the power lead. I only have one HDD which helps keep it and the other components cool. I also removed the included hdd cage and built my own platform on which to rest the HDD on sorbothane blocks.

You can see most of the setup (not the HDD mod) here.

Justchill
Posts: 61
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 1:46 pm
Location: Belgium

Post by Justchill » Fri Nov 09, 2007 11:52 am

Thanks for that link.

What do you mean by VFD? Is that the display?

Can you say what hardware you used and why?

Why do you use only 1 harddrive?

What do you do with your HTPC?

jhhoffma
Posts: 2131
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2005 10:00 am
Location: Grand Rapids, MI

Post by jhhoffma » Fri Nov 09, 2007 12:00 pm

VFD = Vacuum Fluourescent Display

Yes, it's the front display.

The hardware is in my sig (HTPC).

Right now, I only have divx movies (maybe TV recordings soon) so my 500GB WD5000KS is plenty for me now. Music is VBR MP3 as well. I had two HDDs in there before (200GB and 80GB Maxtors) but they were a little loud (compared to the WD) and I ran out of space quick with my media collection.

Right now my HTPC is mainly a movie server for Divx/Xvid movies, an upscaling DVD player (rarely), a music jukebox, and a secondary PC for when the wife asleep in the bedroom and I have work to do. I just got a ATSC tuner card and am working to get that running right, so hopefully I can get my local HDTV signals via cable on my PC with basic cable!!

Justchill
Posts: 61
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 1:46 pm
Location: Belgium

Post by Justchill » Fri Nov 09, 2007 12:16 pm

I see your hardware is not so up to date, but my guess it's sufficient to watch those DIVX movies. Do you use upscaling for DIVX also? How large is your TV? Is the quality OK?

I think you will have problems when you are going to watch HD content with that system.

What software do you run?

joeyl
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2007 4:41 am
Location: New Orleans, LA

Post by joeyl » Fri Nov 09, 2007 1:42 pm

I just bought an Antec nsk2400
http://www.antec.com/Search.bok?category=B+Stock

does not quite meet your requirements but it does have 120mm fans

djkest
Posts: 766
Joined: Mon Sep 10, 2007 1:05 pm
Location: Colorado, USA

Post by djkest » Fri Nov 09, 2007 2:46 pm

I just got an NSK-2480 from antec. Meets all your requirements, very quiet. But... micro atx boards only.

Comes with an 80+ power supply.

jhhoffma
Posts: 2131
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2005 10:00 am
Location: Grand Rapids, MI

Post by jhhoffma » Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:53 am

I do use ffdshow to upscale everything (well, upscale with filters, the graphics card upscales everything anyway).

My tv is a JVC 48" CRT HDTV (1080i/720p capable). I'm running at 720p-type resolutions (for legibility) with compensation for overscan.

As for watching HD content, it depends on the content. No way my system can handle most 1080p streams, but since my TV is 1080i max and I don't have Blu-Ray, it's a non-issue. 1080i and 720p decode fine with the right codecs. h264 can be a problem (VLC player really the only thing that works for me), but Divx/Xvid and MPEG2 are no problem. Since HD over cable and antenna is Mpeg2, there should be no problems.

NyteOwl
Posts: 536
Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada

Post by NyteOwl » Mon Nov 12, 2007 12:12 pm

Not exactly HTPC but it can be configured in desktop orientation the Coolermatser CM Media 280 matches most of your requirements.

Delta_42
-- Vendor --
Posts: 131
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:36 am
Location: Lancs, UK
Contact:

Post by Delta_42 » Fri Nov 16, 2007 2:31 am

I'm also running my HTPC in an Antec case, the Fusion. 2x120mm fans. Again, microATX only, but with a good mATX board how many slots do you actually need for a HTPC? I've got an 8600GTS and a Haupphauge PVR-1300 card in mine. My HTPC is based on an ASUS N4L-VM DH board with a T7200 Core duo processor. The two 120s right next to the cpu socket let me cool the chip just using a Noctua northbridge cooler (due to the proprietary mount on the board). The Antec PSU has spells when it is noisy, although it seems to be behaving at the moment. The case officially takes 2 HDDs, although I know that some people mount a third behind the VFD.

I just run an 80Gb drive in mine as all my media is on a server shut away in the spare bedroom where I can't hear it!

Some people swap out the Antec 120s for quieter fans, but to be honest I can't hear them from the couch, and they certainly aren't loud enough to be heard over the sound of anything I'm watching.

Of course, there's always this

mr pink
Posts: 70
Joined: Thu Jul 15, 2004 4:27 am

Post by mr pink » Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:50 am

You could check out the NZXT Duet. I'm pretty pleased with mine except for the hard drive mounting..

timg11
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 6:11 am

Post by timg11 » Sat Dec 29, 2007 8:58 am

I'm looking for an HTPC case that will accept a full-size ATX motherboard. The Antec's looked nice, but they only take the micro ATX.

I looked at the NZXT Duet, but I have not found other options.
Are there any other decent HTPC cases that accept full ATX motherboards that I should consider?

JoeWPgh
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 222
Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2007 3:26 pm
Location: Pittsburgh, Pa

Post by JoeWPgh » Sat Dec 29, 2007 9:32 am

timg11 wrote:I'm looking for an HTPC case that will accept a full-size ATX motherboard. The Antec's looked nice, but they only take the micro ATX.

I looked at the NZXT Duet, but I have not found other options.
Are there any other decent HTPC cases that accept full ATX motherboards that I should consider?
I'm reasonably happy with my Silverstone LC17. OK airflow, supports full ATX, and pretty cheap for HTPC. With a little work and the the right hardware, you can get it pretty quiet too.

I have yet to see a 'great' HTPC case. All are compromised to one extent or another. The Antec Fusion Max looks like a winner, if it ever sees the light of day. Until then, the LC17 seems to me to be the best of the compromises.

jhhoffma
Posts: 2131
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2005 10:00 am
Location: Grand Rapids, MI

Post by jhhoffma » Sat Dec 29, 2007 4:39 pm

timg11 wrote:I'm looking for an HTPC case that will accept a full-size ATX motherboard. The Antec's looked nice, but they only take the micro ATX.

I looked at the NZXT Duet, but I have not found other options.
Are there any other decent HTPC cases that accept full ATX motherboards that I should consider?
Zalman HD160-series and Origen X11 are also full-ATX compatible.

VanWaGuy
Posts: 299
Joined: Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:01 am
Location: Vancouver Wa USA

Post by VanWaGuy » Sun Dec 30, 2007 7:44 am

I have an Athenatech that is supposedly a clone of the NZXT Duet, except a black faceplate.

The Athenatech came with no printed material in the package at all. Searching on line, I saw it mentioned that it was identical to the Duet, so I found a manual for it, and that information at least got me going.

There are a couple things I like about the case, the Piano black finish is quite nice, and there are spots for 120MM fans on both sides. I have 2 120 fans at 6 volts, so lots of air and quiet enough that I can not hear the fans from TV viewing distance.

There are several things about this case that I do not like though, and if I had to do it over, I would pick a different case.

1) The top is the most flimsy, thinnest metal that I have seen used in a case.

2) Power supply mounting. I hate the way they put the power supply in this case. It is almost to the front of the case, with the exhaust air vented out the bottom of the case. First, towards the front instead of the rear seems the wrong location regarding sound, but they also engineered the exhaust upside down. Heat naturally rises, why fight that and vent it out the bottom. There are even holes on the top to accomadate air intake from a bottom intake PSU. (Same holes they should have vented the exhaust to!) Then it also has cheap stick on feet, and you have to make sure that they are their, or their is not room for the power supply to vent out the bottom.

3) As mentioned above, hard drive locations are horrible. Primary drive locations are in the very corner of the case where you are not going to get any airflow on the drives, and if you want more drives, they can bolt in different holes where the 120mm fans go. Put in two drives in those spotsd, and I bet that case gets toasty!

This is the first case I had to pull the front off of to mount optical drives. With no documentation, I did not figure that out. At least I was able to find the Duet documentation, and it showed how to mount drives.

One last thing that I have not figured out on this case, or a couple others.

When they give you little doors to cover the drive door, and it looks like supposedly, the drive door is supposed to push the little flap open, has anyone had them work well?

Maybe I have had only a few poorly engineered examples, but the ones that I have used would bind up sometimes when opening, and would hardly ever close. Are you supposed to remove the factory plastic door/cover/whatever? At least for me, the edges of the stock door are what get hung up on the facade door.

Jipa
Posts: 167
Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2007 4:06 am
Location: Tampere, Finland
Contact:

Post by Jipa » Mon Dec 31, 2007 2:48 am

I've tested Zalman HD160, HD135, Antec Fusion and a couple of HTPC-cases from GMC and based on these the Fusion is pretty superb for quiet setups... The HD160 comes second with it's two fans on the back panel, but I didn't like the HDD-area at all. On HD135 the HDDs were easier to install, but the cooling somewhat sucked.

About 4 HDDs... The HD135 has 5 3,5" bays, but with all installed it comes terribly crowded and hot. I'd just put three of them somewhere else and only one to the HTPC itself.

Post Reply