Want to make a cheap media TV...

Okay, I fancy making a "media centre" style PC, just something I can have in hte living room hooked up to my surround sound that uses the TV as a display and can be used for DVD's, playing music, maybe have a TVcard in for timeshifting...

HOWEVER, i want to be as budget as possible. I have 512MB DDR lying around so thats sortede, and an 80GB HDD which should be enough to start off with.

What I need is an SFF system, shuttle or whatever that is cheap and will do the job. Onboard LAN would be good as well as an AGP slot, i dunno really. Anyone got any suggestions?

I have a Shuttle SK41G the original model, its rather old in the teeth now (considering some of shuttles new models)

I got mine for a little over 100notes from overclockers.co.uk there are loads of options in the SFF market now if i had the cash I'd upgrade to a Shuttle XPC SN95G5V2, but if your looking for a budget model take a look at the Shuttle XPC SK43G

this was my idea

BUT

the noise issue really does make it hard work

just buily one myself using sk43g running with ap xp barton 2800 a 120 gb and 40 gb disks a nec dvd/rw

as for noise i changed the fan cooling the ice cpu cooler made a big difference cannot rember name of fan came out of old case

i was rnning a radeon 9700 pro but was a bit noisy trying to find way of cooloing without fan but not a lot of room in case running of onboard graphics at mo not too bad

hope this helps :)

i used a 7 volt'ed fan, BUT the temps were creeping up a little for my liking :(

will try and find a quiet fan

cheers
matt