What components for a small quiet media pc

[jayos]

I want to build a pc that can play music, videos etc. all files are stored on my main PC which is connected to a 54G wireless router.

I will not be playing games or running any apps so really just using it as a media centre connected to a tv and my surround sound receiver.

It's got to be as cheap as pos but upto the job,

Ideas please...

[[XiZZo]]

Mini ITX sounds like exactly what you need :)

everything intergraed (well almost), add RAM, HDD, PSU and case and your off

[bLaXe]

As far as quiet goes...

If you're not to bothered by performance - I would recommend the Epia-M 10000.

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_5452.html

Not the newest of the epia series, but it is cheap - that's a cpu, motherboard, gfx and sound for about £100 - not bad in my book.. There's an onboard mpeg2 decoder which means the, ehem, 'lightweight' cpu can handle dvds with no trouble.

Quiet - well, there's no fan so you could say it's silent.

[jameson_uk]

I want to build a pc that can play music, videos etc. all files are stored on my main PC which is connected to a 54G wireless router.how about
Hush (http://www.hushtechnologies.com/start.html)

or you could go for something like this (http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/Kustom_PCs_Shop_HTPC_Cases_96.html)

but if you want something really cheap why not consider an older shuttle. it will have onboard LAN, (54G upgrade without PCI card too), onboard graphics, sound and is overall probably the cheapest option

..that is unless you already have any old PC lying around

[Big Adam]

jameson has a very good point. You're basic requirement is for a thin client wireless PC.

If you are not too demanding on looks, an old PII PC fitted out with a half decent soundcard and wireless adapter will do you fine. You can pick up an old Dell Optiplex on ebay for 35-40 quid.

It will be cool, quiet, reliable.....but ugly. :)

[jameson_uk]

If you are not too demanding on looks, an old PII PC fitted out with a half decent soundcard and wireless adapter will do you fine. You can pick up an old Dell Optiplex on ebay for 35-40 quid.

It will be cool, quiet, reliable.....but ugly. :)
Or spend the money on a nice case and stick the cheap rubbish machine inside
:)

Older machines do have the advantage of not needing as much cooling and therefore being much quiter too. I got an Athlon XP 2500 and an ABIT NF7-S from a mate who was upgrading for £60, stuck this inside a nice HTPC case and works great. It only has a 13GB old 5400 harddrive in (which has to go as it makes a racket) with all the media stored on the network,

[stdPikachu]

You're basic requirement is for a thin client wireless PC.

Agreed, but are there wireless cards out there that support PXE booting?

[jayos]

some good ideas guys :)

The Hush ones look awesome

I have got an old pc knocking about somewhere I will have to dig it out I know it's fairly low spec I think all I would need is to add a wireless keyboard and mouse, a wireless lan card, Windows media centre edition and stick it in the cupboard out the way next to the TV. ;)

That will give me time to build a small media pc that won't look out of place in the lounge.

[Clarkey]

To make your pc quiet i suggest getting a p4 as they tend to run at lower temperatures than amd therefore a smaller fan is required meaning less sound. Or you could go extreme and get a cheap celeron which run almost cold.

[stdPikachu]

To make your pc quiet i suggest getting a p4 as they tend to run at lower temperatures than amd therefore a smaller fan is required meaning less sound. Or you could go extreme and get a cheap celeron which run almost cold.

Wrong. A64's run alot cooler than P4's.

[ojobson]

If your gonna store your files remotely then I highly recommend a gigabit lan, i just got one after dealing with wireless for ages and omg! its just silly how fast it is!

just thought i'd mention it anyway.... :D

[stdPikachu]

You don't need to go gigabit, most people are more than fine with 100Mb ethernet. Wireless is just dodgy cos you can never get the full bandwidth.

[brumster]

Absolutely - gigabit is a nicety, but not essential. 100mb should do the majority of us fine ;) I just plumbed a load of cat5 into the house while I had some boards up, despite having wireless - once loaded up, wireless rarely does the job with lots of devices (and I'm looking to stream media over it - no chance, except maybe on a very quite 54Mb connection....)

[stdPikachu]

And even then, forget about it on more than one device. A good 11g signal is capable of carrying a DVD stream, but only just (despite supposedly having more than enough bandwidth). Because 802 isn't switched, if you add more devices, the bandwidth is split between them.