media centre pc

[CrazyFool]

Hey guys,
might be interested in building myself a media centre pc:

intel celeron 1.8ghz
512mb ddr2 ram
80gb sata hdd
skystar s2 hd satellite pci card
smargo

its going to cost under £200 but is rated at 171W
: shocked2

was wondering if there was anyway to underclock it to bring the power consumption down to something more feasable. say 50w and is there any extremely light OS that would work just as fast as a regular satellite box as my only purpose is to watch tv and nothing else.

Cheers,
CrazyFool

 

[Munkey]

Your sat card will take care of all decoding so why use a celeron, couldn't you use an older lower powered CPU?

Win XP lite should work nicely, and if you can source the drivers for your card check out linux solutions.

 

[CrazyFool]

fair enough but my main concern is energy.
even the low wattage processors are queit high maintenance

 

[CrazyFool]

interstingly enough.
just checked out my relatively high powered laptop
and the charger says its outputting 19v and 3 amps.
=60watts~

and that is even after the laptop is running on full power.
how do they get the laptops down so low?

 

[witchy]

Your sat card will take care of all decoding so why use a celeron, couldn't you use an older lower powered CPU?

Really? I'm sure my old Skystar 2 was software based. :err:

I don't remember it having a hardware decoder.

I thought the minimum spec was a 1.8Ghz P4.

EDIT....ahh, there are 2 different versions, 1 has a hardware decoder and the other uses software.

Sorry Munkey.

 

[little_pob]

With the components you've listed this Atom based "barebones" should only use 110W: Gladiator Atom BareBones PC + 180w PSU - Aria Technology

Note, there is a single PCI slot and no PCI-e. The reason I'm pointing this out is there is only a VGA port (i.e. no HDCP certified connection).

 

[CrazyFool]

just had a look on several sellers and none of them state a hardware minimum requirement only win98SE onwards.

 

[CrazyFool]

With the components you've listed this Atom based "barebones" should only use 110W: Gladiator Atom BareBones PC + 180w PSU - Aria Technology

Note, there is a single PCI slot and no PCI-e. The reason I'm pointing this out is there is only a VGA port (i.e. no HDCP certified connection).

Thanks for finding that pal, but thats still too high wattage and works out much more expensive in the long run.

is there anyway to get a laptop modified to accept pci cards?

 

[little_pob]

There is a PCMCIA/ExpressCard adapter, but you probably won't like the price: Magma - PCI & PCI Express Expansion Solutions

I did find the pinouts for PCI and mini-PCI (assuming your laptop has a mini-PCI connection). Not sure if you'd need custom drivers...

 

[CrazyFool]

fooooooooooooooooook me thats expensive lol
and soldering pcmcia ---> pci looks like a mission.

so there is no feasable way of going from pcmcia -----> pci?

back to the drawing baord then lol.
how do these laptop guys manage to get it running on such low wattage?

what are my other options?

 

[CrazyFool]

how the heck do they make this stuff:
Very PC’s AMD Dual Core GreenPC BE20 Low Power PCs

39watts!?!?!?1

 

[CrazyFool]

right.
i know what i'm looking for now.
a mini itx atom pc.

can anybody recommend me one?

was looking at these as these:
ASUS AT3N7A-I NVIDIA ION with Intel Atom N330 Dual Core Processor HDMI VGA Out 8 Channel Audio Mini ITX Motherboard - Ebuyer
Point Of View Nvidia ION Intel Atom 330 dualcore 1,6GHz HDMI DVI VGA Out Mini ITX Motherboard - Ebuyer
ASUS AT3IONT-I DELUXE Intel Atom 330 NVIDIA ION VGA HDMI Out 6 Channel Audio Mini ITX Motherboard - Ebuyer

two of them only have pci-e slots.
will that be backwards compatible with the satellite pci card?

Cheers,
CrazyFool

 

[little_pob]

...
two of them only have pci-e slots.
will that be backwards compatible with the satellite pci card?

No. PCI and PCI-e are incompatible with one another.

Therefore grab the ASUS AT3N7A-I you listed.

The ION graphics chip (on all three) is a nice feature. It will allow smoother playback of HD content (downloaded and Blu-Ray) than the ATOM alone would.

 

[oneman]

Athlon II x2 240 - £38
Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H - £68
512MB DDR2 RAM - £12
Case - £20
80 GB HDD - £28
DVD-RW - £15

Throw in delivery and total should still be under £200

Full hardware HD support, inc HDMI. PCI and PCI-E.

Idle power draw is under 50w with max 70w playing back h.264 so depending how much CPU your card needs it should be somewhere inbetween. And plenty of CPU to run pretty much any OS you want though you might want to increase memory to a GB for an another tenner. I am running a similar setup and I have stock CPU fan which hardly ever kicks in and 80mm on PSU, virtually silent.

 

[CrazyFool]

Athlon II x2 240 - £38
Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H - £68
512MB DDR2 RAM - £12
Case - £20
80 GB HDD - £28
DVD-RW - £15

Throw in delivery and total should still be under £200

Full hardware HD support, inc HDMI. PCI and PCI-E.

Idle power draw is under 50w with max 70w playing back h.264 so depending how much CPU your card needs it should be somewhere inbetween. And plenty of CPU to run pretty much any OS you want though you might want to increase memory to a GB for an another tenner. I am running a similar setup and I have stock CPU fan which hardly ever kicks in and 80mm on PSU, virtually silent.

Its an idea, but 50w idle power really does me no good.

ASUS AT3N7A-I NVIDIA ION with Intel Atom N330 Dual Core Processor HDMI VGA Out 8 Channel Audio Mini ITX Motherboard - Ebuyer - £110
1gb DDR2 RAM - £24
80 GB HDD - £28

i'll put my own dvd drive in, got a 60w laptop charger knocking about somewhere and i'm looking 162 delivered.

Thanks anyway,
now all i need to worry about is the case.
unfortuantely, the cheapest is 35 quid.
is there a cheap way to make one? sheet of aluminum maybe?
and also this laptop charger that i have. how do i turn it into a power supply? i realise i will need a couple of different rails. one for the motherboard, 2 for the drives and 1 for the tuner. is it easier to use a proper power supply?

Thanks again,
CrazyFool

 

[oneman]

You could make your own case and PSU but I would try asking on freecycle first or local recycling place will almost definately have one. Just bung them a tenner and ask them to keep it to one side if there is not one there. The one round our area often has old (PII and PIII) coming up every now and then. The problem is you need ATX power supply so check for that.

DIY option depends on how much time and skills you have.

You could make your own case if you have a spot welder, get sheet metal from scrap yard or recycling place (side of an old washing machine ?). The other option for a case would be ask local plastics place if they can knock one from perpex, I have looked into this before as my neighbour works at such a place and was looking at around £30 for some very cool looking (that was mates rates).

As for your laptop power supply, I would honestly not bother. Your laptop power supply is most likely deliverying around 17v at the tip. You motherboard takes standard 24-pin + 4 pin ATX connection. You can find a wiring diagram for ATX in google. So you will need to a transformer to take the voltage down and split to 12v, 7v, 5v. Lot of work and effort and still need to get a fair few parts.

If you take in all the time and effort (and potential cost), if the £35 quid case comes with a power supply then that is honestly what I would think about getting.


I was wondering why power usage is such an issue ? Difference betweeen the ION solution and AMD is maybe around 25 watts. You could get the AMD down even more with a passively cooled PSU, a 2.5 laptop HDD and underclocking the CPU.

25 watts difference, in the course of a year @ 10p per kw/hr = ~ £21

Of course that is based on maximum draw 24x7 which is not realisitic so actual cost when taking into account idle time, sleep/hiberation, etc would be less then that.

 

[CrazyFool]

thanks for that oneman.
If the power difference genuinely is 25w (how can you be sure btw? the power calculator overrates it so much) then i wouldn't mind going for it but i'm a bit deterred by the size of the case that would now be needed.

your talking 32x23cm for a mini itx case
and 40x32cm for a mATX case.

this is gonna go under my telly and will look really tatty.
what do you think?

 

[oneman]

thanks for that oneman.
If the power difference genuinely is 25w (how can you be sure btw? the power calculator overrates it so much) then i wouldn't mind going for it but i'm a bit deterred by the size of the case that would now be needed.

your talking 32x23cm for a mini itx case
and 40x32cm for a mATX case.

this is gonna go under my telly and will look really tatty.
what do you think?

Power usage stats are from tomshardware for the AMD setup. I found the atom a330 + ion chipset stats are from a google search.

Personally I am built a mATX case to go with the TV, and yes its not ideal but if you find a space to hide behind the sofa, in a cabinet or something seening as control is going to be via remote control. You will only need HDMI lead coming out to the TV, the rest of the cables should be easy enough to hide. But in the open, most people will not be wanting a mATX case next to the TV in the open.

The mini ITX case sounds OK. My mate has a Revo which is tiny and be ideal except there is no internal expansion, only USB.

 

[CrazyFool]

i'm gonna go and have a hard think and stick some cardboard under my tv to see how it looks.

Will get back to you.

Regards,
CrazyFool

 

[CrazyFool]

right mate,
i think i'm gonna go with the atom pc. and am going to make my own psu and case.
i'm equipped with a soldering iron, a bit of flux and some solder.
where do i start with the psu?
i'm trying to make on of these fanless 80w PSU's out of a few transistors and resistors:
picoPSU-80 12V DC-DC ATX power supply

Any help is much appreciated.
Regards,
CrazyFool