HP Slimline Sleeper HTPC

[chesleywan]

Background

Aside from my personal desktop PC, all the other machines in the house are small form factor. I have two Shuttles, one for a study room PC and the other as an HTPC. However, I have another custom Mini ITX machine for a second HTPC. Life for this custom machine started with an MSI board with a built-in AMD E-350 APU, a 500GB hard drive, 4GB RAM and a Blu-ray drive. The platform didn't change much as I experimented with different cases and power supplies which I wasn't completely satisfied with. Once I got an SSD for this setup, the fact that it barely affected boot times or performance pushed me to do a full overhaul.

I had just finished helping a friend build his new PC and in return, he gave me a stripped down HP Slimline case. And when I say stripped down, I mean that the power switch and LED assembly, the HP media bay cage (not like I needed it) and all the screws were missing. I did get a bunch of random parts, but the only seemingly valuable parts were the HP OEM wireless adapter and the default 180W power supply, which did NOT work and only used a mini 24-pin power connector. (I got a low profile PCI TV tuner, but that wasn't useful for this build.)

The Quest... to find parts

I had purchased all the original parts for this machine brand new, but I decided to take a quick look through my local Kijiji classifieds. Thank goodness I did, because I was able to get an Intel Core i3-2100 for the amazing price of $50.

From there, I needed to find a mini ITX board. Since I had Kingston HyperX 3K 90GB SATA III SSD, I couldn't just go for a cheapo H61 board and I wasn't wanting to spend a ton for an H77 or Z77 board. I found just what I needed on Newegg: a Foxconn H67S motherboard. (Some people might have doubted Foxconn as a motherboard choice, but after owning a NetBox, I was pleasantly surprised with the reliability and quality of their product.) This satisfied all the criteria on my list, especially the fact that it had two SATA III and one SATA II connections. The bumblebee colour scheme with orange SATA cables was just an extra funky bonus.

I added in the Mushkin Silverline 4GB DDR3-1333 I had from the start and went with the stock CPU cooler. I was also going to reuse my Samsung Blu-ray drive and WD Caviar Black 500GB SATA III drive.

The default power supply was shot and so I went looking for a replacement. (I somehow ended up selling the broken one for $10.) The only retailer that actually stocked mini ITX power supplies was, once again, Newegg. There weren't a whole lot of options, but based off reviews I went with an FSP220-60LE, which was 80 PLUS certified.

For the small odd bits, I hit up eBay and went searching. I needed LEDs and a switch, which was a cool 99 cents for a generic set from China. I also wanted to get a card reader, since the front bezel of the case had cutouts for it and would be a great added feature. I had a little bag of assorted screws laying around and I just hoped I had enough to keep everything together. (I didn't actually have enough, but I dug into the accessories I had from my Shuttles and the extra pan-head screws definitely came in handy.) I also took a spare (blue) SATA cable from my Gigabyte board for the Blu-ray drive.

Lastly, this definitely wasn't part of the build, but seeing that the original motherboard was a mini DTX form factor (mini ITX with two expansion slots, essentially), I thought a low profile video card would be a nice finishing touch to add some extra kick to the performance. Kijiji was my friend once again, as I found a Sapphire HD6570 for $30.

The Build

After dropping in the motherboard, I tried sliding in the Blu-ray drive. Immediately, I noticed that the drive was longer than usual and the CPU cooler was too tall. (Even a standard length DVD burner would've been a problem.) I used Google and asked a local forum to find some low-profile CPU coolers. An older website provided me with two options: a Scythe Kozuti (40 mm tall) or Silverstone NT07-775 (37 mm tall). The Kozuti was still being sold, but the NT07-775 definitely wasn't. To my surprise, I discovered that an NT07-1156 was being sold and was the same height as the original design. Forum members were telling me to go with a Kozuti and my initial measurements seemed to suggest than anything 40 mm or less would work. However, reviews were mixed, but some suggested that the airflow design would negatively affect motherboard components. The reviews for the NT07 were also mixed, some saying that it didn't perform that well for the CPU wattages it was said to work with. Still, I decided to go with the NT07 simply because I wanted more clearance between the drive and the cooler. Thank goodness I did, because there seriously was only <1 mm of clearance!

The second issue that came up was the fact that these HP cases clearly weren't meant to have SSDs mounted natively. Of course, I had to improvise. Thankfully, I had an ACP 2.5" to 3.5" HDD mounting kit lying around. It was intended to mount an SSD into one of my Shuttles, but the default screw holes were totally useless and I just kept it around. How did I finally put this "totally useless" mounting kit to good use? Well, turns out you just need to use it in a totally unconventional manner. I'll let the pictures do the explaining.

The third issue came up with the HP OEM wireless adapter. It was essentially a slim board latched onto a plastic housing with one connection going to an internal USB header and the other connection going to the antenna. In the original HP configuration, it appeared to hook onto part of the proprietary CPU cooler, but of course, that wouldn't work anymore. Also, the antenna itself needed to be put somewhere, but there wasn't really a hole that would allow me to use the original washer and nut. There was an opening in the rear of the case which originally housed an S-video add-on for the included TV tuner. The gap was too large to simply mount the antenna without additional hardware. I went downstairs to my dad's stash of random shenanigans and found two larger, equally-sized washers with a proper inner diameter. Then I was able to clip the board nearby and plug in the wireless adapter into the board.

The last two issues were quite the PITA. I had already ordered the generic case switch and LEDs a month earlier, but I had just received the power supply. I had to fold down the OEM power supply mounting tabs and expand a screw hole slightly to accommodate the mounting of the aftermarket power supply, but otherwise, the install was fine. I plugged in the case switch from another machine just to made sure everything worked. It booted and ran quiet, so I was satisfied for the time being.

Many weeks later, I got the switch and LEDs. The HDD LED had a plastic mount, which was simply enough. The power LED and switch was a completely different story. The OEM switch and LED are actually combined in a bracket that slots into the top of the case. Clearly, I didn't have that. With some creativity and hot glue, my dad cut up an expansion slot bracket and secured the switch in the appropriate position and glued the power LED in place.

Finally, I could boot it up in its final configuration and be happy with it. Of course, I said that too soon, as the power supply fan began to ramp up and get hot without any significant load. If only the switch had arrived earlier, I could've gotten an RMA with Newegg for no charge, but too late for me, I paid out of my own pocket to ship it down to FSP HQ and got it repaired. Now she's running great and from afar, you wouldn't even know what kinda hardware this little Slimline has. (Not saying that this is anything ridiculously powerful, but it's a major improvement over the specs listed on the sticker!) The noise levels are close to silent, temperatures are very reasonable and the boot times are nice and quick. Here's a sound sample video: http://youtu.be/6cyfb9pJdfU

Moar Pics!

[TicTac]

needs a gtx 690

[chesleywan]

needs a gtx 690

Find one that's low profile and has low power consumption and I might consider it. =_=

[JironM]

How about a LP HD7750?

[chesleywan]

How about a LP HD7750?

That would definitely work, but nothing will beat the performance per $ of the video card I already have now.