Building a Home Theater PC is nothing like building a normal PC. There is a lot of special knowledge needed in order to choose the right components to make your computer as silent and energy efficient as possible while having enough performance for HD video and audio playback.
This list of 30 home theater PC building tips will surely take your knowledge into the next level.
1. Your home theater computer is an every growing project that needs updating from time to time. So, do not try to finish this project on spot because you will be upgrading it after a while
2. Invest on a good case, processor and motherboard and focus on the rest later if you are tight on money at the moment
3. While it is recommended to have 2-4 GB of RAM memory, media center tasks are not as resource hungry as for example gaming and video editing tasks
4. No matter how good you think your setup is, if it is not accepted by your family members, it does not get used much
5. Pay careful attention in selecting the right remote control and mouse for your home theater computer
6. You want to set it up with components that are energy efficient which will make them quieter because they don’t need to be cooled as much
7. You want to focus on the key use of your theater system and select components accordingly
8. Remember that you need to put a price to your own time
9. Go for a micro ATX case that fits better under your TV or in between your home theater
10. Larger (over 500W) power supplies are usually louder and not suited for HTPC environments
11. If possible, choose an HTPC case with a built-in power supply unit
12. When choosing a CPU cooler, go for the largest cooler possible that will fit in your case
13. On the popular Intel Core i3 or i5 processors, the stock CPU fan is more than fine
14. Intel Core i5 is slightly too much for a normal HTPC use, but if you are doing video encoding or some other CPU intensive tasks, then it is fine
15. It is often enough to use the onboard audio output, if you plan to use digital sound. But if you are an audiophile go for better sound cards such as ASUS Xonar STX
16. For a good music sound quality, considering using FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), which means that the audio is compressed without a loss of quality
17. For Intel Core i3 build with on-board graphics, you should not need more than the 380W-430W
18. Do not forget to choose a motherboard that has HDMI output so you can connect it to your TV directly
19. If your first priority is to watch movies then there is no need for a fancy graphics card, but it can be embedded inside a CPU
20. If you are more into gaming then, it is time to skip the built–in graphics card and start searching for a gaming graphics card
21. Do not get less than 1 TB installed in your HTPC to serve as a dedicated storage solution
22. Keep in mind that large chunky hard disk drives are noisier than the processor fan itself
23. If you need fast boot and start-up times, get an SSD drive as an operating system drive
24. Consider getting a network attached storage (NAS) which is an external hard drive that can be accessed anywhere in your home network
25. Ceton InfiniTV 4 lets you record up to four different digital channels simultaneously
26. Logitech Harmony remotes have the possibility to program predefined activities for tasks
27. Get a $5 extension cord for your IR receiver and hide the cord behind the TV cabinet
28. Windows 7 Vista XP Media Center MCE PC Remote Control and Infrared Receiver is very popular USB IR receiver and should be fine for your needs
29. Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard is the finest you can have
30. IOGEAR keyboard with laser trackball delivers unbelievable value for your money
Read even more tips by checking out my list of 101 media center tips.