Zalman HD160XT

took · Post by **took** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 11:48 pm

Hi,

any experiences on the Zalman HD160XT HTPC case? I couldn't find too many reviews online, and definitely nothing on the cooling performance and noise.

The case looks nice though, and supports ATX.

Deegroller · Post by **Deegroller** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 2:26 am

Same here. I'm also interested in this case, but have found little reviews and experiences of owners!

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 6:03 am

Take the review of the regular HD160 and add the frustration of trying to setup a LCD on the front as well and realizing that Windows XP will only allow you to do two things, clone the screen as a duplicate of the desktop or run as an extended desktop. The clone part might be ok if the LCD screen and your display shared the same resolution, but this is rarely the case. And if you run it as an extended desktop you run into a slew of other issues--no Start menu, video won't display, MCE won't run in secondary display, etc.

Perhaps with Vista we will see some new apps that will add functionality to these displays, but for now they're little more than a gimmick.

I own a OrigenAE x11, which is the basis for the HD160 (and XT), and it's a good case when the fans are modded to 5v. Don't bother with the drive cage though, use sorbothane blocks and make your own little platform to rest the drives on in the same place, only horizontal.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:00 am

Welcome to SPCR both of you!

You can probably glean a lot of info from the SPCR review of the HD160:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article603-page1.html

Deegroller · Post by **Deegroller** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:49 am

Thanks a lot. The review of the HD160 I had already seen.
My main need is some information and user experience with the touch screen!

I am going to use my HTPC also for radio and conversion purposes (i.e. when no big screen is needed). Therefore I am interested in a method of operating the HTPC without having to turn on the TV. The touch screen seemed an ideal solution, but the commentary as quoted below worries me a bit.

...and add the frustration of trying to setup a LCD on the front as well and realizing that Windows XP will only allow you to do two things, clone the screen as a duplicate of the desktop or run as an extended desktop. The clone part might be ok if the LCD screen and your display shared the same resolution, but this is rarely the case. And if you run it as an extended desktop you run into a slew of other issues--no Start menu, video won't display, MCE won't run in secondary display, etc.

I think I have to broaden my search by looking for touch screen-topics.
Any other recommendations?

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:14 am

This might be a better question for the guys at AVSForum (man, it seems like I've been saying that a LOT lately). The combined knowledge over there is quite astounding.

This model is pretty much identical to the OrigenAE x15, AFAIK. The same problems apply. The limitation comes with Windows display driver module. I believe there is a program that MAY work around this flaw. But I wouldn't pony up that kind of money to find out and be disappointed.

You may want to look into using tablet pc's and VM to do this type of thing...again head over to AVSForums and look up some posts by IVB. I think he's done the tablet PC thing, if not the VM apps too.

kojak71 · Post by **kojak71** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 8:29 am

This case takes it's design cues from the HD135. Zalman have added an 92mm exhaust fan for the main hard-drive cage. BTW all the internal fans can be plumbed into the control PCB which in turn can manage fan speeds either manually or automatically via thermal sensor probes. There are two 80mm exhaust fans on the rear plane, and a further 80mm exhaust fan on the base of the case. I continue to question the placement of this fan, because it's in the area where the PSU cables reside and there is a danger that these bulky bundle of cable will disturb the airflow. And why is an exhaust fan on the base of the case, doesn't hot air rise?

On each end of the side panels, there is a vent. One is dedicated to the PSU intake fan, the other is for the main hard-drive cage exhaust fan. The other two are intake vents. The design of all these vents still look fairly restrictive (identical to the HD135). As per Intel specs, the case has vents above where the CPU would sit, and I'm happy to see that they are not as restrive as they were on the HD135. The hard-drive cage can house up to 4 3.5" drives, and the DVD drive cage can house an optical drive and another 3.5" drive. Although this case can "only" house 5 drives (the HD135 can house 7!), they'll have a better chance of keeping cool(ish). The drives are kept stacked horizontally (the HD160 had them held vertically), not ideal because the top drive will soak up the heat from the drives below (as is the case in the HD135) but at least the dedicated exhaust fan will reduce this to an effect to an extent.

HTPC cases aren't the easiest of things to work in and cable routing is quite tricky. This case will be even more difficult because on top of the usual cables (front mounted USB/Firewire/audio, USB for the media card reader, and power/reset switches), the front mounted control pcb will have cables for power, fans, temperature sensors, USB. And the TFT Touchscreen will also require to be hooked up to the VGA output, power, USB. A great deal of care will be needed to ensure that airflows aren't impeded too much by the jungle of cables.

The only review I've seen is in french, but the results on http://www.matbe.com/articles/lire/_pre ... /page6.php are self explanatory. Their test setup included 975x based mobo, Core 2 Duo X6800 CPU with Zalman 9500 cooler, 2x512Mb Ram, WD Raptor & Seagate hard drives, nVidia 7900GTX. So an extremely powerful setup. Their results show a variety of permutations (cpu vent open/shut, and fans controlled manually/automatically).