A guaranteed way to draw interest to your blog post is to include photos! Even if you have no idea what is going on here, you will ooooh and aaaaahhh at the pretty colors and shiny materials. Haha!

I made a previous post about how to setup a Home Theatre PC (HTPC) using Windows Media Center in Vista. Today I will show you pictures of my installation into a computer case that looks like it belongs under a TV.

Here is the finished project. The black box on the bottom is a computer! It makes a much better front page image than everything else will, so I will make you click after the jump to see the rest of the post. Enjoy!

This is the original computer case it was in. At first the computer was simply standing next to the TV, but with a little one on the way, I thought it would be better to get it off the floor and “put away” a little better. I tried putting the computer underneath the TV on it’s side, but it was too tight of a fit. The receiver was almost flush with the top, and ventilation was terrible. Notice how roomy the computer case is.

This is the HTPC case designed specifically to be smaller and look more like AV equipment. It’s the Silverstone Lascala 10 CS-SST-LC10B. It has a nice brushed aluminum front, a crossbar for support in the middle, and the metal case is thicker than the average computer case. It doesn’t look a lot smaller, but wait until everything is inside.

Whoa that’s a tight fit! The worst part about this build is making everything fit. Due to the cramped space, you literally have to build it in a certain order. There is a power connector just under the cpu heatsink that you have to connect before you put in the power supply, because once it’s in, you can’t get your fingers inside to connect it.

The heatsink, a Scythe Ninja Mini, is actually too big for the case, but as luck would have it, it lined up just right. If the cpu had been an inch sideways, the little heatpipe caps on top would have it the crossbar. Phew!

The cpu fan also was a close call. I had actually taken it off and hoped the two 60mm fans in the back would be a good enough exhaust, and they were for the cpu. But the videocard is a passive card with no fan. It turns out I needed the cpu fan right next to it to pull air off the videocard fins. With no fan there, the gpu hit 71c. With the fan in place, it’s only 45c.

This is basically the finished inside. Three Vbox 150s are at the bottom for capturing up to three shows at a time. I ended up going to a 1 harddrive setup, a big 500 gb drive, and ditched the 5.25″ drive cooler to the right. It was supposed to suppress hdd noise, but all it did was put it in a really hot part of the case. I also replaced the power supply with a super quiet Seasonic power supply with a 120mm fan. The only exhaust fans are two vantec 60mm fans in the back. They’re too noisy on full blast, so I have them both running on Zalman fanmates. They don’t push much air, but even at full load nothing in the case gets hotter than the low 40′s, and most importantly the whole machine is inaudible from the couch.

Now the htpc fits under the TV and looks like a normal piece of equipment. I would like to thank my wife for her continued patience in this matter. I love you. :)