I want to build a Media Center PC. I've seen that you can get desktop style cases and whatnot. I'm just looking for general info form anyone that has or has built a Media Center PC. What CPU should I get, how much RAM, HDD, RAID?. I plan on using this mostly for a DVR. What hardware components would be best? I'm sure the TV tuner card is quite important, but I know nothing about them. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. John

The trouble with desktop cases is that the cooling is very poor and you may have problems installing cards. I recommend you use a fairly large case and adequate cooling. Choose the PSU and fans based on sound as well as cooling ability. I have a minitower in black and have issues with heat, due to the unit sitting on a shelf in the custom entertainment center. Eventually, I think I will need to add an external fan of some sort to carry away the heat in the cubicle. I am talking about a cubicle 2' wide and deep and 20" high, yet I still have heating issues with only an Athlon 1800XP, 400W PSU & 4 case fans.

Hill !!! What sort of heating issues 4 fans should give you enough air flow through the case to eliminate that problem. Where in the room is theunit siting?, are the sdie ventilation holes obstructed ?, how close to the back wall is the rear of the case? how do you have the fans configured,a dn whee are they locate don the case ? How many drives do you have ? are they installed one above the other ? etc The 1800 never ran all that hot, in the first place, is it OC ? IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT A8N-SLI Deluxe AMD X64 3500+ Wnchst Corsair 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel GV-NX6600128D PCIX Graphics Card Ggbyte GT Pro CPU Cooler Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cool

This case is located in a custom built entertainment center. There is a 58" rear projection TV in the center with 24" deep base cabinets on either side and then shelves above. This forms 5 sided cubicles, one of which holds the tower and then the one above, the CRT monitor. The case has the standard front intake and rear discharge plus right side left side intake and right side discharge. The problem is the cubbyhole itself doesn't have enough ventilation. I have managed to keep the processor temps around 50C using variable speed adjustments on all the fans but this is noisy. I need to change all the air in the cubicle. I am thinking of a 120V AC fan in the cubicle. The case temps and the cubicle temp are close to the same. I only posted this to help the person starting this thread from getting into a similar situation. Eventually, when I get off my duff, I will quiet this rig down but the point is when using a computer like a piece of audio/ video hardware you need to be careful of heat. Remember, my rig is only an 1800XP with an ATI AIW 7500. Although there are 3 HDs and a DVDrom. This probably doesn't generate as much heat as a current setup would.

Hi Hill Not the ideal place to keep the thing I do admit !!! But the amount of fans you have should keep it bellow that sort of temp though. Is the back of the cabinet open or not ?? If not that may have something to do with it also, no place for the hot air to escape. As far as the 3 HDD's are concerned they do get hot, they normally run at about 40 C x 3 that's a lot of heat. Especially when you are using the rig. If you have the room in the case and a full height drive mount bay, try splitting the hard drives, by leaving a space between each one. That might help. The other things is you might try and turn one of the side intakes into an exhaust as well, from what i can read you have 3 inlet 2 exhaust, you could be getting plenty of fresh air but the 2 fans may not be able to extract the amount of volume coming in, so the hot air builds up but not being expelled at the same rate as it is going in, resulting in reduced air flow. Just a suggestion !!! Regards IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT A8N-SLI Deluxe AMD X64 3500+ Wnchst Corsair 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel GV-NX6600128D PCIX Graphics Card Ggbyte GT Pro CPU Cooler Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cool

lol. media center PC? i only use my computer for surfing the Net or play PC games. if i want to listen to music, i will put a CD in a HI-FI stereo sytem instead of listening to PC speakers that offer so-so sound although the its 5.1/7.1 PC speakers, still, compare to the big pieces Hi-FI stereo surround sound Amp. with 5 or 6 speakers in it. Nor will I view a movie on a 17/19 inch LCD and sit just a foot away from the screen when i can sit in a recliner or lay on the sofa and watch it on a 52 inch HDTV. LOL! yea i agree a media PC is cheaper than those media systems and it can performs in many tasks. P4 3.2GHZ kingstom 1GB DDR 3200 Nvidia geforce FX 5950 256mb

The rig I spoke of here is connected to the 58" TV and 500 watt AM/FM dolby receiver with surround speakers, etc. I use this primarily to record TV programs to HD for later playback. I have a dedicated home DVD player incorporated too. I don't use it for music as I also have another castoff rig that I use as a juke box to play my 4300 MP3 files through a different Stereo receiver and speaker system. Both of these rigs are located in the basement entertainment area. Janos I guess I didn't explain the installation very well. The back of the cubicles is the wall. All cabinets, shelves, etc. are attached to that wall. This is a home theater setting. The wall is 10' wide and 8'high. In the center of the wall is a 58" 16/9 HDef rear projection TV. Above and to both sides the entire wall is a series of 24" deep cabinets and shelves. The TIVO computer is located on three shelves in this built in area. The KB/mouse on shelf one, case and one front dolby speaker on shelf two, 17" monitor above both other shelves on shelf three. These shelves all form 5 sided cubicles with only the front open and accessable. This creates dead air inside each cubicle. I have the fans setup correctly and balanced, HDs separated, round IDE cables case not against the sides of back of the cubicle. The air inside the cubicle gets hot so I can't keep the case temps as low as I want to without the four fans running at 3/4 speed. This is not as quiet as I would like. I need to exchange the air inside the cubicle containing the tower. I wasn't particularly asking for help. I was trying to help Tigerr avoid a similar situation. WhenI built this whole setup I addressed the heat issue by custom modding the case and using a fairly big case to start. I still have some heat issues. I was just forewarning Tigerr about potential heat problems. When I first built this rig 60GB HDs were considered big. I have 3 60GB HDs in there. The unit works and I can't justify spending more cash on it right now. Eventually one of my other MBoards will end up in a rig down there and I will solve the heat problem then, if not before.