My custom HTPC build

Ordering parts for my new custom NAS

tripkip — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:18:18 +0000

When I say NAS, I actually mean full size file server.
My current file server is based on an old desktop computer I had lying around. It has an Athlon 64 3500+ 2,2 GH CPU and 2GB RAM.
The motherboard has 4 SATA-ports and then there is a VIA 6421A PCI card with 3 more SATA-ports.
At the moment this file server is serving 7 external hard drives. (Actually they are internal in the way they are connected, but external in the way they are physically located.)

My soon to be replaced NAS

There are two reasons why I am building a new file server.
First of all there is no more room to attach another hard drive with this current setup.
Second reason is the performance or better the lack of it. Apart from being a file server, this system is also used as a download server, running SabNZBd, CouchPotato and SickBeard 24/7. And I wanted a faster system to handle all desires.

Now you are wondering what this new system will look like and how much it would cost.
Well, it turns out it’s going to be super cheap!

The shoppinglist

Case: Codegen 4U-500 /// €65
CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 260 Boxed /// €52
PSU: Corsair Builder CX500 V2 /// €53
RAM: Kingston ValueRAM KVR1066D3N7K2/8G /// €32
Motherboard: Asrock 880GM-LE /// €57

Total: €259

With this list it’s possible to attach 6 HDD’s out of the box because the motherboard has 6 SATA ports.
If you only need 6 hard drives or less, you could buy a smaller case.
I will buy some PCI-e SATA controllers in the future in order to attach 12HDD’s.

You can get a 4-port SATA-300 PCI controller on eBay for around €15.

The Case

Codegen Codegen 4U-500

+ Place for 9 HDD’s out of the box plus 3 5.25 drives which can be used to put another 4 HDD’s so, that makes 13HDD’s total
+ Can be locked, the case is shipped with a lock!!
+ Price

The Processor

AMD Athlon II X2 260 Boxed

+ Dual Core 3.2GHz
+ 2x1MB cache
+ Shipped with a CPU fan/cooler

The Power Supply Unit

Corsair Builder CX500 V2

+ 500W
+ 80-Plus rating
+ 5 SATA power connectors
+ 4 4-pin (IDE) power connectors

The Memory

Kingston ValueRAM KVR1066D3N7K2/8G

+ 8GB Dual Channel RAM (2 x 4GB)
+ Cheap !!
+ PC3-8500 (DDR3-1066)

The Motherboard

Asrock 880GM-LE

+ Form factor: Micro-ATX
+ Socket: AM3
+ Slots: PCI-e 2.x 1x, PCI-e 2.x 16x, 2x PCI 2.2
+ SATA-300 ports: 6

Let me know if you’re interested in seeing ‘The Build’ !!

Cheers

iCouchPotato released – an iOS client app for CouchPotato

tripkip — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:52:53 +0000

CouchPotato is an amazing application that automates the movie downloading process using Usenet or Torrents.
More info about CouchPotato

I developed an application called iCouchPotato for iOS devices to manage your CouchPotato watchlist and lookup movie information from your iPod/iPhone or iPad.

The application can be found in Cydia (on the ModMyi repo).

More info and support for iCouchPotato

Airplay is coming to OpenElec !!

tripkip — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:35:54 +0000

Thanks to my own request on the OpenElec forums, the creators of OpenElec (a dedicated XBMC OS which runs a lot faster than XBMC Live which is simply Ubuntu), have decided to get started on implementing Airplay (Airplayer+Shairport) into OpenElec !

You can follow any news and progress right here: http://openelec.tv/forum/19-feature-suggestions/6383-integeration-of-shairport-a-airplayer-which-enables-full-videopictures-and-music-streaming-from-ios

Install Shairport on XBMC Live to get AirPlay audio as well!

tripkip — Mon, 23 May 2011 11:56:37 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I showed you guys an easy way to install AirPlayer, which allows you to stream pictures/video from iTuens/iOS Devices.

That’s great isn’t it. It works perfect. But what about the music? Doesn’t Apple’s AirPlay stream music as well?

Well yes it does, sort of. Apple’s new AirPlay goodie still uses the old AirTunes code to stream music.
Recently someone was able to retrieve the private key needed to decode the music.

Today I’ll show you how to install Shairport on XBMC Live to stream your entire music library from your iTunes or iOS Device to your HTPC!

To clarify, this runs perfectly along with AirPlayer. So if you want to stream pictures/videos too,
first follow my earlier guide to install AirPlayer.

Before you start please note ShairPort is still under development and is not working perfectly. Sometimes the audio drops out because of missing frames, specially with iOS devices.
I believe they are working on this. If you have a solution please let me know!

Go to https://github.com/albertz/shairport and download the zip.
Unzip it, rename it to albertz-shairport and transfer it (SFTP client) over to your home folder in XBMC
SSH into XBMC (ssh username@xbmcip)
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev libcrypt-openssl-rsa-perl libao2 libao-dev libio-socket-inet6-perl libwww-perl avahi-utils pkg-config
sudo perl -MCPAN -e ‘install Crypt::OpenSSL::RSA’
sudo perl -MCPAN -e ‘install HTTP::Message’
sudo perl -MCPAN -e ‘install IO::Socket::INET6′
cd albertz-shairport
make
perl shairport.pl

This last step will run ShairPort, now you should be able to stream your music to XBMC. I recommend using iTunes until the autor fixes the frame dropping issue with iOS Devices.

Now if you like to start it up automatically every time you boot XBMC continue!

Considering you’re still in the albertz-shairport folder, do: sudo nano shairport.pl
Find the line (52) where it starts with “my $hairtunes_cli =” change the path to the hairtunes file in the albertz-shairport folder (check picture below for an example).

sudo cp shairport.init.sample /etc/init.d/shairport
sudo nano /etc/init.d/shairport
Find the line (20) where it starts with “DAEMON =” change the path to the shairport.pl file in the albertz-shairport folder (check picture below for an example).

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/shairport
sudo update-rc.d shairport defaults
Reboot and test!

I miss Airplayer!

tripkip — Sun, 22 May 2011 17:08:48 +0000

Currently I’m using OpenElec, the “XBMC OS”, which is a great solution for people who want XBMC and the official addons.
But there is no way to install extra packages in OpenElec.
This means no Airplayer, no Shairport.

I will return to XBMClive this week and give you guys an updated guide to install Airplayer AND Shairport.

Airplayer allows you to stream video/pictures from iTunes/iOS devices to XBMClive.
Shairport allows you to stream music (YES it’s real) from iTunes/iOS devices to XBMClive.

So hang on, guide comming soon!

XBMCLive V.S. OpenELEC

tripkip — Sun, 15 May 2011 19:07:27 +0000

OpenELEC advantages: superfast bootup!!
Cold bootup with XBMCLive: 1min 20sec
Cold bootup with OpenELEC: 0min 19sec

How is this possible?
XBMCLive, is almost a complete Ubuntu distro with XBMC running on top and on startup.
OpenELEC is not based on any Linux distribution, it’s build specially for XBMC!

Would you like to try it out?
Don’t wait any longer, head over to OpenELEC.tv.

Update to XBMC 10.1!

tripkip — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:48:38 +0000

No new features but some interesting bug fixes were made.

Head over to XBMC on GitHub to check out the full changelog.

Update instructions:

- SSH or shell: sudo apt-get update followed by sudo apt-get install xbmc

Get AirPlay working on your XBMC live HTPC!

tripkip — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 09:31:01 +0000

Go to https://github.com/PascalW/Airplayer and download the zip
Unzip it, rename it to PascalW-Airplayer and transfer it (SFTP client) over to your home folder in XBMC
SSH into XBMC (ssh username@xbmcip)
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 python python-pip
Dive into the folder you transfered in step 2 with ‘cd PascalW-Airplayer‘
sudo pip install -r requirements.txt
cd airplayer
Edit and insert your XBMC username and password in the settings file: sudo nano settings.py
Start AirPlayer: python airplayer.py
Start a video (YouTube for example) on your iOS device and AirPlay it over to XBMC!

Now if you like to start it up automatically every time you boot XBMC continue!

Get back to the previous folder cd ..
sudo cp scripts/ubuntu/airplayer /etc/init.d/airplayer
sudo update-rc.d airplayer defaults
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/airplayer
sudo nano /etc/init.d/airplayer Edit user (username), group (id username) and path to where the airplayer.py script is located for me it is “/home/tripkip/PascalW-Airplayer/airplayer/airplayer.py”
Save, reboot and test!

Credits to PascalW, the author of AirPlay for XBMC, Boxee and Plex.

Update XBMC Live to latest subversion (Dharma)

tripkip — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:40:38 +0000

To make sure you keep your XBMC Live system up to date with the latest bug fixes and patches you should update your xbmc software to the latest subversion (SVN). Here is how you can achieve this:

Run the following commands from the terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc-svn/ppa
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc
sudo reboot

At last temperatures under control and total silence !!!!

tripkip — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:09:36 +0000

Hi there,

My fan arrived last week, haven’t got the time yet to mount it into the case until today!

Here you can checkout the fan, it’s a Scythe 120 mm Slip Stream Slim Case Fan (800 rpm) (SY1212SL12SL).
Cost’s around 9EUR and believe me it is completely silent.

So how do you fit a 120mm fan in a case that’s only 70mm high?

You install it on the top cover, the one that you open the case with.
You just need to make sure the fan’s power cable is long enough to be stretched out when you open the case.

Check out the result:

Running PCMark Vantage the highest temperatures reached 61°C and 57°C for the CPU and GPU respectively.
A very healthy result comparing to the passive setup where the CPU temperatures reached over 100°C…

Now at last I am able to enjoy my completely silent HTPC!