# Video type: SDTV DVB
# Type of system: back-end
# Noise level: It's noisy, but only because of all the fans i have added to the case.
# CASE: Modified old school HP pavillion 8880 MATX, 80mm fan added to front of HDD cage, 120MM fan in rear of case. Modified for full size ATX power supply. Encoder status LED's added to front panel.
# PSU: Generic 400W fan replaced
# MOTHERBOARD: Intel D815EFV
# CPU: P3 1GHz
# RAM: 512MB PC133 SDRAM
# CPU HEATSINK: Stock
# NORTHBRIDGE HEATSINK: Stock
# CD/DVD-RW: CDROM
# HDD: 320GB Seagate PATA
# GRAPHICS CARD: Onboard Intel i810 Graphics
# SOUNDCARD: Onboard
# NETWORK: Onboard Intel PRO100
# TUNER CARD:
1. DVICO DVB-T PLUS
2. DVICO DVB-T LITE
# REMOTE CONTROL: None
There are a couple of issues with this setup but they dont limit my useage of the system so I still consider it Tier 1.
The bios required an update to allow teh full 320GB hard disk to be detected.
There seems to be an issue with intel i810 chipsets, not limited to this motherboard. When the system boots if i "ctrl+alt+f1" to get a terminal it works fine. When i then "alt+f7" to get back to the GUI all i get is a black screen. I dont generally have a monitor connected to the server so its not an issue, but it was annoying during the install.
This box also acts as my media server, and run the xlink kai daemon for online xbox gaming.
I have 2 xboxes running XBMC 2.01 and xbmcmythtv 0.19.1 as my frontends. The backend itself seems to play liveTV and recorded programs fine, however i will be using it as a backend only. This was really helpful for testing during setup, as my old backend (p2 450MHz) was unable to play back and was much more of a pain to debug during setup.
I would recommend this system as the baseline for a reliable, user friendly backend. My P2 based system (R5A30.2) did the job but could not play back video, generated mythweb pages very slowly, and was very unresponsive when logged in via SSH. Mythweb is generated much faster now making it a whole lot nicer to use.
The finished product:
