I bought a computer case, now what?

Azza solano 1000R for $99 on Newegg with a $30 mail in rebate.

It's a standard ATX tower with 10 drive bays, two 230mm fans, 2 140mm fans, and 1 120mm fan. It's also completely painted; there's no metal showing on the entire case, which is a vanity item but still cool.

I have a generic cooler master midtower that will keep my room nice and toasty when it's turned on. So, hopefully with the cooling I can get the temps down a bit more.

What now? HTPC!!!!

I'm going to buy some budget parts and use the old case for a HTPC. First comes the fun part...painting. I'm going paint the mid tower. I'm thinking Khaki color with some kind of stenciled design in black and then hitting it with a clear coat of high gloss. What's better than having a custom built HTPC? Having one that really looks badass.

Are you trying to build a Mac Pro clone, or what? If your building a PC I think you might do better asking your question on a PC forum. Not that I object to your posting, it's just that I don't keep up with PC components anymore.

If you're going to run an HTPC, check out Xbox Media Center.

It's a GREAT app for all of your HTPC needs. It's Windows, Mac, and Linux compatible, so whatever flavor of OS you choose to run, XBMC will run on it.

Furthermore, it does support 1080p resolution. Get a wireless Xbox 360 controller (since they're USB), and you can use that as a remote 9or an MCE remote if you have one).

I use this on my original Xbox and it works great, minus the high-res support.

VegasGeorge said:

Are you trying to build a Mac Pro clone, or what? If your building a PC I think you might do better asking your question on a PC forum. Not that I object to your posting, it's just that I don't keep up with PC components anymore.

Click to expand...

Uh...no...

I have a PC I built several months back with an i7, 6gb of RAM, a BD burner, a 1.8GB GPU, and other junk. I just got a mid tower for space reasons, but it's not cooling like I want, so I upgraded and I'm going to use the old case for an HTPC.

DarkArt said:

If you're going to run an HTPC, check out Xbox Media Center.

It's a GREAT app for all of your HTPC needs. It's Windows, Mac, and Linux compatible, so whatever flavor of OS you choose to run, XBMC will run on it.

Furthermore, it does support 1080p resolution. Get a wireless Xbox 360 controller (since they're USB), and you can use that as a remote 9or an MCE remote if you have one).

I use this on my original Xbox and it works great, minus the high-res support.

Click to expand...

I'll have to check it out. I have an HP Media smart server that I'm using to stream movies to my PS3 right now, but they're DVD rips that I've done and it's definitely not DVD quality. I'm using a wireless network, and that would cause problems with trying to stream HQ media, so I'm going this route.