what do you think of my via choices?

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pettybone

Gawd
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Mar 1, 2005
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I plan to build a cheap low power pc. My intentions for the pc is to have it on all the time and basicly have it downloading things around the clock and also having it so I can remotly access my music from work. Here is the setup i'm debating on, what do you think?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144107
Western Digital Caviar WD1200BB 120GB 7200 RPM 2MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM $66

http://www.case-mod.com/store/via-epia-10000-epia-m10000-mainboard-with-1ghz
-cpu-p-1590.html
VIA EPIA M 10000 EPIA M10000 Mainboard with C3 1GHz CPU$159

http://www.directron.com/stratacase.html Black/Silver XMachine Strata
MicroATX / FlexATX Mid-tower Computer Case, w/ 200W Power Supply, Front USB,
Audio Ports $29.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145026
CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200)
System Memory - Retail $33.70

As far as I can tell the 200w psu that comes with the case should be enough.
I'm trying to keep power consumption down to a minimum. Any thoughts, comments or suggestion would be great.
 
I run the M1000 with this case
http://www.logicsupply.com/product_info.php/cPath/23_66/products_id/33
With a 7200RPM 30G Maxtor

It's only 60 watts. The mini 40mm fans do whine a bit but I think it can run fine without them if you use a low speed notebook drive. It's expensive, but the power savings and size are worth it. If you really wanna cut it down, I'd look into the fanless cases, which are even more expensive.

The purpose of this box is the same as yours. I also have been testing running an NT port of the squid proxy server on it since it's almost a waste of power if I'm only downloading. I do have a mimimalistic copy of XP running on it, and my uptimes are serveral months long. This box generaly only goes down when...well...never. Obviously I don't update it every patch Tuesday, but if it's doing nothing but RSS pod/vidcast feeds all day, why bother.

In hindsight, I'd prob have gone with the fanless ME6000, though I'm not sure if XP would run all that well. It was painfully slow getting it installed on the M10000. A copy of XP-Embed would work fine though.

EDIT: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/where_to_buy.jsp
I buy my stuff from logic supply because I always have, but there's been a bunch of new guys selling these embedded boards lately. Anyone heard of Bytech? Seem like a new company, but I like thier upcomming LCD panels for Point of Service.
 
Thanks for your feed back.

I was thinking that the case you showed me is a great choice.
Are you actually running a laptop hard drive in the machine you talked about? Would I need to buy an adapter for the hard drive(cable wise)? I keep thinking to my self, no way that 60w PSU would power what you and I listed but it sounds like it does for you.
 
I use a normal 3.5inch harddrive. The case has support for one 3.5 inch drive which goes right under the slim-cd-rom tray. Don't expect to be able to use a slim-cd-rom with a desktop harddrive installed. It's possible, but it's pretty damn tight. The case itself comes with a slim-cd-rom to IDE adapter, but you'd have to buy a 2.5inch to 3.5 inch IDE adapter. I think they are like $10 and you'd be able to get it anywhere you can buy the case, as well as places like Fry's. HD Adapter

Note, I do NOT have a cdrom drive installed, or anything else for that matter. It's the box, the mobo, and the harddrive. Sits upright next to my desk. I installed windows with it sitting on my desk connected to a normal PSU before I put it into the case.

Be sure to fully test all the remote desktopness of it before you leave it headless since it'll generaly be a pain in the ass to play musical monitors trying to figgure out why it won't work. I personaly use the built in windows RDP using a nondefault port so I can RDP into different machines at the same time from outside my network. (Yeah, there are better ways..but this was the easiest). If you don't like RDP, you can also use a VNC application, (such as UltraVNC or TightVNC). RDP performs better IMO but if you go with a mini-linux distro, you'll have to use VNC anyways.

If you want to be really hardcore...you can build your own case too. All those places that sell the mini-itx also sell the single board PSUs and any other accessory you might need.picoPSU
 
After the link you provided for the psu, I'm not sure what I'll do for a case. I know for sure I want the psu.

Not sure on the the remote software i'll use. I downloaded the ones you posted. I also have pcanywhere. I'm going to try them all and see what has the least hang time.
 
I think I've created a modder....

I like Windows RDP. Works pretty well going out over cable modem. Not exactly the most encryped thing though if you use it plain jane, but for music, prob be ok. I'm not sure how well the built in sound streams over the internet. It uses the host machine's audio and streams it out. You can actualy play video on the host PC and watch it with sound on a remote PC inside the RDP client if you are on a LAN. I'm not sure about VNC since you are wanting to stream muisc to your remote location. I only use VNC with linux boxes or when something is fubared with RDP, so I have no idea if it forwards sound though. I've never tried PC anywhere.
 
What have you done to me. I want to mod everything now. Coke cans, personial computer cup holder, computer controled dog food dispenser. The madness........

Yeah I was thinking if I made a case, that I could make it exactly the size I want it to be.
With the parts I listed and me getting a laptop hard drive, do you think I would need a fan at all. The smaller I can make the case and the less parts I need to buy the better. As far as I can tell I won't need air flow for this PC. If I had a 7200rpm hard drive I would need air flow correct?


The memory i choose was ddr400 and the mothboard supports ddr266, it should just lower the clock speed on its own right? I can set or change the speed but my question is will I have a problem using ddr400?
 
Read up and found out I will be ok with the ram. How-ever I am still ignorant about the air flow.
 
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