My new thin mini-ITX build!

[barnabas1969]

I'm starting this thread to detail a thin mini-ITX build in a case that's about the size of a Bluray player. I'll post pictures later, but for now... here's the hardware lineup...

• Case: Morex 887 from MitxPC.com (see pictures here).
• CPU: Intel i5-3475S with Intel HD 4000 Graphics
• Cooler: Intel HTS1155LP
• Motherboard: Intel DQ77KB
• RAM: Crucial - CT2KIT51264BF160B - (2) 4GB DDR1600 SODIMM Memory - 8GB Kit
• mSATA SSD: Intel SSDMCEAC120B301 - 120GB 520 Series
• PSU: LG LCAP31 19V 140W AC Adapter
• HDMI-CEC adapter: Pulse-Eight internal adapter.
• HDD: Seagate Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000 4TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
  two 2.5" Western Digital Green WD20NPVT 2TB drives for a total of 4TB (requires modification to mount them in the case)
• ODD: Panasonic UC-135A slim slot-load BD-ROM DVD burner combo
  Panasonic UJ-265A slot-load Bluray burner

To buy the case by itself (and not as a barebone), I had to contact MitxPC by e-mail. They don't list the case for sale by itself (and neither does anyone else that I could find). I also spoke to them on the telephone to clarify that the case does come with the case fan and the compartment dividers as pictured. They answered the phone promptly and confirmed that it does.

I've already ordered everything except the HDD's and the ODD. I'm waiting to receive the case so I can determine what I need to mount the HDD's. I'm certain that two 2.5" drives will mount in the case. Based on the photos (here) of the case with a 3.5" drive mounted in it, I should be able to mount the 2.5" drives side by side. I've opted for a single 4TB 3.5" drive.

I really don't need a Bluray burner in this machine, so if someone can recommend a slim slot-load Bluray drive that costs less than the Panasonic UC-265A, I'd appreciate it. I found the UJ-135A for quite a bit less money, but shipped from China so it might take a while. I chose the expedited shipping, which cost an extra $20, but the estimated arrival date is Aug 2nd thru Aug 7th. If it comes that fast, I'll be amazed.

Also, once I receive the case, I want to see if I can mount some LED's behind the IR receiver window. I currently use LED's driver to drive three LED's to display the status of the system. I have a red one to indicate recording status, a yellow one to indicate whether or not any extenders or RDP sessions are connected, and a green one to indicate the status of ehshell. The motherboard has an RS-232 header that I can use to drive the LED's, as well as the custom solutions header's single pair of recording LED pins, which are passed through the HDMI-CEC board. I'm hoping that there is room for three small LED's behind the IR receiver window.

I don't really need S/PDIF, but the motherboard has a header for that too... so I may buy a S/PDIF bracket that can be modified to fit where the case currently has analog audio jacks in the back. I have no use for eight analog audio jacks as the motherboard doesn't support analog 7.1 anyway. I was wrong. The motherboard does not have an S/PDIF header (I was thinking of the DH61AG). The DQ77KB is even better... it has an analog stereo output jack that doubles as a mini Toslink (optical audio) jack! The documentation doesn't even mention this.

I think this is going to be a sweet little system!

EDIT: Here are some pictures:

Here's the system with the top off. You can see the Pulse-Eight HDMI-CEC adapter in the top-left corner. The Bluray player and 3.5" hard drive are installed. I haven't cleaned up the cables, or built the LED's Driver board for the front panel yet. The 7.1 analog audio jacks that were in the rear of the case have been removed, and I have not yet added the rear USB ports.

Here's a picture of the system from the front. There's a Samsung BD-P3600 Bluray player sitting on top of it to give you an idea of the size of the case.

Here's a picture with the same Samsung BD-P3600 sitting on top of the PC, just to give you some more perspective.

[jerryt]

How much do you figure everything will cost?

[barnabas1969]

How much do you figure everything will cost?

The case was $135 plus about $15.00 to ship it from CA to FL. The cooler was $30, and is being shipped with the case. I picked up the motherboard, CPU, SSD, RAM, and PSU on e-bay for $535.00 with free shipping. So far, that's a total of $715.

The guy on e-bay has a bunch of the CPU's, which he is selling for $165 each. I got the motherboard from him (new, never opened) for $130. They sell on Newegg for $149.99 (if you can catch them in-stock!).

I'm undecided on the HDD's and ODD. I'm waiting until I receive the case so I can measure. The case is designed for a slim slot-load ODD, and the only one I found in my quick search was the one I listed above, which costs more than I want to spend ($120-130). I don't need a Bluray burner, so if I find a less expensive slim slot-load BD-ROM drive, I'll go with that.

EDIT: I paid $179.99 plus $2.99 shipping for the HDD (which is now listed in my first post). I paid $39.99 for the BD-ROM drive, plus $39.99 for expedited shipping. So, we're now up to $977.96 total.

[jerryt]

It is nice that it can use a 65 watt processor.

I have been considering a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... alParent=1

Which someone has reported would accept a 45 watt processor. Plus is that it has a NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M on borad

[barnabas1969]

That looks nice, but I wanted internal HDD(s) and I wanted it to look as much like a normal piece of HT equipment as possible (at a reasonable price). To me, it just doesn't make sense to build a SFF PC that has HDD's hanging off of it. A NAS hidden somewhere would be OK, but Media Center has limitations with NAS.

[jerryt]

Sounds well thought out. I do like the dual 2.5 drives.

I have built a few computer using this double 2.5 caddy
HSB220SAT25B
I cut a hole in the case, so drives can be swapped out quick. Makes trying different OS simple.

[barnabas1969]

I do like the dual 2.5 drives.

Please post some pictures...

Well, when I discovered that the 2.5" drives were now available in 2TB, that's the road I started down. It's been a while since I looked for hard drives, and they've increased the storage available in a drive since the last time I looked. When I decided on two 2.5" drives, I was thinking of a different case that didn't have room for a 3.5" drive. Now, that I've chosen this case, and I see that there are 4TB 3.5" drives, I'm looking at that option. It would be cheaper. I'm looking at the specs now.

I'll post pictures when I get all the components.

[jerryt]

Caddy
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817998040

[foxwood]

The case is designed for a slim slot-load ODD, and the only one I found in my quick search was the one I listed above, which costs more than I want to spend ($120-130). I don't need a Bluray burner, so if I find a less expensive slim slot-load BD-ROM drive, I'll go with that.

There are a few on ebay, presumably pulled from laptops:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-CA21N-6x-Blu ... 1725wt_904

[barnabas1969]

Caddy
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817998040

The problem is that the 2TB 2.5" drives are taller than a normal 2.5" drive. There may or may not be enough room in the case to stack them.

[barnabas1969]

The case is designed for a slim slot-load ODD, and the only one I found in my quick search was the one I listed above, which costs more than I want to spend ($120-130). I don't need a Bluray burner, so if I find a less expensive slim slot-load BD-ROM drive, I'll go with that.

There are a few on ebay, presumably pulled from laptops:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-CA21N-6x-Blu ... 1725wt_904

Yeah, I did some more searching today... and I see several choices ranging from about $30.00 if I'm willing to wait a couple of weeks for it to ship from China. But I still need to wait until the case arrives. The pictures of the case that I've found online show a couple of different versions. Some show a slot in the front which appears to mean that I'd need a drive without a bezel, while others show a hole big enough for the bezel to fit.

EDIT: The case I received has a hole for a bezel in the front. It came with an aluminum blank in the hole, just in case you don't want to install an optical drive. The case is designed to accept two 3.5" drives, or one 3.5" and one slim optical drive.

[barnabas1969]

I'm definitely leaning toward a single 3.5" drive. This drive is priced right, will fit, and is quiet and doesn't use very much power (which matters when you're using a laptop power supply). My only concern was whether it would handle 10 tuners, 5 extenders, and a TV connected to the PC's video adapter (requiring approx 23MB/s write, and 14MB/s read). I got my answer to that question when I looked at this PC Mark Vantage test of the hard drive. The PC Mark Vantage test for Media Center does a 50/50 read/write test to simulate watching and recording TV in Media Center. It tested at 81.6MB/s (the test lists 81.6B/s, but all numbers are in MB/s, according to the Futuremark.com website).

EDIT: I have no idea why my post above was edited to say "heck.com". The site is future mark dot com (no spaces). They are the makers of the PC Mark Vantage software.

[barnabas1969]

I received the Morex case this morning. I assembled the system (minus the HDD and ODD), and I've installed Windows. So far, so good!

The Morex case looks really nice and is very well built. It's quite a bit heavier than I expected. The CPU and system fans are both very quiet. I plan to order the HDD mentioned in post #12 tomorrow. I'll find an ODD too.

[barnabas1969]

I connected a Kill A Watt meter just out of curiosity. I'm amazed at how little power this thing uses. It idles at 11 watts. I ran the Windows Experience Index test, and it peaked at 56 watts. Shutdown (S5) is 1.0 watts, and standby (S3) is 1.5 watts.

These numbers will probably go up a little when I install an HDD, ODD, and some software... but wow.

The HDD I chose uses 0.75 watts at idle, 5 watts while the platter is spinning with no activity, 7.5 watts typical when reading/writing. I imagine an ODD will be about the same. I'm guessing that it will probably pull 15-18 watts at idle after everything is installed and working. I'll do another test after I get everything setup.

With power consumption this low, I think I will leave it turned on 24x7. I don't see much reason to put it in standby.

[jaimeknapp]

I was checking the DQ77KB and it appears that all of the external USB ports are 3.0. From what I have read, terminal adapters seem to have issues with USB3.0. I presume that your Brighthouse does not use terminal adapters and this is not an issue for you, but may be for others considering duplicating your build. Have I possibly missed something and the TA to USB3.0 issue has been resolved?

I look forward to see how it handles your extender load

[barnabas1969]

I was checking the DQ77KB and it appears that all of the external USB ports are 3.0. From what I have read, terminal adapters seem to have issues with USB3.0. I presume that your Brighthouse does not use terminal adapters and this is not an issue for you, but may be for others considering duplicating your build. Have I possibly missed something and the TA to USB3.0 issue has been resolved?

I look forward to see how it handles your extender load

I think you mean Tuning Adapters.

According to the doc, two of the rear ports are 2.0 and two are 3.0. In any case, it doesn't matter. I won't be using a Ceton InfiniTV USB tuner (and the PCIe version won't fit in the case). I'm using HD HomeRun PRIME tuners. With the HD HomeRun PRIME, the Tuning Adapter plugs directly into the USB port on the tuner, not on the PC. I've honestly never read that Tuning Adapters can't be plugged into a USB 3.0 port. I have read that the InfiniTV4-USB can't be plugged into USB 3.0 ports though.

EDIT: I reviewed the technical specification for the board again, and all four rear ports are USB 3.0. Sorry for my mistake. Either way, it doesn't matter (see above). All of the internal USB headers are 2.0. I'm planning to modify the back of the case to add two USB ports (which will be connected to the internal headers). I'm just waiting for the part I ordered for this.

Oh, and it will handle my extenders just fine. It has a more powerful CPU than my existing HTPC, which handles the extenders without a problem. Only thing to see is how the HDD that I chose will handle the throughput of 10 recordings and 6 shows being watched simultaneously.

[barnabas1969]

I received my new 4TB drive yesterday. I installed it and formatted it today. While it was formatting, the system was drawing 24 watts. When the drive was spinning, but not being accessed (while nothing was running), it was drawing 16 watts. After the drive spun down, the system was drawing 13.5 watts.

This is very good. I can't wait to get the optical drive I bought.

[barnabas1969]

I setup Media Center and installed the drivers for my HD HomeRun PRIME tuners today. I ordered two HDHR3-US devices to replace my existing PCIe Hauppauge tuners, but I don't have them yet. So... without interrupting my existing HTPC, I did a little testing.

I was able to record 6 shows simultaneously from my PRIME tuners. With 6 recordings going, the disk queue length on the HDD was less than 0.05. CPU was around 10%. Power consumption was 24.5 watts without ehshell.exe running.

I stopped one recording and watched one channel in Live TV while the other 5 continued to record. Disk queue length remained less than 0.05, CPU was about the same, and power consumption was 25.3 watts.

Watching one live TV show with nothing recording caused the power consumption to hover around 25 watts.

Displaying the Media Center menu, with nothing playing or recording, consumed 18 watts.

Displaying the Windows desktop, with nothing playing or recording in Media center consumed 16-18 watts.

These measurements were recorded with the PC connected to a 720p TV. The power consumption in the desktop was about the same as it was when measured earlier while connected to a 1080p display, but I expect a 1080p TV to cause power consumption to rise a little when watching Live/Recorded TV as compared to a 720p TV.

[barnabas1969]

I also tried to install the Pulse-Eight HDMI-CEC adapter today. The installer, the version and link to which was recommended by one of Pulse-Eight's developers, did not successfully install the x64 drivers for the device. I e-mailed Pulse-Eight for help. While waiting for a response, I found a few posts on Pulse-Eight's forum regarding the x64 drivers, but none of the suggestions resolved my problem.

So far, their responses have come within a day or two (much better than the non-response I have received from RCAware). I expect a response soon. Hopefully they can point me to a solution that will allow the device to work with Win 7 x64.

[barnabas1969]

And... now, the Pulse-Eight site is down (forums, store, everything). I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling about this. So far, all I can find is people complaining that it doesn't work on x64. One guy went as far as posting a "solution" that didn't work for me.

Hmmm...