In 2007 I purchased an
Alienware Hanger 18 for almost $3K and before it was built/shipped, I was suffering severe buyers remorse so I canceled the order. Ever since that day, I have been dreaming of building a sleek HTPC the size of a cable-box. There were several cases that caught my eye, and for several years I kept watching and waiting for the right components to come along that would meet all of my requirements and fit into something that would look nice in my living-room. This year, the AMD E-350 APU finally pushed me over the edge. Once settled on that, I had to finally pick out that all-important case.
The case I REALLY wanted was the
Moncaso 312B by Moneual. Of course with a $250 price-tag, and page after page of parts mis-matching horror-stories at
AVS, I kept looking. However, case after case fell short of my expectations for aesthetics. I kept coming back to the moncaso and last week, I finally took the plunge…This is my build:
MEM 2Gx2|CRUC CT2KIT25664BA1067 R 1 44.99
SSD 50G|OCZ OCZSSD2-2VTX50G 2.5" R 1 129.99
HDD 500G|WD WD5000BUDT 5K 32M % 1 59.99
MB ASUS|E35M1-M PRO M1 ZACTE R 1 144.99
BLU-RAY DRIVE LITE-ON| IHOS104-08 R 1 49.99
CABLE OKGEAR| GC18SATA RT 1 5.49
HTPC CASE MONEUAL|MONCASO 312B RT 1 234.99
picoPSU 150 XT Power Supply w/ 80W AC-DC Adapter 1 64.00
Front Panel Express Custom Back-Plate to mount picoPSU 1 34.81
REPLACEMENT BLUE LENS AND BR BEZEL 1 0.00
TOTAL COST (minus software) 769.24
Now, I could have kept the cost down in several areas, mainly the case and the SSD (those alone ran $365) but the case was a must for me, and the SSD was a luxury. I figured, the SSD would help make up for any deficiencies with the low-power processor… right? I also wanted to keep the system as low-power as possible, so I decided to go with the picoPSU, and to ensure that LOOKED good, I ordered a custom plate to be cut/milled from Front Panel Express to cover the hole where an ATX power supply would go (thanks to AVS Forum member riffer for the help) and as a bonus I can now mount a 60mm fan and plug mount for the pico.
I ordered all of the parts on Sunday morning, and for the most part they arrived on Wednesday and Thursday. The Moneual blue-lens replacement and Blu-Ray bezel replacement as well as the custom back-panel didn’t arrive until the following Monday.
The parts pile:
The stripped out case:
Motherboard in place:
A large concern is that the optical drive will hit your memory or a large processor fan. This motherboard negates both of those worries:
Another pit-fall is attempting to line up the optical drive button with the button in the case. Many people say this was the most difficult task and had to get creative. I found that the button was responsive enough, but if I moved the optical drive closer, then any bump or jar would eject the tray. My solution was to take a bit of foam sponge (from a spare dish-scrubber!!) and cut out a piece to super-glue to the case button. It worked FANTASTIC. Moneual should just add a foam piece for us!
The case has two removable HDD trays. The one on the left holds 1 3.5" HDD and the one on the right holds 2 X 3.5" HDDs. I used the one on the left to route/hide the cables, and the one on the right holds both of my 2.5" HDDs (one optical, and one 500gig AV drive). Final pick with all of the pieces in place except the back-plate:
Custom back-plate from Front Panel Express:
Replacement blue-lens (the stock orange is really ugly) and Blu-Ray bezel (a simple e-mail to Moneual got these in the mail to me same day (all I had to do was forward the New Egg confirmation e-mail to the rep.:
Replacement blue lens in place and system powered up:
Overall the build couldn't have been easier. Within 60 minutes of unpacking the parts I was loading Win7 and 39 min after that I had booted the thing up to the windows welcome screen for the first time.
I loaded Shark007 codec pack, and off I went. The first time I played a blu-ray I had stuttering, but I forgot to switch the codec pack to FFDShow DXVA... the result was the poor little processor trying the play Avatar all by itself which quickly pegged it at 100%. Once I made the switch to the right setting to use the hardware acceleration, the proc hovered around 40-60% playing a Blu-Ray. Everything was smooth as silk.
Overall, I am extremely happy, and so is the wife (and thats all that counts right?)!!