17Via Mini-ITX 2 LogoDual-Tuner Mini-ITX Build?

Published on by in Media PC Hardware. Updated 9th October 2011.

After dis­cus­sions on a recent art­icle I wondered if it is pos­sible to build a set-top box sized HTPC with dual-tuner cards inside.  To achieve set-top box size means going Mini-ITX, but with the release of a range of Mini ITX AMD Fusion boards this is the easy part.  Mini-ITX nor­mally only includes 1 expan­sion slot, so to include 2 tuners requires a cre­at­ive solu­tion.


I found a range of appro­pri­ately sized Mini-ITX cases with 2 hori­zontal expan­sion slots and a dual PCI–E riser card.  In the­ory is should be pos­sible to fit all of these parts together to pro­duce the desired res­ult, how­ever, it doesn’t look straight­for­ward.  The riser is not a flex­ible riser and requires a ver­tical slot to mount in.  This may or may not be pos­sible in the low-profile case, it cer­tainly wont be pos­sible with the full-height bracket attached.  The next issue is attach­ing the 2 tuner cards (with low pro­file brack­ets) securely to the case — which is optim­ised for full-height cards!  Finally, I don’t know if there is space at the side of the case for the riser sock­ets that the tuner card plug into.

Des­pite these issues, it looks like it could prob­ably be cobbled together with some gaf­fatape and cable ties.  I will keep look­ing as there may be more suit­able cases and or a flex­ible dual pci-e riser (that splits 1 x16 slot to 2 slots)

–Update–

I have now found a bet­ter riser card.  How­ever the site offer­ing it warns that “Use for mother­board with chip­set that sup­ports bifurc­a­tion”.  I have no idea if Fusion boards sup­port “bifurc­a­tion” — but as there are microATX boards with sev­eral PCI–E slots, I am hop­ing it does.

Please send us your thoughts by commenting below! If you would like to subscribe please use the subscribe link on the menu at the top right. You can also share this with your friends by using the social links below. Cheers.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

17 Responses to “Dual-Tuner Mini-ITX Build?”

  1. Rod Dines

    Just thought I’d let you know…and thanks for help­ing to point me in the right dir­ec­tion to solve this issue for myself.

    The Intel S1200KP Mini-ITX server mother­board sup­ports i3 (dual cores) and XEON E3’s (quad cores) with either ECC or nor­mal RAM so it can be used for cost effect­ive HTPC and it has the C206 chip­set which sup­ports PCI–E bifurc­a­tion..

    See page 7 of this doc­u­ment http://download.intel.com/design/intarch/papers/326336.pdf

    So this should work fine with the ARC1-PELY423-XX from http://www.ameri-rack.com

    Reply
  2. Robert Fitzgerald

    Hello

    I have been look­ing for a PCI–e split­ter for some time now, I have seen the quad split­ter that your first pic­ture is of but the cost of these is very high so I don’t think I will go down that route (although it would be per­fect for my cus­tom case), I am look­ing at the ones by Ameri-Rack and I have con­tac­ted them to ask about the bifurc­a­tion thing, I can’t seem to find any men­tion of it on any mother­boards I have looked at, none say they do sup­port it and none say that they don’t so I’m not sure, I have asked Ameri­R­ack though to provide some inform­a­tion on this if they can. My cur­rent HTPC is a cus­tom build con­sist­ing of two HP Slim­line S3000 cases bolted together for extra space and dual power sup­plies to run the extra drives, they look neat and styl­ish too. The stand­ard HP board has two PCIe slots and I would like to use one for a graph­ics card and split the other one for a sata con­trol­ler and a TV Tuner.

    I am also look­ing to pur­chase one of the Asus Fusion boards that you have pos­ted a pic­ture of too for a new HTPC to replace my cur­rent one when I can afford it.

    Keep us updated if you get chance to try any of these solu­tions! :)

    Reply
    • Robert Fitzgerald

      Just had a reply from Ameri-Rack:

      “1) $45/ea plus ship­ping $10(by USPS First-class air mail, 7–10 days to arrive)
      2) You can see the bifurc­a­tion from the block dia­gram of the board if there is any. I don’t see the chip­set on the desk top board will sup­port bifurc­a­tion which happened on most of the server boards.”

      So from what they are say­ing it looks like only server board will sup­port it :( so I think the only option for our situ­ation would be the expens­ive one from Amfel­tec :( won’t be hap­pen­ing in my case then due to the price of it. If you have any suc­cess with any oth­ers let me know I would be inter­ested to hear about them.

      Reply
      • Jon Scaife

        Excel­lent info Robert — thanks!
        I’m not sure that its true that only server boards will sup­port bifurc­a­tion. Vari­ous sites seem to imply that some of the new Sandy Bridge chip­sets sup­port bifurc­a­tion. In these cases it seems that bifurc­a­tion is taken to mean the pos­sib­il­ity of intel­li­gently switch­ing between 2 PCIe 8x slots and 1 PCIe 16x.
        Have a look at Some­thing Awful forum thread, Intel doc on Scribd.com and Tech Report for example.
        Assum­ing the higher end Sandy Bridge chip­sets DO sup­port bifurc­a­tion, the only remain­ing ques­tion (which I can’t answer at present) is “Does the E350 chip­set sup­port bifurc­a­tion too?” I might get a split­ter in the near future as I have a Z68 chip­set sys­tem I can try it in, as well as the E35M1-M Pro HTPC. When I sort this I’ll post an update — prob­ably around Easter time. Cheers

        Reply
        • Robert Fitzgerald

          Thats great inform­a­tion thanks for that. I was temp­ted to buy one to see if it would work but but for me the price is a bit high for a risk of some­thing that might not work. Let me know how it goes if you do try it. Is there a way to be noti­fied by email when you reply to this?

          Reply
          • Jon Scaife

            No prob­lem, I’ll do that.
            Good ques­tion — I don’t think there is at present no, but its a good idea which I’ll put on my to-do list. You can sub­scribe to the com­ments RSS and you can sub­scribe to new posts by email, but i haven’t imple­men­ted a way to get reply noti­fic­a­tions by email. I’ll see what I can do. In the mean­time I’ll make a note to e-mail you “manu­ally” when I get a split­ter.
            Cheers

          • Jon Scaife

            I’ve now imple­men­ted e-mail sub­scrip­tions to com­ments. I’ve also taken the liberty of sub­scrib­ing you to this thread, so hope­fully you’ll get an e-mail about this reply?

          • Robert Fitzgerald

            Thanks for the email sub­scrip­tion I will keep an eye out for these in the future. :)

  3. Mike

    Never mind my last com­ment. I just real­ized that card won’t work in the UK.

    Reply
    • Jon Scaife

      Cheers for the inform­a­tion Mike. You’re right, its not the right card for the UK, but I’m sure your sug­ges­tion will be really use­ful to people in other parts of the world so thanks for the sug­ges­tion.
      I also had in mind the pos­sib­il­ity of hav­ing 1 tuner card and 1 other PCI–E card (e.g. GPU or high end sound­card) — for which a riser would be the only option with mini-ITX.

      Reply
  4. Mike

    I know I’m a little (or a lot) late to the party, but why not use a Haup­pauge 2250 card? It’s a single slot dual ATSC/QAM tuner and FM radio tuner that can also be used in a low pro­file setup?

    Reply
  5. Ben

    where did you find that new riser card? the one that expands 1 PCI–e into 2?? Link please. :)

    Reply
  6. Louis Mustill

    Did you fig­ure out if the single to dual riser worked with a fusion board, i’d love to know?

    Reply
    • Jon Scaife

      I’m afraid I haven’t tried. I’ve got a list of things I want to get to exper­i­ment with, but time and fin­an­cial pres­sures have put vari­ous pro­jects on hold until late autumn. If you decide to give it a try any­way please let us know how it goes. Oth­er­wise keep an eye on this thread — I’ll update it when I finally get chance to try them out

      Reply
  7. Simonty

    Those risers look neat. And, in gen­eral, of course gaffa tape and cable ties will be involved…

    Reply