Want to make a cheap media TV...

[Michael]

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?

[Roach]

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

[blue..matt]

this was my idea

BUT

the noise issue really does make it hard work

[steveing]

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

[blue..matt]

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