[iammykyl]

Gday mclimbin, good to see you back.

Hope the new car runs OK.   

Reviewed the build and found no better parts than listed, just changed a couple of the suppliers.

You said you have a used hard drive for installation, you could use that for backups and install a 2TB drive in the build???

 

Updated parts list, > http://pcpartpicker.com/p/dZM6Lk

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Purchasing parts today. Yay! I will take your advice and spend a little extra money to get a 2TB hard drive. I'll pick one up locally. I was thinking of this one at Fry's:

 

WD Desktop Performance 2TB Internal Hard Drive Retail Kit : WDBSLA0020HNC-NRSN

http://www.frys.com/...CH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

 

There is only one slot for a 3.5 HD, so it makes sense to make it a big one. If I fill this one up I can pick up some externals in the future.

[mclimbin]

Purchasing parts today. Yay! I will take your advice and spend a little extra money to get a 2TB hard drive. I'll pick one up locally. I was thinking of this one at Fry's:

 

WD Desktop Performance 2TB Internal Hard Drive Retail Kit : WDBSLA0020HNC-NRSN

http://www.frys.com/...CH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

 

There is only one slot for a 3.5 HD, so it makes sense to make it a big one. If I fill this one up I can pick up some externals in the future.

[iammykyl]

Please hold off on buying a drive.

What spare drive do you have at the moment?

[mclimbin]

It is a Western Digital 1 tb drive. It is in my current computer now, so I was thinking of leaving it there to use for back-ups.

It is an ATA WDC WE1001FALS-0 disk, a few years old now.

[iammykyl]

Thanks for the update.

Yes, good idea to leave the drive installed.

Don't know why I wrote 2TB, as this is very big for internal storage, It should have been 1TB, which I have on this machine, 3 years, still 40% free.

Choice of 2, 

> http://www.frys.com/...CH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

> http://www.frys.com/...CH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

[mclimbin]

Thanks. Cheaper is better.
Would there be any reason to get a disk that is more energy efficient, to reduce heat and noise?

[terry1966]

do you record a lot of tv with your htpc and 1TB drive iammykyl?

 

40% free after 3 yrs, my video collection alone takes up more space than that. 

 

personally i have over 6TB of storage in my machine and if the truth be told it still isn't enough to keeping good backups, so my tv recordings are not backed up.

 

 

should mention, your htpc itself doesn't need to hold all your data you could put a small ssd into it to help keep things fast and quiet while having all your storage on your current pc and just network them together.

 

in fact from what you said you want to used it for and there being no tv tuner to record tv, i think i'd go with something like this :- http://www.gizmag.co...box-mini/35664/

for complete silence and keep your video collection on your main pc or buy a nas ( http://www.dabs.com/...nas)-explained/ ) to connect to your router.

 

or this

http://www.cnet.com/...n-300-020-mini/

Edited by terry1966, 20 January 2015 - 06:41 PM.

[iammykyl]

Thanks. Cheaper is better.
Would there be any reason to get a disk that is more energy efficient, to reduce heat and noise?

The Seagate is less noisy than the WD.   Green drives are more energy efficient and quieter but only because they stop spinning after being idle for a set amount of time, this is OK for an external backup drive because you are not constantly writing to it but not for a Data storage drive where read/writes are constantly being done to that drive rather than to the OS © drive.

 

do you record a lot of tv with your htpc and 1TB drive iammykyl?

 

40% free after 3 yrs, my video collection alone takes up more space than that. 

 

I have six working rigs but no HTPC.   All TV recording are to set top boxes, anything I want to keep is transferred to external drives.   I try to archive any material worth keeping, not to big a problem as I do not save any music.

 

 

should mention, your htpc itself doesn't need to hold all your data you could put a small ssd into it to help keep things fast and quiet while having all your storage on your current pc and just network them together.

An SSD is in the build and having separate internal storage (safety) is faster/easer than on another machine. 

[terry1966]

 

and having separate internal storage (safety) is faster/easer than on another machine.

i seriously question that statement,iammykyl

 

media content stored on a separate pc / nas storage is going to be just the same as if it was on the main device, streaming isn't going to slow down the actual watching of content, what is most important in my opinion is noise level.

 

my main pc is the htpc centre/ backend for my whole homes media needs and does all the hard work and holds all the media content,

i use mythtv for the software.

i then stream my media content to other pc's in other rooms and i promise you, you can not tell the content isn't stored on those pc's in any way shape or form.

 

so my setup is 1 backend and then lots of (2    ) clients in other rooms.

 

 

should add there's nothing wrong with your build iammykyl, and was just offering other choices that i think would be cheaper and yet fill his limited needs on what his htpc is required to do.

Edited by terry1966, 20 January 2015 - 08:39 PM.

[iammykyl]

Gday terry1966.

 

I often get carried away with builds, this time trying to stay close to Mclimbin's budget/wishes for a basic build that may only be on for a couple of hours some nights,  

 

I realize that where media is stored or streamed has little impact on performance, but think this build should be  stand alone.

When every possible, for safety, I like to have the OS/programs on a separate drive from the user Data, than, that backup up to external storage.   If for any reason the OS drive goes west, it is simple to restore an image or do a clean install. 

[mclimbin]

OK, so I got the parts pretty quickly, and slapped them together. I plugged it in to check to see if it would post. I flipped the switch, and nothing. No power. I tested the cable I was using and it was fine (I tried it on another machine). I took apart the pieces and plugged the PS directly into the wall. Nothing.

*Sigh*

I guess the power supply is bad?

Should I make a new thread to problem solve somewhere else?

Thanks again for your help...hopefully this will not be too painful...

[iammykyl]

That is always a disappointment, to say the least,  getting something DOA.

Plugging the PSU into a wall socket then switching on does not test the unit.   You need to trick the unit into thinking it has been switched on by the MB, the PSU has to detect a load before it will start, (just one fan attached is enough) Please perform the test on this video and post back. 

> 

[mclimbin]

It seems that my fans don't have a connector that will work with the PSU. The fan connectors are female and seem to be the type that plug into pins on the MB.
I will look around on the Internet for an alternate way to test the PSU. If I have to I can go pick up another fan at staples. I might be able to use it anyway.

 

By the way, I tried it once without a separate fan, to see if it the fan on the PSU was enough to get it going. No dice.

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by mclimbin, 22 January 2015 - 02:49 PM.

[mclimbin]

OK! I picked up a fan that would connect to a molex connector. It worked! Quiet fans too.

 

I think I will try to reassemble it again, as I am not sure that I connected everything to the MB correctly.

 

I'll let you know how that works out. Let me know if you have any other suggestions.

m

[mclimbin]

Update: I installed the PSU into the case and checked if it was still working. The case has a funky design where the PSU is placed in the opposite corner as most cases, and then it runs a cable to the corner of the case where the I/O panel is located. I wanted to make sure this cable was working correctly. I did the paper clip test and it worked fine again.

I then plugged in the atx cable. When I tried to fire it up, just to see if it would post, nothing.

Could you look at the manual that you posted in an earlier message? I have a question. The MB has a 24 pin slot, while the PSU has a 20 pin plug. The manual says to plug it in the 1 and 13 slots. That means the last 4 slots are empty, right? Then the four pin atx attaches clear a cross the board on the other side of the cpu.
Is that the way it's supposed to work?
Thanks in advance--again!