so what do i need?

[seanyc5]

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_1275.html

im like this case and its a good price too. but.... if i stick my l
old mobo psu ram in will it be ok.

p3 733mhz
512mb ram
from a packard bell pc.
of course ill need a bigger HDD but will the onboard graphics be ok? or would a PCI gfx card be better? (theres no agp slot).


one more thing aswell i already have a 5.1 system in my room but if i get a 3.5mm to phono lead and plug that in my aux am i right in thinking it wont output in true 5.1 as the lead only carries 2 channels? or is my theory wrong. thanks for any suggestions. sean.


*** i almost forgot a tv card lol i have a sky box in my room too so id like to be able to watch/record sky to hdd etc. not sure what card id need

[Adam^]

This (http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_4335.html) could be the thing you need.

Connect the sky box to it via composite/S-Video. On board GFX might be ok but buying a PCI card will ensure smoth DVD playback and so forth.

I'll be intrested to see what others say as this is exactly what I want to do in the very near future.

[Danny Boy]

I'd strongly suggest that you didn't use the onboard graphics card. If you are going to use something like Vista or MCE then you will need a minimum of 64Mb video ram (thats for MCE, assuming its the same for vista). I am currently running MCE from an onboard graphics card as its a SFF system and has no room for a pci graphics card, but I'm really paying the price for it with slow menu navigation and generally sluggish performance.

You may also be cutting it close with that cpu, my htpc is a 1Ghz and can get close to hitting 100% if I am doing something like watching a dvd or recorded show while MCE is recording something else for me. But a decent graphics card will take some of the load off the cpu so you may well get away with it.

You should be ok running with 512Mb of ram, but if you can afford it I would opt for 1Gb. You are correct about the sound output, for dolby digital output you will need to use coax or optical which you can get on most soundcards and even many onboard ones, have a check, you could be lucky. Some soundcards can also use the three different 3.5mm jacks to output a 5.1 signal, it splits it by sending front left and right through one, rear left and right through the second and then front center and subwoofer through the third. You'd have to check if your soundcard can do this though.

The tuner that Adam suggested will be fine for you to be able to record sky on your pc. If you are going to go for MCE then the microsoft remote controll and receiver also have the ability to connect to your set top box so that it can automatically change the channel for you to record your shows when you're not around.

[seanyc5]

512mb is the max on this old board. i think id be better buying a cheap 939 mobo and 3200+ chip. i already have a spare dvd-rom and psu at the mo. plus this old mobo is onboard sound and is definitly not surround sound lol.


so id need new mobo ram cpu cheap gfx remote case (got psu and rom) big hdd.. its turning out more expensive than i thought lol. what about it i stuck a wireless usb on it and sent it all back to my main rig? would that be better.. not lol id still need faster cpu and that !!! ohh i really dont no what to do now :mad:

[Danny Boy]

Are you meaning that you would prefer to not upgrade the hard drive and have it record to storage on another pc? That's fine for MythTV but you can't do it for MCE, I've been trying to get that working for my MCE rig for about 12 months but it just isn't gonna happen. But you don't actually need all that much hard drive space, I only use an 80Gb one in my htpc and it gives me plenty of space for recorded tv. I keep all my movies on network storage though so that helps keep down what needs to be on the htpc itself.

[seanyc5]

ye myth is free isnt it? ye i no beacuse the sky+ is only a 20gn hdd and that stores about 20 hours i think