HTPC - The Build, an Overview

Assembly of parts:


The aim of this article is not to be an all inclusive guide, and I take no liability if things do go wrong. I have built three computers, and this is based on that experience. Hopefully it will give you an over view, and that it is, or can be relatively straight forward. Most leads are colour co-ordinated, and plugs, connectors are very specific for various parts, to make it as simple as possible. However common sense and a certain aptitude will help….. For more fully comprehensive guides do a google search and they will come up. One such site is http://www.mysuperpc.com/build/pc_parts_list.shtml; just read the parts you think you need to, its quite comprehensive. He actually builds two PC's, one based on an old AMD Athlon XP, and one on the newer AMD 64 chip. The front page of this website is here; http://www.mysuperpc.com/


Okay, so you have spent days, weeks searching the internet, browsing news groups, forums and online retailers, and have finally summoned courage to enter the credit card details, and a few days later the bits start to arrive…

Now is the time to panic; NOT.

The aim of this article is to give some thoughts to the process of assembling your PC. There are potentially many pitfalls, hurdles to negotiate before your PC could be up and running smoothly.

I have built three PC’s at home now, each one has had its little teething issues, but I have no regrets, and each subsequent build has been easier. It has generally been an issue outside my immediate control that has caused the glitch.

As such, there are some guidelines that I recommend before assembling the parts:

1. All the items I have bought in terms of Mother boards, CPUs etc have come supplied with manuals. Read them. Drink coffee and read them again, until you are sure it all makes sense. If unsure, ask some one.
2. Look for the manufacturers web sites. Search the product’s pages and see if the manufacturer have identified known issues, and check before hand. A recent issue I had was listed in the FAQ of the product from the manufacturers web site, and would have save me a couple of hours of frustration, so it is worth checking.
3. Ideally, set aside a couple of hours with minimum interruptions, and ensure you have some tools available including a long shaft ‘+’ head which is magnetic, a pair of long nose pliers and possible a good source of light. Most cases and mother boards come with the appropriate stuff to secure and cable up the items together. Finally you need space and a good working light.
4. I prefer to build a minimum, bare bones system first, so if there is an issue, fault finding is simplified by the presence of fewer parts. As such connect minimum stuff first to the Motherboard, until at least the motherboard is booting up correctly.

SO, now you have read the manufacturer’s books, surfed the web again, and now have the shakes from too much coffee. It can not be put of any more. Now is the time to act, to build it.

Again there is no definate order but I tend to work in a logical manner, rather than jumping around. As such I start with the case.


Case:

Remove the lid and expose the parts inside. Identify the various bays for the hard drives, the DVD drives etc. If the power supply is fitted, remove the cables to the side, and start to identify the different connections and what they are used for, most cable ends are specific for one part, with the exception of the ‘molex’ connectors.

If you need to replace or add additional fans for cooling, now is the time to do so, whilst the case is indeed empty. When fitting fans, ensure the air flow arrow is in the direction you are aiming for.

On my X11 case, there is an inlet fan under the drives, and a pair of outlet fans on the rear wall of the case.

Now is also a good time to start fitting external hard drives, DVD drives etc to the case. If you already have another PC, it may be worth connecting up the C:\ drive to that machine and to format it. For a HTPC, if you are using a large hard drive, say 50 GB or more, I would partition it. As an HTPC has minimal software requirement, a partition of 25 GB is more than ample, and will ease software re-installations in the future.

Note: A HTPC can be quite disk intensive, and as such use as many largest discs that you can afford. Media esp TV etc consumes disc space rather quickly. As a rough guide a 160 GB hard drive will store about 80 hours of standard definition free view TV signal. As such I would recommend you install a 500 GB drive for the C:\ drive but partition it into a 25 GB partition and another ~470 GB partition.

When all the drives are installed, you are now ready to connect the items up to the PSU, and fit the mother board.


Motherboard:

I have always placed the motherboard on a firm surface to add the CPU and RAM components ensuring the CPU and RAM are seated securely. Then add the CPU cooling system; remembering to connect the fan to the CPU fam jumper on the motherboard. Whilst the cooling fans that come with the CPU are sufficient in keeping the CPU cool, they can be quite loud relatively speaking and you may opt in the future to invest in a quieter fan.

With the hardware attached, it is necessary to fit the motherboard to the case; and to connect up.

This is my own preference based upon an issue I had during my first build where securing the motherboard to the case caused a short. Whilst the short did no long term damage, the motherboard would not boot up and it took a while to identify the problem. This ended up with one of the mounting screw/post causing a short. As such, I prefer if possible to bring the mother board to the case, and placing it on the plastic sleeve the board came in, and then connecting the motherboard to the power supply according to the instructions in the manual. Then connect the motherboard to the front case connections at the front; these can vary from case to case but will include:

Power supply
Reset button
Power LED
Hard Drive LED
Speaker.

Connect these up, an listen for the mother board to boot up. If the motherboard has inbuilt graphics, then youmay want to connect this up as well, and see if there are any error messages or warning beeps. These will be listed in the motherboard hand book. I have been known to add my graphics card as well. As iSaid this stage is optional, but it confirms that the mother board appears to be booting up as expected. Disconnect all.

At the back of the case, will be a sheet of thin metal with the holes for the onboard connections. Most motherboard will supply their own plate, and you will need to replace the one with the case with the motherboard specific plate. Then place the motherboard onto the mounting posts, and to secure to the mounting posts, ensuring the screws are NOT over tightened. Casually glance at the connections and possibly test that they all will allow the relevant connections to connect, and that all ports are free from obstruction. This can be worth while.

Connections: Work in a logical manner connecting the hard drive, and the lone DVD drive. As already stated, whilst the other drives maybe fitted already now, boot up the PC as a bare bone system, as this will aid in problem shooting. As such connect the HDD via the SATA cable, to the mother board as well, and repeat for the DVD drive, either using the IDE or SATA lead as appropriate. Then connect up the little leads from the case power up button, speaker etc as mentioned above.

Finally connecting the Power. The drives and mother board will need power. From my experience the mother board always has a substantial 20 pin power supply lead that must be connected. However a lot of hi-spec boards also have an additional 4 pin lead that HAS to be connected if present. Then connect power up to the hard drive and DVD drive. If the motherboard has a inbuilt graphics connect that to the display screen, or alternately add the graphic card, sliding it into the slot (these days the upper most PCL-Express slot) and secure the card with the mounting screw to the case. Then connect the graphics card to the display and slowly switch the PSU and the mother board LED should light.

Finally press the power switch on at the front of the case; if all connected correctly; watching for the CPU fan if connected to start up, and the system to spring to life with sounds from the speaker. Hopefully the display unit will also start up suggesting all is well. If not, there is likely to be a major issue. At this stage, stop and take a breather. You need to ensure all connections are pressed home firmly. If the system still fails then you have to start going through logical fault finding procedures.


If the system seems to be working, then good. Press the power switch to close the system down, and then disconnect the mains. Now is the time to start adding all the other connections, including case fan(s), USB headers from the front case, the CD to the audio on the motherboard, etc etc. The list of leads will vary according to the case and motherboard, and you will need to consult the case and mother board instruction manual for further clarification.

Software - Operating System:

When all connected, reboot the system, and ensure that the system boots up. Hopefully now you are at the stage to start installing the Operating System, partitioning hte hard drive if you can. Be careful, on the XP CD, its in MB and not GB. Again, I would install the operating system with a bare bones system and be specific with the location time zone etc as it can save aggregation later on. You may have to change the booting up order in the Motherboards Bios, read the manual for further clarification.

When the OS system is installed, you need to install relevant drivers. I am not going to go into specifics here, but I always start with the mother board disc. Often Windows will find the hard ware and prompt for the relevant driver. On my recent build the Asus installation CD installed all the drivers with only a couple of reboots required. When all seems fine and dandy, change the CD to the graphics card CD and install those drivers etc.

Edited 14th June: It is often worth while, if youhave internet access to down load the latest drivers from the appropiate manufactuer's website. This will ensure youare using the latest firmware drivers, and hopefully avoid any issues that were present with earlier drivers. Additioanlly read the FAQ for the motherbaord if there is one.


Then, next youmay consider conection to the internet, and allow the Os software to look for relvant updates.

Hopefully you will then have a basic working PC.

What you do now on is dependant on your stuff. Now is the time to add further drives to the mother board, and re boot, formatting the drives and allowing the OS to identify the new hard ware.

Then slowly add the additional hard ware, such as TV cards and so on. Add each in stage and ensure system is working. Hardware requires to be MCE and or VISTA complaint and require specific MCE drivers to operate in the MCE environment. There is a list of MCE valid hard ware some where on the web.

Over a period of time use the PC, and monitor the CPU, fan speeds etc with either the MB’s monitoring software, or some generic down laded from the web. Allow the PC to stabilise and settles down, then it is the time to open up the cover and to tidy up using cable ties. A tidy PC is generally a cooler unit.


It is not difficult if things go well. It is the snag of problem solving, fault finding when things don’t go according to plan. The list of possible glitches is long and varied, but be prepared for them. Use the web, FAQ’s and forums to get support as well as the manufacturer’s web site.

I hope this is useful; it would be great if we could introduce some pictures to help clarify issues. I am again happy to work with the site moderators to develop this into a clearer, not a guide but an over view. If some point needs clarifying and editing please feel free to do so, or contact me to edit it.

Adrian

Thanks for writting this up. I'll sticky it too so if others have some questions on actually HOW to build the HTPC, feel free to post

wicked

Just what I need a pep talk and advice to procrastinate!

Seriously, great article many thanks.

A Windows Home Sever (WHS) Build

November 2007

When I wrote the above article, I was intending to add photographs of the build, as they say pictures can paint a thousand words. Unfortunately, time was never generous, and I never got round to doing so.

However, I built over the weekend a PC to be used as a WHS box for our growing network of Desktops, HTPCs and laptops. During the Build, I tried to distract myself from the build to take photographs, and hopefully they will suffice.

I will not repeat too much of what I wrote above, but I may emphasise some aspects again.

Before the Build:

Having ordered your parts, and waited for their delivery, it is so very easy to jump into the process, and start assembling without having read the manuals.

STOP, and Pause...
This could be expensive if you get things wrong...
There are some guidelines that I recommend before assembling the parts:

1. All the items I have bought in terms of Mother Boards, CPUs etc have come supplied with manuals. Read them. Drink coffee and read them again, until you are sure it all makes sense. If unsure, ask someone, especially through the appropriate forums out there Most Manufacturers have websites that have a Forum as well as known issues.

2. Look for the manufacturers web sites. Search the product’s pages and see if the manufacturer have identified known issues, and check before hand. A recent issue I had was listed in the FAQ of the product from the manufacturers web site, and would have save me a couple of hours of frustration, so it is worth checking. If appropriate download the latest BIOS for the motherboard. For example some motherboards have problems with Blu-Ray drives. These issues can be resolved or pre-empted by downloading the latest drivers and BIOS from the manufacturer’s website.

3. Ideally, set aside a couple of hours with minimum interruptions, and ensure you have some tools available including a long shaft ‘+’ head screw driver which is magnetic, a pair of long nose pliers and possibly a good source of light. Most cases and mother boards come with the appropriate stuff to secure and cable up the items together. Finally you need space and a good working light.

4. I prefer to build a minimum, bare bones system first, so if there is an issue, and fault finding is simplified by the presence of fewer parts. As such connect minimum stuff first to the Motherboard, until at least the motherboard is booting up correctly.

Having read the manuals, once or twice, read a few forums and other websites you are starting to feel comfortable with the build, let us go.

The Parts proir to assembly.



I like to build the PC in sections, rather than jumping about. As such this assembly guide is broken down into several parts:

• The Case
• The Motherboard assembly
• Installing the Motherboard Assembly into the Case.

1. The Case

The Case for the server is large and came bare-bones. As such even fans were missing. A large source of noise within a PC is caused by the cooling fans. Even quiet fans can make some noise especially when secured against the metal frame, and vibrations can occur. However some of the noise can be reduced by using known quiet fans, available from all good online PC build suppliers. My Case came with slots for two 12cm fans and five 9 cm fans. I chose to install two 120mm fans and three 90 mm fans.



1. Installation of the back fans. Fans can be installed using wither rubber screws or steel screws, and most fans will come complete with screws of both types and connections. Simply secure the fans against the case and secure with the fitting of your choice, I chose the steel screws as they are easier to work with in my experience. One feature to consider is airflow. If all the fans in the case are exhaust (i.e. blow out of the case) this will cause a pressure drop inside the case, and so forcing air in via the vents. This could increase air noise, and so I chose to have one of the 120 mm fans (The Top on) as an inlet fan, blowing air into the system. The fans often have a direction of airflow arrow marked on the case somewhere.



2. Installation of the Hard Disk Drive Fans. This case can hold eight 3.5 inch hard drives, close together. As such when the WHS is balancing the discs, it is possible that all eight drives if fitted will be used. As such, since the facility is there, I opted to install three 90 mm fans. The case on either side of the HHD is perforated to aid air movement. As such I chose to install two fans blowing air left to right, and one fan right to left. Again, these fans were mounted with the steel screws



3. Mounting of the Hard Drives. Different cases come with different style of mounts but there are generally three types that I have come across. Firstly there are the ‘base mounts’ where the case is mounted in a drive bay either using the screw holes on the side, or through the bottom; often through rubber grommets. These grommets help to reduce vibration noises. The other types that I have come across are side mounts which are screwed into the HHD, or in this case side mounts that are pushed into the screw holes. Before you secure the HHD, ensure that the power lead and connection point are pointing outwards! When the side mounts are secured, slide in and push the drives into the bays until the drive units are secured. Here is the Case with four drives installed.



4. Power Supply. The last item to be installed is the Power Supply. The supply I used is classed as modular. As such the main power leads for the Motherboard are permanently attached to the PSU, whilst all the other leads can be added as and when needed. This aides installation, and helps to keep the inner workings of the case tidy as there are no unnecessary leads floating around.




Remove any unnecessary leads if fitted, and place into situ on the back of the case, and mount with the four mounting screws. As PSUs can be heavy, most cases have a ‘shelf’ on which the PSU rests, to reduce the weight burden from the mounting screws.





That is the end of the fittings within the case. Other fittings that can be considered include optical drives of one type or another, memory card readers and even an old floppy drive! Again, if youare adding additiaonl features, this is the time to add them.


2. Assembly of the Motherboard.

This is probably part of the build that is most frightening, off putting from building you r own PC. However there are places such as Novatech and Overclockers who sell pre-assembled Motherboard/CPU/RAM if youahve a fear of making a mistake on this part of the build. However, if youread the imstructions and take your time, there is nothign to be scared off.
I have always placed the motherboard on a firm surface to add the CPU and RAM components ensuring the CPU and RAM are seated securely. Then add the CPU cooling system; remembering to connect the fan to the CPU fan jumper on the motherboard. Whilst the cooling fans that come with the CPU are sufficient in keeping the CPU cool, they can be quite loud relatively speaking and you may opt in the future to invest in a quieter fan.

With the hardware attached, it is necessary to fit the motherboard to the case; and to connect up.



This is my own preference based upon an issue I had during my first build where securing the motherboard to the case caused a short. Whilst the short did no long term damage, the motherboard would not boot up and it took a while to identify the problem. This ended up with one of the mounting screw/post causing a short. As such, I prefer if possible to bring the mother board to the case, and placing it on the plastic sleeve the board came in, and then connecting the motherboard to the power supply according to the instructions in the manual. Then connect the motherboard to the front case connections at the front.

1. Take the motherboard from its packaging and rest as stated on a firm surface. I usually use a large piece of card, onwhich I will place the anti-static plastic bag, before placing the motherboard on top. Take out the CPU from its protective pacaking, and look for the identifier that will ensure the CPU being inserted correctly into the CPU seat. Failure to seat the CPU correctly will almost result in permament damage to the CPU, one or more of the pins will be damaged beyond repair. Open the locking lever, and raise till it is at the full extent of its movement, and gently place the CPU into the socket.



2. Once the CPU is seated firmly, close the lever, locking it in place, so ensuring that the CPU is now seated and locked in its socket.

3. Now add the CPU cooler, either the stock cooler or the Silent CPU if purchased. Read the instructions that come witht he CPU cooler, but generally it will only go in one movement. If unsure, try and locate the CPU cooler first, leaving the plastic case over the ‘thermo-glue’ untill you feel confident that the CPU is seated correctly. Often the Thermo-glue once exposed will only allow one or two attempts at seatign the CPU before short term damage can be done.

4. When youare confident, remove the plastic protection and seat the CPU into position. Place the lever free part of the clamp over the obvious attachment, and then repeat the process on the otherside, where the clamp has a lever mechanism. Slowly but firmly, press the clamp down to ensuire that the clamp is locked into position, which ensures that the CPU cooler is now seated correctly over the CPU.

5. Finally take the CPU fan power lead and secure to the CPU connection on the motherboard.



6. Remove the RAM from its packaging. Genearlly RAM can only be inserted in one way. Line up the RAM, and ensuring that the white plastic clips are pulled outwards, seat the RAM into the sockets and press firmly. The RAM should click into palce, and the two white clips should move inwards locking in the RAM. Which sockets youuse depends upon the configuration that youahve opted for, please read the Motherbaord’s manual for further clarification.




7. Power connections. The motherboard requires two sets of power connections namely power in and then connection to the front power switch(es). Depending upon the case and the mothervoard will determine the connections to the motherboard from the front panel of the case. Witht he case here, there were leads for the fire-wire connection, a USB port as well as audio conenctions. These need to be secured tot eh relevant jumpers on the motherboard. Some cases these leads can be in small fiddly style connectors, or more preferably in a larger connector containing all the connections in one go. Additiaopnlly, from the fron panel are various connections including the On/Off lead, the soft reboot lead, the HDD LED and possibly a speaker connector. Read the Manuals of both the Motherboard and case, and conenct accordingly.






8. Now connect the PSU to the Motherboard. This always will connsit of a 24 pin connector and often a second 4 pin connector.

Connecting the 24 pin power lead...



and the 4 pin Power Connector



9. The Motherboard is now almost ready to power up for the first time. If the motherbaord comes with an inbuilt graphics card, simply connect the graphic output to the monitor. Otherwise, remove the graphics card from the packaging, and locate into the correct slot on the motherboard, and press firmly into it snaps into position. Soem hi-end graphic cards will require their own power source, connect if appropiate.

10. Connect the graphics output from the graphic card to the monitor.

11. Now is the time to double check everything, and ensure that no leads are stretched from the Case, if need be move the motherboard assembly to the case. Conenct the PSU to the mains, and switch on the PSU. Hopefully the Power LED on the motherboard will illuminate to indicate that there is power. Switch on the on switch, and the PC should boot up, and the speaker should make sounds. Hopefully there bootup process will occur, and depedning upon the system, you will have a black screen with error messages (eg no HHD found, no keyboard etc) or the PC will boot into the BIOS screen as below.




With the display of the above screen, the motherboard assembly is now ready to be installed and secured into the case itself. Power down and disconenct from the mains.


3. Installing the Motherboard into the Case.


Often it is possible to install the motherboard assembly with out removing too much of teh assembly. Certainly in tjis example, the only thing i had to do was to remove the graphics card from the motherboard...

1. If not already done so, prepare the case for the motherbaoard. This will require inserting the backing plate of the motherboard into the appropaite hole at the back of the case. Also, some cases do not come with the motherboard mounting studs in situ, rather these are inserted depending upon the size/type of the motherbaord. Align the motherboard up, and enusre that the mounting studs are correctly located.

2. When the motherboard is located, using the screwdriver, place a screw into each hole. DO NOT TIGHTEN UP untill all screws have been started, and then slowly tighten. Again do not overtighten as this can damage the motherboard.

3. Once the motherboard is secured, re-install the graphics card. Connect up to the monitor and again power up the PC. Seeing the repeat of the first boot on the monitor is generally a good sign that all is well. We are now ready to make the final connections.

4. Connect up the Hard drives to the motherbaord using the red SATA leads, or the old HHD ribbon leads that coem supplied with most motherboards. Also conenct the floppy if used, as well as the optical drive.

5. Ensure that the PSU is now conencted to the optical drive(s), the hard disc drives and any other accesories, possibly including the fans. Most modern motherboards will power the fans from jumpers on the motherboard, the advantage of using these conenctions is that the motehrboard can configure these fans, so if the CPU is running cool, the fans will run at lower speeds. Unfortuantly the input fan lead is to short to conenct to the motherboard. Instead, the fan is connected directly to the CPU.




4. Operating System Installation.

The PC is ready now to install teh operating system of yoru choice. Insert the approapite disc (in this case Windows Homer Server) into the Optical drive (Most software these days come on a DVD ROM) and follow the instructions upon the screen. This should hopefully sucessfully install the operating system onto the PC. WHS took almost an hour to install correctly, with various reboots. Sitback, monitor and make soem fresh coffee.

Once the Operating system is installed, the PC is now ready to start installing other applications driver to turn the PC into soemthign more useful.

Firstly start by installing the drivers for the motherboard. Insert the CD that came with the motherboard into the Optical drive and it should automatically start up. My ASUS CD had a script to install all the drivers, including USB ports, netowrking ports, the audio drivers and a couple of others. Again this can take 20 minutes or so and will require sevearl boot-ups. There was an error on my CD that necistated the CD being removed from the drive proir to boot up.

What next?

The PC should now be in a position to start installing other applications, and surfing the internet; Depending up on your type of internet connection. You may have to install ISP software first, as well as anti-viral software.

I hope this guide proves to be useful and please feel free to make any suggestions/additions that youfeel approapite.

Adrian

Thanks for the update and spending this time on this one. Your WHS build looks like a very good system. Im sure this will be very helpful to people.

Great build... keep up the good work!