RE: Re: Windows Media Centre...

["Phil Harris" <phil@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > Did you all "roll your own" and build your HTPCs from
> scratch as I'm
> > trying to decide between expanding my current MCE box or
> > buying in a complete new (and hopefully quiet) machine.
>
> As a test (to see if the wife - also Jo - was happy using it)
> I installed the BlackGold cards into my main desktop (a
> newish Dell 8400). However, everyone in the house is so
> impressed with it that i'll be building a dedicated machine
> for the lounge and i'll move the cards to it. If you want to
> see the specs/parts, give me a shout.

I've found a mobo with an SP/DIF out that MCE is happy using (don't use
anything with SoundMAX drivers for audio as they seem to not be MCE
friendly), a fanless graphics card which seems to do the job and I have a
2.5GHz Athlon with 1Gb of RAM in it all running MCE at the moment. I'm
using
one of the big Zalman CPU coolers which seems OK in that it's reasonably
quiet but it does seem to get quite dusty. The problem I have is that the
Antec Overture case that I'm using isn't *REALLY* quiet - it's not bad but
it is still audible. :-(

If I can quieten the Antec down then that'll be good - I think the main
noise is the turbulence of the air coming out through the grille on the
back
and perhaps dremmelling that out will sort that?

Certainly be interested in seeing what you're planning to use though -
might
even chase up the boys over in Reading (was it Gigatek?) I need to find a
fully configured MCE machine to have a play with to see what its handling
of
TV and recordings are like (and see what it's like for archiving recordings
to DVD).

Phil