This has been semi-attempted a few times here, lets try it again through.

TGB and the rest of the MCE Community needs everyone’s help in order to compile a "DIY Guide for Building an MCE Machine". I know many of you have suggested that we start something like this here, so let's start it now.

Suggestions are open on how this should work, however my first thought is that it needs to be organized in a decent way. This is key because it's not a big shock that this forum is not as organized as it should/could be.

What I’m thinking is that everyone post in this thread what you have tried and not tried in order to get your machine up and running from scratch! In your replies please try and organize it as best you can, at the same time include what you tried in terms of hardware, software, and your setup. What worked, what didn’t work, what kind of worked, and what worked the best!

List your hardware as best you can, the software you are using, links to threads (or exact posts) of information that helped you fix or get something right! If you had a problems with specific hardware or software, post it! If you have a smooth ride with hardware or software, post it! If you would suggest one thing over another, post it! Thanks to Ian (or is hiding around here somewhere, I know but don't know under what name), Matt G, and Bryce for being up this topic.

Great idea Chris!

In December I put together my "from scratch" MCE box. I started with an Intel micro-ATX 865PE board, P4 2.8 CPU and Coolermaster case. I picked up a MCE bundle from PC Alchemy which included MCE 2005 OEM, MCE Remote, NVidia Mpeg2 Decoder and Hauppauge PVR-150 MCE. For the video: ATI 9600 (fanless), audio: Onboard C-Media, NIC: Onboard. For display, i'm using a 32" Princeton Graphics monitor connected via VGA connector.

Process of Installing:

• Install OS as you normally would any XP system. Insert disk in cd, reboot, boot from cd. I deleted the existing partition and created a fresh one. In the OEM version of MCE2k5, it asks for cd 2 while cd 2 is still in there. In this case (as has been reported on this forum), you put cd 1 back in and it will find the .cab file.
• After installing the OS and before starting the MCE app, make sure that all MCE compatible drivers have been installed. This is especially important for the video (both ATI and NVidia have MCE specific drivers). Installation PVR-150 MCE drivers is vital as well. Make sure the all "unknown drivers" in Device manager have been taken care of as well.
• Install the DVD Decoder (NVidia in my case) and activate it.
• Make sure that cable is connected and then startup MCE to go through the setup.

Problems that occurred:

• Blank screen when running MCE caused by incorrect video drivers - installed new MCE specific drivers to correct it.
• When cloning a drive with Ghost (moving to a larger hard drive), system restore no longer worked and visualizations failed to work. I fixed system restore by disabling it in the registry and then turning it back on in the Computer properties. The visualizations had to be reinstalled to get them working in MCE.

System is working great right now.

It a big job to list step by step all the things we did to get it going.

Maybe it should be broken down in to

Hardware recommendations, what works and what won't work also see Microsoft's list http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/partners/dfw.mspx

Software recommendations, what you need PowerDVD etc

Add On Software, The Green Button forums,RSS readers etc

The things that caught me out was some of the Online Spotlite sides use DIVX which I hadn't installed

Other than that the install was easy. I have been thinking of doing something my self for a while (i blogged it here http://spaces.msn.com/members/iandixon/ and pointed people to this site) so I think this is an excellent idea to do it here

And for those not completely new to HTPC's ....

A chapter about what works and doesn't work "Outside" of the base MCE install and known (popular) plugins.

I moved over to MCE about 2/3 weeks ago from Meedio, and Mainlobby before.

I had a REALLY hard time finding out any info on what should be some easy information to find:

1.) Would a USB-UIRT work with MCE (there's a Girder plugin, the Harmony ), but then you can't get STB control and some other "speed bumps"), just no REAL answer.

2.) Can you use a third party DVD Player with MCE (ala TT2 or Zoomplayer)Yes and No (with limitations)

3.) Using ffdshow

4.) Odered MCE OEM, didnt know I couldnt use the TV part basically at all without a MCE remote and receiver so had to wait another 3 days for that delivery.

5. ) And Other Issues


With some of this info in one place, with reasonalable definitive answers, would go a long way in making buying decisions, initial startup and use and happiness with MCE

It wouldn't hurt to have a section on what people are "supposedly" working on and what may be coming down the pipe(ie: ffdshow integration, other 3rd party plugins (the beta skin customizer), etc), which gets updated as needed.

I've spent alot of time pre-purchase and post purchase tracking down answers to what I believe should be reasonably easy to find info.

Thanks

Jeff

My Setup

Biostar IDEQ 210P - BioStar
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1Gb RAM
Radeon 9550 Pro AGP 8x
2 x Maxtor 200Gb SATA
Toshiba Dual Layer CD/DVD Burner
Hauppauge PVR150 MCE Tuner Card
Microsoft Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse
7in1 Card Reader
Philips 37" Plasma display
Sony DA50ES 5.1 Receiver

When I first got my MCE machine from my hardware supplier, it did not actually allow TV to be displayed. I had provided a guideline to the supplier for the components I wanted in the MCE PC. After downloading the Microsoft Windows XP Video Decoder CheckUp Utility I discovered that the MPEG2 codecs that had been installed on my machine, those that came with the DVD Burner, were WinDVD 4.0. These were not compatible with MCE so I removed them using the Utility and downloaded a trial version of WinDVD 6.0. After installing these, I could get the TV running, but it was not a very good picture. I also found that WINDVD 6.0 did not provide many sound options and thus I could not get Dolby Digital or DTS pass-thru from the SP/DIF connection to my receiver.
After this, I downloaded a trial version of Cyberlink PowerDVD Deluxe 6.0. After installing this, I found I got a much better TV image and could know also get full surround sound through my receiver using the SP/DIF interface. I decided after this to purchase the full product.

I had connected my Plasma to the S-Video port on my Radeon 9550 card, and whilst this gave a reasonable image, it did not provide an optimum one, so I changed this over to use the VGA port on the Radeon card and connected it directly through to the VGA port on the Philips Plasma. The manual for this BTW says that the optimal resolution for VGA on the 37" is 1280 x 768 @ 60Hz. I found this to be unsuitable and in normal Windows XP, barely readable, so I changed this back to use 1024 x 768 @ 60Hz.

The next issue I found was that the drivers that came with the Radeon 9550 card were a bit old, so I updated them to the latest ATI Catalyst drivers. This caused an issue with TV and DVD in that when you changed the channel, fast forwarded, rewound or paused either TV and watching a DVD, the video image would go black for about 20 seconds, even though the sound was correct and the MCE interface could be seen. This did not happen when the TV was connected to the Radeon via the S-Video port. This was eventually resolved by removing all graphics drivers and reinstalling from the downloaded drivers from ATI. However this created a new issue with the video where the image when panning from left to right or vice versa would get this horrible tearing effect along the edge of objects or people.

During this time I also connected a Thomson 2300 STB using the IR Blaster and connecting it to the Hauppauge PVR150 MCE via the Composite RGB connecter and Audio In. Unfortunately the Thomson STB does not output full colour via the S-Video port on a Scart connecter so this was out. After MCE found the Thomson STB, I then had a full range of Free to Air Digital Channels available on my MCE TV. The only issue with this was that the image quality of the Digital channels was a bit fury or blury. I put this down to the fact that I was convering the Digital image in the STB, down to Composite RGB then taking it into the Hauppauge card.

The next step I took was to purchase a Radeon X800 Pro card to try and improve the quality of the video, in the hope that it would remove the tearing effect. I was planning on setting up a new MCE also, so this would be used in the future anyhow. After installing the new card and its drivers, I found that the SFF PC I had did not have enough power to drive the card properly so I removed it and uninstalled the drivers. In doing so, I actually took the MCE PC back to having no third party graphics drivers so had to re-install the ATI drivers for the Radeon 9550 I had recently downloaded from the net. This in turn fixed the tearing image problem I had so this would have pointed to not properly removing the graphics drivers from the original set up.

My next step was to try and improve the quality of the TV image I was getting. This was done by purchasing a new TV Tuner card, this time I got two Hauppage Nova-T PCI DVB-T cards. I purchased two as my new MCE PC will have dual tuners and these will be the ones that I will be using. After installing the new TV Tuner card, I found that the image quality had improved dramatically, however a downside of using the Nova-T PCI card is that it does not have an FM Radio antenna socket so you end up losing the My Radio function of MCE. Oh Well, small loss for the improvement of the image quality I think.

As I have moved from Australia to the UK, my rather large collection of DVD (almost all of them set to Region 4) could no longer be used in the DVD drive of the MCE as it would give me an error message saying that the DVD was from a different region to my DVD drive setting. I didn't want to go about having to change the region setting to accommodate this issue, and I only had 4 changes left on my drive (possibly one of the worst technical failings of DVD drives ever). In order to help me with this thorny issue, I downloaded a trial version of DVD Region+CSS Free software. After an initial problem of the software not recognising MCE as a player of DVDs, fixed by adding the ehshell.exe program to the applications that DVD Region worked with, I was able to play DVDs that had been purchased from around the world from different region codes without any errors coming up in MCE. I have now purchased the full copy of the DVD Region+CSS Free software to remove the slightly annoying, although well understood pop-up box that appears everytime you start MCE.

I now have the Plasma display connected to the Radeon 9550 via the DVI port on the card using a DVI-VGA converter that came with the X800 Pro.

So, after all of the trials above, I think I have a pretty smooth running MCE machine, apart from the FM Radio issue, but I will be able to get around this when I put together my new MCE machine.

So, my current configuration is as follows:
Biostar IDEQ 210P
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1Gb RAM
Radeon 9550 Pro AGP 8x
2 x Maxtor 200Gb SATA
Toshiba Dual Layer CD/DVD Burner
Hauppauge Nova-T PCI DVB-T Tuner Card
Microsoft Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse
7in1 Card Reader
CyberLink PowerDVD 6.0 Deluxe
G/Bit LAN
Philips 37" Plasma display
Sony DA50ES 5.1 Receiver

My new configuration (I hope) will be as follows:
Antec Overture Case
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe MB
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU
Radeon X850 XT PCI-Express
1Gb RAM
2 x Maxtor 200Gb SATA HD
Sony Dual Layer CD/DVD Burner
2 x Hauppauge Nova-T PCI DVB-T Tuner Card
9in1 Card Reader
Microsoft Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse
Microsoft Fingerprint Reader

DIY Guide to Building a Windows XP MCE PC.

Chapter 1 – Evaluation and Planning

• Evaluate Your Technical Expertise – Be honest with yourself.
• Evaluate Your Goals for MCE – What do you want from MCE.
• Develop General Parts Inventory List
• L, L and A.  Lurk, listen and ask questions.
• Begin The Adventure

Evaluate Your Technical Expertise

The DIY builder needs to give serious consideration to his or hers technical prowess and fortitude.  Building an MCE takes time, patience and perseverance.  It is also a part-time job.  If you think I’m kidding about the above, just check out the TGB forums and see how many issues there can be and how much time is being devoted to these beasts we have come to love.

Evaluate Your Goals for MCE

Before you can effectively determine your parts inventory list, you need to ask yourself some questions.

Where will my MCE call home? The answers to these questions will help determine the type of case and cooling that is required, as well as others things such as the type of video board (fanless or cooling assisted).  Sample things to think about might be as follows.

• Will it be a component in an entertain center, on an open shelf, on the floor next to the TV, someplace else?
• Will the MCE main unit be housed inside a closed area such as behind the entertain center doors, in an armoire, etc.?
• What kind of noise level from the MCE can you tolerate (depending upon where the unit is kept)?  Near absolute silence, slight noise, normal PC noise?

For me, my MCE will sit on an open shelf in a console entertainment center with all sides open to air flow.  And, while I’ve tried to keep it as quiet as possible, since I live in a small townhouse apartment with my family of five, we are used to general noise and commotion.  Also, there are PCs in nearly every room and everyone is used to some PC noise, so a noiseless MCE was not much of a consideration for me.

What types of media will my MCE manage?

• Offline DVD movies
• Archived DVD movies
• Live TV
• Recorded TV
• Music files
• Photos

For me, initially it’ll be primarily used for videos.  In my case, I have only antenna TV and a plain vanilla SDTV.  And, because of my schedules, I get very little time when I can even sit down to potentially watch TV.  So, I built my MCE to be able to play back, at my convenience, all of my archived movies and TV shows.  It will also be used for display of all the digital photos taken by my family.  It will not see much use (at the present time) as a music playback device.  As such, my MCE does not immediately need TV tuner boards.  It will not need anything but basic PC-based sound.  But, it will need lots of disk storage.

What other things will my MCE need to do?

• Wired or wireless networking
• Stream content from another machine
• Burn CDs and/or DVDs
• Etc.
   

Develop General Parts Inventory List

Determine your budget and based on your evaluation, develop a generalized parts inventory list.  Check out different case, motherboard, video board, etc. options.  Narrow your list down to a couple different options for each component based on one or more of the following: budget, where it will be located, visual style, etc.  Revise the list as necessary, then….

L, L, and A – Lurk, Listen, and Ask Questions

Spend lots of time lurking at as many web sites and in as many forums as possible.  The fact that you are reading this on TGB means you are in one of the best places to start.

In the beginning, just read.  Read through every forum.  Read every topic since many times the topic names do not effectively depict the topic content.  In the beginning, don’t post questions such as “What is the best video card for MCE?”  At TGB, many of the same questions are asked endlessly:  What’s the best <pick one> video card, motherboard, decoder, amount of memory, sound card, and so on.  Just read!  When you find a tip, trick or hack that might come in handy, capture it for later possible use.

For me, I lurked for about six weeks.  I asked perhaps a few questions but only after I had lurked and absorbed for a long time.  In that time, I reviewed my plans for MCE as well as my initial parts list.  I revised things a number of times based on postings and feedback in the TGB forums as well as my own technical background and determined goals and needs from MCE.

Begin The Adventure

When you have reached what you feel is a comfort level, and only you will know when that is, acquire your parts and begin.

Go slow!  Don’t dive head first into the alligator pit.  Rather, conquer one alligator at a time.

You don’t have to install every single device in the machine at the first install of MCE.  Start with the basic PC required components.  Leave out the tuner boards.  Don’t install the remote control.  Don’t install every codec known to mankind.  Get XP and all the initially installed hardware working first before moving on to the MCE shell.  Install the proper drivers, especially for MCE, for the initially installed hardware.  Install the proper decoder for MCE.  There is no roadmap for this process.  However, if you are a prior system builder and you've spent time lurking, you'll get a feel for how to best proceed.

Take it easy.  Get one thing to work at a time.  There are several benefits to this approach.  You’ll have small victories along the road to MCE nirvana.  You’ll feel good.  You’ll want to continue.  If you put everything into the mix at once and have problems, it will be frustrating as you work to figure things out.  And, by getting things to work one at a time, if something breaks as you progress, it’ll be easier to troubleshoot.

I’ve said my piece.  Go….and good luck grasshopper!

I have been lab testing a lot of setups for work so someone can write an article up on "tivo alternatives".

While everyone will have list of favorite hardware setups, I have found the following to be true no matter what you use. This is my off the top of my head guide for what everyone should consider when picking hardware out.

** NOTE ITS NOW an hour since I started this and there are some damn good things in here. Perhaps I should just write up a huge definitive guide to building a PVR and avoiding the common mistakes myself **

My recommended considerations when picking hardware:

- Decide how you will use your MCE setup. Stand alone pvr with low cpu intensive applications will cost you signifigantly less than something you will try to play the latest video games on.

- Where are you going to put this computer? Do you have kids? Do you like whirling noises? Do lights on in a bedroom make it difficult to sleep? Do you want to replace your space heater with a computer? Some thought into where you will put this system will greatly improve your ability to pick parts that fit your lifestyle. bright lights, neon kits, glowing water cooling fluid may impress people, but you have to live with it.

- Your computer can only send so much data between internal components. HDTV greatly increases the amount of data that will be handled by your computer. Hard drives can only read/write so fast. You can "combine" drives in a raid setup to help speed this up. while this is not a technically accurate statement, someone needing a diy guide should pay attention to FSB or System bus speeds can help avoid possible jumpy/missing signal.

- Intel vs AMD. I personally am an AMD fan and will normally not purchase Intel machines. HOWEVER. video codecs tend to be written to support all the bells and whistles found in Intel CPUS. I have not done a cpu load comparison between intel or amd to find out how the various codecs and software decoders function with MCE. In video editing and encoding setups, intel cpus tend to be 30-40% FASTER than amd. In other words, intel vs amd equivilant in speed and the intel cpu tends to run 20-25% less cpu load or finish the video task in 30-40% less time. Microsoft has been pretty good with amd support for their codecs, however your mpeg2 decoder is not a microsoft product.

- HARDWARE BASED ENCODING AND DECODING. Hardware is better than software (in most cases). You can reduce your costs, ambient noises, fan noises and heat produced by your computer by building yuor setup smart. If your not trying to run the latest 3d games, there are some excellent video cards around the $100 mark that support hardware decoding. Look for the following items for a MCE based computer: DirectX 9 video cards, MPEG2 and WMV hardware decoding. Some cards offer more options but these are the main ones you will run into with MCE. Same goes with Video Tuner/Capture cards. If they can hardware encode the video steam, thats less data on the system bus and lower cpu needs. If your not heavily 3d gaming, the extra whistles are a waste of money.

- In General SATA drives use less power and run quieter than IDE/PATA drives. Take the model numbers of the drives your considering to buy and spend a little time on the manufacturers website. Look up teh tech specs. While you may not understand most of whats there, you may find DB ratings, temp ratings, and you will almost always run into recommended usage. Look for the magic PVR and Video Storage needs in the recommended usage list. Some manufacturers (like IBM/Hitachi) have tools for extremely advanced users that allow you to change some settings in the drives. Usually these tools will have presents for PVR usage. Setting the drive to run optimally will make it a better experience.

- Not all DVD drives are the same. I have a personal loyalty to plextor so I will always use their drives. Plextor dvd drives have a lot of settings you can change to better your experience near a TV. (eg, spin up time) Real life example, by default when you put in a movie DVD. The drive will automatically kick into 1x style settings and run near silent. PERFECT for watching a dvd movie. I cannot speak for other manufacturers, I am not familar with their drive offerings.

- Cases. I group cases into several sections. 1: Towers, they stand up. 2: Desktops, they sit sideways usually offered in full height and slim. 3: SFF (Small Form Factor) or Cubes. 4: rackmount. Can be handy for those with high end A/V setups. Some cases are louder than others. Some have brighter lights. Some fit in your furniture, some stand near it. Its all personal preference for this one. HOWEVER, some cases are offered as QUIET cases. These cases tend to use newer fan technology that are quieter than older ones. on a Quiet case, you also tend to get a small power supply. Be careful if your using high end parts, you will probably need better power. The huge warning is SLIM CASES. These cases tend to have riser cards to turn your slots from verticle to horizontal. You will quickly discover your 8 slot motherboard has been reduced to 2 slots. There are a lot of low profile cards out there now that fit into these well, but if the slots on teh back are goign the wrong way and you are not mechanically able to modify that, its worthless to you. Word of warnign about SFF. While under normal usage they are quiet computers. when you add the additional cards to build out your media center, they tend to get really hot and the fans run at full speed to compensate. If you know someone with the SFF your thinking of getting, ask them to play some doom3, farcry or Half-life 2 for abnout 20-30 minutes while your there. by the time they finish, you should hear the difference.

- Getting ready for the future. HDDVD and BLUERAY are coming. since they are high end bit rates, I'm thinking they may only be offered as a SATA drive. spending a couple more dollars now to make sure you have 2 extra sata drive "slots" can mean not replacing your motherboard/cpu/memory in the future. Since the companies are choosing sides, to get highest quality video viewing in my home, I am going to need both to make sure the kids can watch the disney movies and dad can watch anything he wants. This is also a good consideration for case. If your case only has room for 1 5.25" drive, you will not be able to put both of these internally later. Yet another upgrade you can avoid spending a couple more dollars today. Same goes with your dvd drive you buy now. If you hope to replace it in the future for HD or Blueray, it really doesn't matter what drive you buy now. you can reduce the impact of worthless hardware later going as cheap as you can on parts you know you will replace.

How to build an MCE system.

- Step 0. Your going to go in and out of this computer a lot the first night, I dont recommend trying to make it all nice and neat with wires and in its final resting spot. It will just create more work.

- Step 1, put all the disks your hardware came with away except for hte MCE2005 CD/DVD. I don't care if it says MCE versions, in my decades of experience, that cd was out of date 2 minutes after they sent it to be pressed.

- Step 2, Go onto another computer with a burner and download the following:
- motherboard bios and tools to update. Check your mobo manual for how to do this, you normally need a floppy drive and disk for this. This is the only usage for a floppy I have found lately so don't be shy about borrowing the drive and temporarily puttin in the new machine.
- motherboard chipset drivers. Usually these are not MCE versions. If your manufacturer doesn't offer MCE versions, go with the XP version. Once again going over your MOBO manual will tell you what your are looking for. Most likely its a chipset driver and possibly seperate sound and lan drivers. Most manufactuers offer the ability to dl the newest install CD in teh support section.
- Video card drivers. MUST BE THE MCE VERSIONS.
- TV TUNER drivers. MUST BE THE MCE VERSIONS.
- DVD FLASH UPGRADES. (didn't know you can update your dvd drive???) espeically true with burners. These will not be an MCE version.
- MPEG2 DECODER. Always look for a dvd player offered by your video card manufacturer first. This will always produce the best results in my book. If thats not avaiable I personally do not use full versions of software dvd players. Windows media player has preset mpeg2 decoders from various manufactuers for $15 and downloadable. Just stick witht he companies that also have full dvd player software that is MCE approved and go for their dvd/mpeg2 for windows media player versions. I personally have tested the sonic versions and they work great for me.

- Step 3: Uncompress/unzip and burn to a CD/DVD. Rememeber your about to install a new comptuer, you may not have network abilities or even a simple unzip program. Dont forget the bios will most likely need to be on a bootable floppy.

- Step 4: Install the minimum requirements in your computer, (mobo, memory, cpu/fans, DVD drive and that temporary floppy). Master is better than slave with drives. Your computer will run faster if your hard drive and dvd/cd are on SEPERATE CABLES. Most dvd drives shipped setup for slave so dont forget to change that to master on teh drive. THE MASTER GOES ON THE MIDDLE CONNECTOR ON THE CABLE IF THERE ARE 2 ENDS.

- Step 5: get this running. Boot up the first time to the floppy and install the bios upgrade. Boot up the second time and go into the bios. TURN OFF ALL EXTRA PARTS YOU WILL NEVER USE IN THAT COMPUTER. This is where technical ability comes in handy, but if your not connecting a printer using a parelle cable, turn off that port. If you have 1 DVD and 1 HD and oyu can run 8 drives in your computer, TURN off the other controllers. Serial ports, floppy controller, game controller, etc etc etc. All of these devices use IRQs and that will be your biggest headache in getting everything stable later on.

- Step 6: boot up into the MCE cd and install MCE.

- Step 7: install your motherboard drivers. (dont forget the lan and sound drivers if they are not a single install package).

- Step 8: Install your video card drivers. After reboot, setup your video settings best for the screen you are using.

- Step 9: install your dvd/cd flashbios upgrades.

- Step 10: go into windows update and keep running/installing/rebooting and repeating until ever single patch offered is installed.

- Step 11: if you plan to use a virus scanner now would be a good time to install this and do a full inital computer scan. theres not much on the drive yet so it shouldn't take too long. Make sure you disable the eral time scan for the rest of the setup, just in case its the cause of the problem.

- Step 12: launch media center edition and see if its complaining about anything. Play aroudn witht he only spotlight, etc etc. remember yor tv cards are no installed yet. At this point your making sure the default comptuer is operating. (you can optionally install the remote before step 12, this is a good time to get it going).

- Step 13: If your good at mapping things out, pull out your mobo manual again and find the section for default IRQ setup. There will be a map for what slots use what IRQ and what internal parts are using what. Remake this chart on your own crossing off all the parts you turned off. Try to get everything so it is not shared. Since your going to use a PVR, you really want every PCI slot with a tuner card, your video card and your hard drive controllers to be isolated. If your using an external usb tuner, that is a major consideration also.

- Step 14: now that you have your map, install your tv tuner cards in teh best slots for best performance. If your have just enough and can't get htem isolated, you will have to go into the bios and hand map out the IRQ usage across the PCI slots to best achieve this goal. You may also want to do 1 tuner card at a time. Start with the analog tuner since this is a requirement to get into the TV setup screens on MCE.

- Step 15: install the MCE versions of your TV tuner card drivers and go into MCE and run the tv setup. go over everything, find a good antenna placement and enjoy. If yuor using a cablebox/SD Sat receiver. Just connect the box up, install the IR blaster that came with your MCE remote and The setup is very simple, you'll know fast if it worked right. If you have an FM tuner, hook up the fm antenna and try that out also. When your done and ready to install the Digital TV tuner just shut down your machine and unplug it. Follow the same instructions again but with the digital tv setup. digital TV will have to be some type of antenna, you cannot get HDTV from cable/sat boxes at this time.

- Step 16: before you finish up and put everythign in its place, its time to stress test. test out everything happening at the same time. (assumgin you have 2 analog tuners, 1 digital tuner, fm radio and a dvd drive). go into the guide and start recording 2 different analog channels, 1 digital channel. Go between the channels your recording and see if anything is skipping, smooth video playback, etc. If anythign is a problem, you most likely have an IRQ conflict or your hard drive/system bus cannot keep up. If its ok, start listening to radio while its recording. If thats ok turn off teh radio and pop that favorite dvd into the drive and start watching it. watch a few moments then go into your recorded programs and see if the programs recorded smoothly during the same time you were in the dvd. There are developer stress test machiens that can help you pinpoint more specific problems, but you need to basically do this for a living to really follow them AND it takes several DAYS to completely stress test an MCE machine. However if your having problems, this is a good place to turn. If you didn't know, ther are MANY movies, that are offered in WMV DVD on standard dvd disks. Check ou tthe microsoft windows media player HD section on their websites. You may want to go pickup one and use that during yuor stress test instead of a standard dvd. not to mention, they look REALLY good and a small but good cross section of content.

- Step 17: everythign is working well, its time to clean up the room and put your MCE in its final resting place and turn it on for the last time This would be a good time to reflect on how much you just spent, how much trouble you went threw and pack the kids up and run to the nearest computer store to buy that $200 UPS system that you never had a reason too. Theres nothing like doing it all over again for no reason because the power went out while recording survivor. Get one of the good ones that can connect to the cmoputer and tell it to turn off before the battery runs out. When trying to figure out the size, rememebr yo just put in a xxxW power supply. you want at least that number on the ups. The objective on the UPS is to make sure the parts that cannot suddenly loose power, don't. Your TV just needs a surge protector, the computer will turn itself off since you got the good model.

- Step 18: Run out and get the kids an xbox with media center extender, a wireless network for your house,etc etc. (it never ends ).

Hi

One part of the guide should be contributed to the art of building small, silent, cool and aesthetical systems. These issues are quite new to the PC world in general and I had a lot of trouble finding the info I needed to build my system. Here are the few things I have found out. I'm sure that others will be able to contribute more:

Small & aesthetical

In my country (Switzerland), there isn't actually a big selection of self-configurable, small & aesthetical PC cases (SFF cases). Widely available are just the Asus Pundit and Shuttle XPC barebones. This wasn't such a big problem however, since I wouldn't want to use components that are not well known to build an MCE PC anyway.

Selecting a system from this "small and aesthetical" point of view was very easy due to lack of alternatives: only the Shuttle barebones more or less fit my idea of an aesthetical system.

If size and aesthetics is the predominant issue and price is not, I would decide for a pre-built system in the high end section, like the ones made by the small Swiss company "Reycom": http://www.reycom-mediacenter.ch/.

Silent

You will find a lot of info on silent PCs under http://www.silentpcreview.com.

As some tests show (e.g. one extensive test on Tom's Hardware Guide), barebones can be quite noisy and a lot of manufacturers still don't put much effort into changing this.

PC noise is always caused by mechanical components inside the system. There are two main groups of this:

Active cooling

Typically fans that cool certain components and fans that blow hot air out of the case. Here, noise can be reduced by a double strategy: a) using components that dissipate less heat (thus allowing the fans to run more slowly) and b) by using quieter components for active cooling, e.g. quiet fans like they are manufactured by http://www.verax.de or even by replacing some active cooling solutions by passive ones. Also, the architecture of your case and the number and distribution of fans is important. I finally decided to buy a Shuttle SB81P barebone because here the CPU is not only cooled by the Shuttle-typical heat pipe system, but it also lies in a separate air channel allowing it to be cooled more efficiently.

There are several ways to get cooler components:

a) If gaming is not an issue, use older, less powerful components that will generally also dissipate less heat. I decided against this option because I couldn't find a way to put the old components I had and the new components together in order to build a MC that fit my needs and because I was also concerned regarding future expandability.

b) Use new components that are best in their class concerning heat dissipation. There are interesting developments here but I personally wasn't able to put together a satisfactory and compatible combination of components like this either. At least I found a graphics card that could be passively cooled, based on the Radeon x800 chip by ATI.

c) Underclocking. For the above reasons, I finally bought a system based on a Socket 775 P4 with 3GHz - much too powerful for the use I intended to put it to. The newer P4 processors are clock multiplier locked, but the front side bus frequency can nevertheless be lowered, thus indirectly lowering the clock frequency of the CPU. I simply divided my FSB speed by 2 and thus lowered the clock speed of my CPU to 1.5GHz. This had absolutely no negative effect on the performance of my systems under the conditions I use it (playing DVDs, Playing and recording TV, listening to web media etc.). But the system got much cooler. The lowering of the bus frequency can be done with a few clicks in the BIOS, so this is also a solution for the occasional gamer.

Other mechanical components

Typically disk drives. In hard disk drive noisiness, there are huge differences between various models, even between some that might appear very similar in the catalogue. The SATA Raid 0 with 2 WD Raptor disks in my desktop PC may be fast, but its noise reminds me of a jumbo jet shortly before liftoff, whereas the Seagate Barracuda in my MCE PC is almost unhearable. DVD and CD drives can be noisy if they spin to higher speeds, but during normal playback this appears not to be a big issue because most drives will automatically fall back to lower speeds.

Of course, bigger cases need less cooling and they can be insulated with noise absorbing materiel/they can accommodate "quiet" cases for disk drives, water cooling etc. but as I said before, my system also had to be small.

So this is the system that resulted after some research:

Shuttle XPC SB81P (7.1 sound, gigabit LAN on board, 1GB RAM, P4 3.0GHz )
ATI X800 PCI Express graphics card (replacing the on board graphics in order to get SVIDEO out)
Hauppauge PVR 150 MCE
Seagate Barracuda 200GB (ST3200)
NEC DVD+/-RW

Am I satisfied with the result? Almost! I had to replace the original case fan of the Shuttle by a more quiet model and I had to drill some air holes into the sideboard my MC resides in (so that I can now have the system running with the sideboard doors closed). The system now is quiet enough to use it as a MC in the living room. My family says it’s almost unhearable - but of course my ambitions go a little bit further. I will probably replace more fans by quieter models when I recover from the initial financial shock of buying a $60 fan . And I will try to find a better “suspension” for my HDD.

I am a passionate PC builder, but when I look at some prebuilt systems that start appearing here and there (e.g. the ones by Hush Technologies, the newest Shuttle MCE systems, or even the Reycom solution I mentioned above), I wonder whether there will be any more arguments in favour of building an MCE PC myself except price and the fun I have doing it.

Overall, I would hope for the PC industry to put more effort into making components quiet, into making component noise comparable (into declaring it at all) and into making systems more aesthetical. I hope, that Windows MCE will promote this.

Regards,

Chris

Browsing round the web I found this guide

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/reviews/article/1778/

It should be handy as a guide for building a MCE box

How about something a little smarter?

More like an MCE building wizard?

Page 1 recommended chipsets,

Page 2 recommended cases...

Once user selects parts then the instructions and user experiences for those parts show up.

Sure it is more difficult but if we want to kick up interest and chance of success to the next level then I think the solution has to be kicked up a notch also?

At this point anthing and everything should be considered! The first step is to get people to post what they have done. Then we can all decide on what should go into the guide, and how it should be organized.

Hi, I will give you some ideas by letting you know how my MCPC is. Many of the post read here give a lot of info already so I will just tell you what I did according to what I needed.

First I was looking for was silence, then performance and matching my needs, of course with a nice looking case.

So my system is:

Case: Nice Coolermaster ATC's black case. Valid for standard PSU and mini ATX format mobo. Small useless case fan and room for drives and all. The best option I could find.

PSU: Fanless 400W PSU (I can't remember the name).

CPU: I recycled a P4 2 Ghz from my old desk PC, enough for my needs and a cool (low temp) processor.

Memory: 512 MB enough for XP and my needs.

Mobo: I was looking for one with onboard audio and SPDIF out so I wouldn't need an extra soundcard and suitable for my CPU. I got an Asus P4SP-MX. Nice so far.

GPU: Of course fanless and good enough for MCE2005. I got a nvidia FX5200 fanless. Good for me so far and no problems at all.

Drives: No 1.44 disk drive (obsolete) and instead a 7 in 1 card reader, an old recycled dvd player (I have a desk computer to burn CD/DVD's) and a 200GB 7200 seagate drive. A mistake here, too much noise. 80GB drives are much better because they make much less noise. Well it's done now.

PVR: Of course PVR250. Adjust to best supported hardware here.

Extras: PCI wireless conceptronic card. It's driving me crazy because of low performance and disconnections. Working on it.

I also did some DIY to the case by adding extra ventilation making holes just over the GPU. That drops temperature of the CPU more than 15ºC and allows me to even disconnect case fan. Today still on but with reduced RPM.

By now connected to a Yamaha digital audio receiver with a 5.1 speakers system and to a 29" TV (I plan to buy a plasma or LCD TV soon). Niveus RF remote and still looking for a nice black small cordless keyboard.

For me my system is a perfect compromise between performance and noise, summarizing, a noiseless and accurate DIY and good looking updatable Media Center Personal Computer, do I need more?

Cheers

Gab

 

 

Just found this great guide by Charlie Owen, its a real step by step guide

http://blog.retrosight.com/PermaLink,guid,f2553662-641c-43a5-a9f8-fdd3d69b1dee.aspx

I wish I had read this thread before building my system last week!

I have to echo some of the excellent posts above: make sure that you download new drivers prior to installing MCE and get an up-to-date DVD decoder. One major issue that I had was that I didn't have my motherboard drivers prior to the installation. Windows therefore couldn't recognize my onboard network controller and I couldn't get online to download the drivers when I needed them. The other issue that had me tearing out my hair in frustration was that I reinstalled PowerDVD5 as my decoder, assuming it would work fine. I could watch videos and play movies in WMP10, but not in MCE. I finally realized that I had to upgrade to PowerDVD6 in order for MCE to function.

 

Andrew