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Dan_in_FL
join:2010-03-23
Lake Worth, FL

Dan_in_FL

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Home network setup - HTPCs, WHS, Desktops

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Upstairs is the loft. My desk is on the left, with a plain-jane i3 2120 in an antec case.

On top is the router, an additional shared external hard drive, and a Dlink DNS323, which has been a fantastic little device over the past few years. Right now its only hosting a 750GB and a 250GB drive as the big drives were pulled to be put in the WHS 2011 box.

The desk on the right is my Windows Home Server 2011 running on an older emachines P4 with not enough ram. Despite its tiny size, the WHS box has 6 drives in it of various capacity. Its really my wife's desk, but she only rarely uses it to plug in her laptop when she needs to scan documents or needs a place to use a real mouse. The desk also hides a magicjack plus in wait of a landline phone to connect it to.

The cable management behind both desks, despite my best efforts, is nothing short of atrocious, so no pics of that.

Dan_in_FL

Dan_in_FL

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Downstairs is our HTPC, an Athlon XII 250 in a Silverstone ML03 case running Windows Media Center. TV shows record on an internal 1TB black drive while streaming TV and movie rips come from the upstairs Dlink NAS box using Mediabrowser, as well as the Netflix and Hulu plugins. The TV is a Samsung 46" LED mounted to the wall. Hiding the wire bundle from the wall mounted TV behind the wall is my next project. The surround sound is nothing special - an older Sony 5.1 system that only accepts Dolby Digital or analog, no HDMI.

The router is used as a switch and connects the downstairs network to the upstairs one via a single hardwired CAT6.

TV tuner is a HDHomerun Prime with a Comcast Cablecard. 3 Tuners are dynamically shared between the upstairs and downstairs HTPCs. I can also access the tuners with my laptops or desktops, but in reality never do. The downstairs HTPC has an additional OTA tuner connected to a small antenna hidden behind the furniture to free up a network tuner while recording shows on the major networks. It also serves as a backup for the rare occurance of the cable going out or having low signal.
Dan_in_FL

Dan_in_FL

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In the bedroom upstairs is our second HTPC, an Athlon x2 4200. TV is a Toshiba 42" plasma, which despite being older and only 720P has the most fantastic color I've ever seen in a flat panel. Its connected to the network via a pair of trendnet powerline adapters, which I've had mixed results with, but at present have at least enough bandwidth to stream uncompressed HD from either the TV tuner directly (downstairs) or shows that have been recorded on the downstairs HTPC.
JBear
join:2005-02-24
canada

JBear to Dan_in_FL

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to Dan_in_FL
Very nice! Very clean as well. Not just the network, but the rooms and desks as well.

creed3020
Premium Member
join:2006-04-26
Kitchener, ON

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I always smile when I see another ML03 build. It's great a HTPC case and looks like you're getting fantastic use out of it!

You can read all about my build with it here: »forum.xbmc.org/showthrea ··· d=114724