Living Room PC

vicadd

I'm going to build a PC which will be used primarily for Internet and Recording TV. Has anyone done this and got any recommendations?
Requirements are;
Don't need anything very powerful, so reasonably priced
Quiet enough to stay on all day without being obtrusive
Small case (reasonable looks) (possibly Shuttle SK41G - but does not need to be that small, and not sure if it is really quiet)
TV Tuner (probably Radeon 9000 pro AIW)
Wireless network to adsl connection (is 802.11b sufficient? If so maybe Netgear Wireless ADSL Modem Gateway DG824M on my main PC upstairs and then PCI wireless network card in living room pc)
Wireless keyboard & Mouse - most seem to have a 6 foot range. PC would be comfortably 8 feet away - are there better options? e.g. Bluetooth
I'll probably get an AMDxp cpu, 80gb disk, 512mb ram - not concerned about recommendations for these.
Budget is roughly €800-€1000

Thanks.

ozt9vdujny3srf

http://www.elara.ie/detailst.asp?productcode=CAS00101

Thats a mini tower case, its outside finish is the asame as that of a black piano so it looks nice, and its been made to be quiet (the psu is quiet aswell.

Processor wise, an XP2500+ is best imo and there are plenty of silent fans available to buy for it (The stock fans are very noisy in my experience) (komplett.ie)They are nice and cheap.

A motherboard with the nforce 2 chipset (read some reviews )

some ddr 333 ram (preferably branded i'd recommend 512)

as for gfx, one of the aiw cards sounds good,


Good luck with it!

(that should leave you with some nice leeway for buying quality wireless stuff would help you with the wireless but it aint my thang Have a look at www/elara.ie, they are good for d-link stuff)

sirlinux

Have a look at http://www.mythtv.org/ for some pointers.

vicadd

I like the sound (or lack of) of that Antec Sonata case. I was thinking of getting a really small case, but probably better off with something more standard in case I want to upgrade. I can then easily add an nforce 2 motherboard.
Thanks for the advice. I might try the wireless board for advice on the wireless stuff.

herbie747

Make sure you get a 7200rpm HDD. It has to be able to write to the disc at min 4MB per sec for full resolution video (720x576).

Most TV cards are dodgy (haven't got one, but I know a few people who do). They tune in some channels all fuzzy.

I usually capture video through my video camera via firewire. I connect the scart from my SKY box to the camera, then use Adobe Premiere to capture the video through the camera using firewire a card. Perfect resolution too.

If your budget is €800-€1000, you should be able to build quite a nice machine for that.

Check out here:
http://www.maxtronmedia.com/pcquote.html

BKtje

If you were maybe thinking of building one yourself a friend of mine in Denmark got a cheap AMD chip and underclocked it. He then stuck a heatsink on and used passive cooling(ie no fan). Only noise was from the harddrive which was easier to hear without the fans but even that wasnt very audible ... or so he said

jesus_thats_gre

May I suggest the following:

http://www.tomshardware.com/video/20030731/index.html


http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/20030722/index.html


http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/20030505/index.html


http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/20030318/index.html


http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/20030131/index.html