Part |
Manufacturer/Model |
Type |
Features |
Problems |
Motherboard |
DFI CA-64TC |
ATX / VIA 694T/686B / Socket 370 |
AGP slot and no onboard video; no useless slots (AMR/CNR); 4/5 PCI slots and one ISA slot in case I want to use an I/O card; Wake-On-LAN support; onboard sound. |
Poor manufacturer support, and the revision I bought doesn't work with current Via C3 CPUs. No SMBus header that could have been useful for I/O expansion. Onboard sound not good for movie playback. |
CPU |
Intel Celeron 1.10GHz (A) |
FCPGA Socket 370 |
Quite low heat output; fairly cheap |
None |
Video |
Asus V7100 Magic TV |
AGP / nVidia GeForce2 MX200 |
Cheap; has TwinView-capable TV-out (independent monitor and TV display at the same time) |
No major issues |
TV/Video Capture |
Dynalink TView99 |
PCI / Conexant Bt878 |
Built in FM tuner; IR remote; well supported |
No longer being produced (already had it) |
DVD decoder |
Creative Dxr3 |
PCI |
Already had it; should take the load off the CPU for DVD decoding; provides good TV output; digital sound (Dolby 5.1) output |
None |
Hard drive |
Seagate Barracuda IV 80GB |
IDE/ATA-100 |
Fast (7200RPM); extremely quiet - barely audible while running, in fact. |
None |
DVD/CD-ROM drive |
CyberDrive DM-168D |
Tray-loading DVD-ROM drive |
Slightly quieter than other drives (especially for CD-ROM reading). |
None |
Network |
Belkin 10/100 |
PCI |
Supports Wake-On-LAN; based on Realtek RTL8139 chip which is common and fully supported. |
None |
Sound |
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy |
PCI |
Good sound quality; built-in Firewire port; digital sound (Dolby 5.1) output |
Expensive |
Case |
Procase Beetle B01 |
Desktop ATX |
Not too large for a full-ATX desktop case; doesn't have a moulded floppy bay (two standard 3½" bays instead); two 5¼ bays |
No major issues |
Memory |
Hyundai 128MB / Kingston 256MB |
PC-100/133 SDRAM |
Kingston RAM was cheaper than generic brand (!). 128MB is plenty for just DVDs/video playback, but if you want to capture and encode video, more RAM helps. |
None |