uATX motherboard questions for modding a Sky+ box

[Rob_B]

Hi guys n gals, I've got yet another modding idea & wondered how much it'll cost me this time!

I've got a couple of spare Sky+ boxes so me & my little lad just tore one open.

- I have a SFF PSU already, as well as some small fans.
- The Sky+ box has given me a 160GB IDE HDD & it already has USB ports with cables
- I have 3 x 2GB of DDR2 in my main rig so could spare one stick

so I figured I could pop in a uATX mobo with a CPU & away I go!

My problem is I don't really know what I'm looking for, mATX is too big so I definately need uATX, there is a S775 one on ebay for under £30 inc P&P, I figured chuck in a C2D & I'd have an interesting media box, I'm aware some uATX have the CPU built in though?

Any thought or suggestions bearing in mind that cheap/free is my main priority!

Ta!

Rob

[scaryjim]

uATX == mATX: both the u and the m are standing in for micro. What you need is mITX, which is a whole different kettle of fish.

You won't get one for £30, for one thing. Cheapest I know of which takes a standard desktop CPU is this Zotac G41 s775 board @ almost £70; ebuyer have an Atom D410 based board for just south of £50, but it wouldn't be great for a media computer as the integrated graphics only support hardware acceleration of mpeg-2 content. For anything half to three-quarters decent you'll be looking at spending ~ £100.

[Rob_B]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah I see

The one on eBay is 9.6 x 9.6 inches, seems smaller than my current mATX board but I've just googled it & seems it's exactly the same, hmmm, spanner in the works there! I'll need to measure the Sky box, although with the PSU I don't think for a second an mATX would fit

[scaryjim]

You can get some slim mATX motherboards that are usually 17cm x 22.5cm, which might give you a chance, but it'd be a pretty tight fit - and as you say there'd still be the question of a suitable power supply. And unfortunately the smaller the components get the more expensive it gets, in general

[Rob_B]

Well the length is fine but the box width is 9.5" including faceplate, so a 17cm mobo would be fine. I'll have to look around.

[scaryjim]

Any particular socket you want to go with?

[El Juan Pablo]

Theres a few different Mini itx boards out there if thats what you decide on.

But what exactly do you want it for as an Atom/ion based board is fine for HD content, but if you want more intensive workout of it then theres a P55 based board but it'll be expensive.

Also new AMD 350 setups slightly better than Atom/ion.


Lots of choice depends on budget though.