Current Hardware

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


Home | News | Status | Current Hardware | Pictures | Why Linux? | Resources
Playing Movies | Playing Music | Video Capture | Remote Control | Hardware Mods | Software Setup