It would help if you let us know what processor family you are interested in. For Socket 478, the AOPEN AX4SPE-MAX 865PE allows pwm control of CPU fan plus (2) case fans, undervolting down to 1.1v and full overclocking options. I suspect the high end Aopen AthlonXP and Athlon-64 motherboards to offe...

Here's the IR keyboard I chose. Has an eraserhead not trackball, but is meant to be used handheld, on a table, or in your lap...and the price is right. The VIA EPIA appears to be just powerful enough for your intended use and it certiainly is low power and compact, but it wouldn't be my first choic...

Hauppauge has a new dual TV tuner/FM card for MCE2005. Not sure if you can buy it yet though, but for a sff or uATX HTPC it's awesome.

By the way, posters in avsforum (with too much time on their hands) have been recording and playing-back HDTV streams captured from the set-top box or TV firewire port by emulating a DVHS in their PC or MAC. Wont work on encrypted content however until PC's are able to decrypt the stream (non-exista...

akaidiot wrote:I am now considering a Silverstone Lascala LC03V-Black

Have you checked out Dasman's HTPC in the Gallery? The Kanam Accent HT-400b HTPC case he used looks like a winner!

That basicly means that I can have both MCE 2005 and Meedio installed and use which ever after my liking!? Yes They(M$) should sell it like a "Media Center Application" aswell as the whole Media Center OS, as it basically is an application, if I understand correctly.. They have just released MCE200...

I have the Philips MCE remote. Of course it works great in MCE. Doesn't do much at all outside the MCE frontend, but with Girder, can be made to work quite well in Meedio, BeyondTV, SageTV etc. I've demo'd SageTV and Snapstream (pre BeyondTV). They work fine as advertised, but take much more fiddlin...

Except, I feel that respond to the part I've quoted above. I agree that the Pentium-M is an expensive processor, however, I do not consider it to have less than stellar video encoding capabilities. This opinion, of course, is derived from the reviews I've found online . Judging from those graphs, y...

Beautiful HTPC Dasman, That case looks like the best designed HTPC case yet. Very slick how the PSU mounts into a cutout to allow full utilization of 120mm fanned PSUs while minimizing case height. What's going on w/ the cables routed back into the case thru the PCI slot? Do you have a IR receiver m...

IMO Media Center Edition 2005 is leading the way in PVR software. Meedio is much more customizable, but that also relates to much more fiddling to get it right. Last I checked, Meedio did not have PVR capability in it's offerings, many Meedio users use Meedio as the front-end and SageTV as the PVR s...

Could someone explain in details (mebbe even pics) on how to short the thermosistor on the globes? I need to do this when I get home to hook it up to my fancontroller and am not to sure how :? Sure, just snip off the thermistor. Then strip back the insulation on the two wires & twist em together. W...

thanks for the feedbacks, tibors and bomba. Bomba, are u trying to tell me that the speedfan won't be able to control all the case fans and CPU fan? Thanks Depends on the motherboard implementation, I've built a half dozen PC's recently. The P4 AOPEN AX4SPE-MAX allow speedfan to control (2) case fa...

I recommend you check out thegreenbutton.com Register and you'll have access to a couple additional forums, one entitled show me your MCE machine, or something like that. IMO, going with a HTPC style desktop case will make it harder to keep quiet. For MCE2005, if you want to use all the features, yo...

This page lists everything Speedfan supports. The Abit NF7-S is on that list. Many of the motherboards listed as supported on the speedfan site do not have full support. I can't say for sure wrt the NF7-S, but I seem to recollect an old post that indicates that the CPU fan and chipset fans are spee...

I'll try to address some of your questions. Yes, home PC's are required to meet FCC Part 15, class B in the USA and CISPR 55022, Class B in the rest of the world. These standards cover radiated & conducted EMC and are designed mainly to prevent interference to broadcast radio and TV receivers. Remov...

775 CPUs come in both Presshot and Northwood flavors. Intel does not dare kill the NW yet; they know this would mean wholesale defection to the A64 camp for those who are disgusted with the Presshot thermals. Back in August, Intel decided to make NW & P cores avaulable on both soket 478 and 775, an...

I have a passive Jetway 9550-128 purchased dirt cheap as a Newegg refurb. Supposedly these are the same as a 9600-128 except firmware. This site gives info how to flash them with 9600 BIOS, essentially turning them into 9600's. I believe the 9600-128 and 9600-256 can be overclocked to PRO speeds, bu...

One of the principals of Niveus has posted many times on thegreenbutton.com. I have confidence that you would be completely satisfied should you go w/ a Niveus MCE2005 HTPC. But, $4,000...ouch! You can definitely build a very quiet fanned MCE2005 HTPC in a desktop Hifi style case for much less. But,...

Speedfan (pwm) plays fine w/ Globe 120mm fans. I use (2) Papst 4412FGL's in my Sonata. To my ears the Papst 4412s are marginally smoother and quieter than the Globes, but pricey. Others report clicking when pwm is used with the 4412. Mine are @5v fixed from the PSU; I haven't tried pwm w/ the 4412's...

I'm also building a quiet/silent MCE2005 HTPC with a different approach. My first suggestion is to sign up as an OEM System builder here and read thru the powerpoint presentation about building a MCE2005 system including minimum & recommended hw requirements. As others have noted, the Prescott is ho...

http://img81.exs.cx/img81/1466/Bomba1L.th.jpg http://img81.exs.cx/img81/4492/Bomba2L.th.jpg Click on the thumbnails to view the larger pictures. bomba , I hope you're not offended I spread your copyrighted material all over the world. :) But this looked like a good excuse to try out http://www.imag...

Here's what my modded bezel looks like. Please advise if pice do not show-up.

Well read crisspy's sticky post on cutting w/ Wiss snips and practice. Make sure you get both the RH and LH snips and use the correct one for the curve you are cutting. My tin snip experience was zero prior to the LX-6A19 project and everything came out fine. On the fan grilles, I just cut a smooth ...

I used Wiss snips to cut the front bezel on my LX-6A19. Worked great for me, fast & clean, IMO, dremel or jigsaw would have been much slower and slopier. However, the LX-6A19 bezel is pretty thin and soft. A harder, thicker bezel like the Sonata's may be best cut with a demel or saw.

Work in process, this dedicated HTPC will run Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and will drive a 46" Samsung DLP Rear Projection HDTV via DVI. SPDIF out will pump DD5.1 thru an Onkyo 5.1 setup. http://img72.exs.cx/img72/6124/HTPC-1.jpg http://img72.exs.cx/img72/3568/HTPC-2.jpg Current Specs: LX-6...

I hot plug/hot swap a standard IDE desktop drive, but it's pretty involving. The drvie is installed in a Kingwin mobile rack (removable HD rack) in a 5.25" bay. However, since IDE drives are not hot swappable, I mounted a IDE to SATA converter on the back of the mobile rack. I also modified the wire...

Hi bomba: Any stability problems with your L1A modded FSP300-60PN? Also, do you think a power supply with a rear 80mm or bottom 120 mm power supply fan is better in terms of power supply temp, case temp, case air flow, and overall noise levels in your Antec Sonata? My Fortrons are not FSP300-60PN's...

I also purchased this case from coolcases. I bought LH & RH Wiss tin snips per crisspy's sticky thread and used em to cut out the front bezel and front & rear fan grilles. Mesh material used for the "modders mesh" bezel mod was a section of gutter leaf guard purchased at Home Depot. I also used hot ...

I'm slowly building a HTPC in a LX-6A19 case from coolcases.com Comes w/ (2) 120mm globe fans. My solution was to remove the thermistors and solder the thermistor wire leads together. I connected the fans to the AOPEN motherboard case fan headers and control 'em w/ speedfan. However, my Asus P4P800d...

Pentium IV socket 478 Aopen AX4SPE-Max, undervoltable to 1.1v. Great basis for silent P4 PC with (2) pwm controllable case fan headers plus pwm controllable cpu fan header. Using as basis for MS MCE2005 HTPC. Still playing w/ config & haven't tested for stability yet, but boots and appears stable @ ...