Latest hardware?

[Guest]

Hi,
Do you have a "latest" hardware components list for building this media server?
Thanks!

[Ian]

Hi,
My server still uses the components as listed in the guide and it is probably still too powerful for use as a server. So, if the components are still available then you should be able to pick them up for a good price.

[kwatson703]

Ian and all,

I put my rig together a couple of weeks ago, and am in the process of loading my media library into it. It streams wonderfully to everything in the house, runs virtually silently, stays cool, and does what I want it to do.

I tried ordering the components on your website's list, and found that the case, PSU, motherboard, and processor were out of date and unavailable. Trying to stick as close as possible to your list, though, I came up with the following:
- Case: Antec 902v3
- PSU: Corsair HX650
- Motherboard: ASUS P7F-M
- Processor: Intel Core i5-760
- RAM: Corsair XMS3 - 4GB
- HDD: (2) Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB
- Blue-Ray burner: Pioneer BDR-206DBK

I went with an updated processor, but it's worth noting that the current Ubuntu Server (and VortexBox, XBMC, and most other Linux-based server options) run Linux kernel 2.6.35. To properly run second-generation Intel (Sandy Bridge) processors requires Linux kernel 2.6.38 or newer. A good rule of thumb is to not buy hardware any newer than 6 months.

The instructions on this site were great, but there were a couple of surprises. First, the case fan connectors are four-pin Molex (huge) which do not mate with the fan pinouts on the motherboard. However, they plug directly into the PSU, so that's fine. Unfortunately, fine-tuning fan speed and turning off the super-duper gamer's blue lights isn't available.

Thanks for putting this site together! This has been a fun challenge, and now we're reaping the benefits.

[Ian]

Thanks for the report. You talking about putting yours together has reminded me of when I put mine together. It was the first time I'd actually built a computer from scratch. The satisfaction you get when you hit the power button for the first time and it actually springs into life is hard to beat, isn't it.

With the stock fans in my case they had a little switch on them that allowed you to choose from one of three speed settings. The CPU fan is temperature controlled by the mobo but not the case fans. I took a while to experiment with the speeds of each of the case fans and I've now got everything running sweet

Ian.

[Andy Horn]

@kwatson703.

Take a look on this on eBay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Asetek-Fan-Sp ... 27be75c4b1

I got a couple of these for my build, however I could only use one as there is only one chassis fan pin out on my board and it works great.

Hope this helps....

Andy

[kwatson703]

@Ian, yes, it is quite gratifying.
@Andy, thanks for the link! If my fans were noisy, I'd definitely try that. But this setup is virtually silent out of the box, and never gets too warm. So for now, I'm not going to fix what ain't broke!