Thermaltake DH-104 HTPC Enclosure Review :: System Build

• Enclosure: Thermaltake DH-104
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-UD4H
• CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 810 2.6GHz Socket AM3 Quad-Core 45nm Processor
• Memory: 2GB OCZ PC8500 DDR2 Memory
• Hard Drive: Western Digital 1TB Black Caviar Series Hard Drive
• CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Max Orb
• VGA Card: EVGA GTX280/ ATI2900XT
• PSU: Thermaltake ToughPower 650W PSU
• Blu-Ray Drive: LG Combo Blu-Ray plus HD player

Building a really nice HTPC is usually a little bit different than your everyday standup PC if you want it to look good on the inside as well as out, it's not as tough as doing any real modding, but it's different than your normal build in a few small ways. For one usually the inside has very little room in it to maneuver around all your system parts. Not so with the DH-104 as it is roughly the size of a standard ATX case, just with the design being a bit varied, and the inside has plenty of space for moving your hands without hassle. Also there are no sharp edges of any kind and the interior is very smooth and easy on the hands, no cuts here.

Installation of the PSU was easily accomplished as was the installation of the Blu-ray player. There are quite a few wires to be connected, but if you take your time and read the manual, you should have no problems when it comes time for hooking them all up. We started out using and EVGA GTX280, but the card had to be used in an SLI test bench so in went the ATI 2900XT card as its replacement, not really anywhere near as powerful, but good enough for media such as TV, DVDs or browsing the net. This system was not really intended as a gaming machine in any case so having any an onboard VGA solution would be plenty of power to handle a Media Centers job.

The motherboard tray is fixed and cannot be removed, but the hard drive bay is removable and uses rubber dampeners to keep the hard drives vibration to a minimum during operation. The small LCD hooks up to your VGA card by way of an external cable that you connect to your secondary VGA connection. The memory and CPU were both installed onto the motherboard prior to installation into the case, this being the most logical way of doing things, and then installed into the enclosure. Lastly we hooked up the small cable on the back of the unit to the VGA card and then started up the system. It posted on the first try and then we proceeded to install Windows Vista Ultimate with Media Center installed. We tried to get the iMON software configured correctly, but we were never able to get it to perform like iMON claims it will, and iMON has the absolute poorest support I have ever seen, they are pathetic.