new project

[Crash893]

i am going to shove this......



ITX mobo


into this...............
box


or this.......... ( i need help desiding)

teachest


i think the glass would be cooler but it would be dificult to have the wires come out the back i would have to have the glass cut and also things mgiht get cramped

the teachest is nice and a monitor or lcd could sit on top of it nice ly but tis a little large for what i want

i am also going to add

1X dvd rom ( dont know how yet with the glass)
1X IDE hdd 100 gigs ish
1X wireless keyboard mouse ( optical) combo

wish list items are

1x remote control card for dvd;s and sound ( i plan on hooking this to my tv/ sterio )
1X usb wifi transever ( after ripping off plastic shell it should fit)
2x512 ddr ( not sure what speed since its a via c3 at 1ghz )


items still up in the air
i am limited by one pci slot

sooooooooo

should i go with sound or video and what should i pick
OR if you have a better ide for a pci slot then let me know

also a hsf is reqired i want this thing realllly quiet so im not sure what to pick yet once again suggestions are welcome.


Items i have no idea about

i will also need a smalllll smalllllll psu it doenst need to be over 150 watts atx power connector



any help you can give me is greatly apreshated

feel free to suggest on anything

 

[Cutter]

Dude u have got to update us and post pics cuz i think this will be a very beautiful HTPC, plus I might copt it later on down the road

LOL


you do not need a monitor if you're going to hook it to ur TV, just a thought might save ya some money

 

[LuckyBob]

I think as far as the drive and i/o plate are concerned with cutting the glass, I think the easiest thing to do would be to replace the necessary pannels with Lexan or similar. It'd be a lot easier to work with and you could use some plastic cement on the Lexan to put mounting brackets on.

Good luck ^_^

 

[CrashOveride]

im sure Capitan slug can help you out with finding stuff to fit in it... i thinkn the mobo takes 2100... newegg has the mobo...and the HS i think is passive...

 

[blackhabit]

go with the second case choice, it seems smaller and more challenging. also cut the top and put plexi on there, to see in , have fun kep us posted good luck

 

[rugbyroy]

I like the elephant case. Gives it an indian kinda look...

 

[Crash893]

Dude u have got to update us and post pics cuz i think this will be a very beautiful HTPC, plus I might copt it later on down the road

LOL


you do not need a monitor if you're going to hook it to ur TV, just a thought might save ya some money

i think im going to get an el cheap o 15inch lcd or something to start out

but it has svideo out so i might use it on th e36 inch tv that is also on my wishlist later on in year

 

[UnseenMenace]

I run a number of the Mini-ITX systems and as such could probably help with many of your questions, however currently your ideas have no problems where you percieve some and others where you believe there are none..

i think the glass would be cooler but it would be dificult to have the wires come out the back i would have to have the glass cut and also things mgiht get cramped

Heat is not a problem with these systems, I have one of my M1000's running with passive cooling (no fans anywhere on the system at all) sitting on a shelf above the hot water tank in a airing cupboard ( I live in a small place ) and still I get reasonable tempatures and it has never ever crashed... Do not Panic !!

i am also going to add

1X IDE hdd 100 gigs ish

The 'M' Series Mini-ITX motherboards are very resource hungry and I have found that these drive with large buffers work the best on these systems and make a massive difference.

wish list items are

2x512 ddr ( not sure what speed since its a via c3 at 1ghz )

Most People would wish for 2 x sticks of DDR however the ITX 'M' Series motherboards only have 1 ddr slot and although the processor is rated at 1 Ghz on the example you show there is in fact two different cores available at 1 Ghz and the difference between them is noticable.. also do not let the 1 Ghz confuse you from the fact that these generall benchmark out around the performance level of a 600 Celeron and a 800 Duron out performs it by a noticable margin on some tests.. this is the realistic level of performance you should expect.

items still up in the air
i am limited by one pci slot

sooooooooo

should i go with sound or video and what should i pick
OR if you have a better ide for a pci slot then let me know

Depends what you wish to do with it, I personally find its better to leave the onboard sound and graphics as even when disabled some resource leakage occurs and the 'M' Series hardware video decoder can have problems with certain hardware, I have seen seriously bad screen flicker using PCI graphic cards when watching DVD's on this mobo when the card is ok in another mobo.. I have also read of simplar cases and this is what the finger is currently being pointed at.

also a hsf is reqired i want this thing realllly quiet so im not sure what to pick yet once again suggestions are welcome.

The Mini-ITX is seriously quiet right out of the box, to the point where I have rebooted it because I thought it had crashed and in fact my screen has gone into hibernation.. If I want a 100% silent system I generally install large heatsinks without a fan, ( I knew I had a use for those retail AMD sinks )

Items i have no idea about

i will also need a smalllll smalllllll psu it doenst need to be over 150 watts atx power connector.

You can actually run the Mini-ITX on 55w like those found in laptops although they can struggle sometimes on lower quality PSU's.. A 150w makes more sence overall if space is not a problem.


If you require a little more powerfull system it may be worth looking at the slightly larger and more powerfull Flex-ATX and Mini-ATX...
If you can get hold of one, its worth looking at Crommell Systems who have just started shipping the FIRST Mobile Pentium 4 Mini-ITX platform. Unfortunately they are only an industrial manufacturer and supply to people who make Media Centres or Digital Video Recorders and not the computer trade, which kind of makes it hard finding one of these at you local store. Unless your one of the lucky few who knows someone in the know

 

[Crash893]

well i think im going to do the glass box

im going to try to cut out a a back plain for it if it breaks then ill go plexi or something like that


i get paid next weekend so thats when ill start

i found my digi camera battery recharger so there will be pictures of what ill be doing

if anyone has a clever idea on how to get the cdrom in there im all ears

there are three options as far as i can tell

1 mount it in side so you open the lid up and hit the button and it comes straight up and you put it in

2 som how underneth with a laptop one ( dont know awbout this one

3 cut a small slit in the glass and get one of thouse feed in types of cd players ( can you window mod thouse type?)

 

[Crash893]

im not quite sure i follow the part of your post about the video leakage


( its late ill re read in the morning)

anyway i know via's suck compared to a eqivlant pentium or amd

but they also run much much cooler ( some in the 600 range still have a passive hsf)

i plan on doing dvd's with the system or useing some screen savers to display on the tv / lcd
surf the web
play little java games like one web page

i would like no hassle with the dvd player so a medium duty vid card should do ( yes?)

any suggestions with the vid card ( i have a old voodoo 3 i can reclame from a freind but id rahter no (unless a new card is out of this world expensive))

as far as itx standard im not really set in stone on it

as long as it fits in a 6.5 X 12 1/4 X 9 1/4 inch box i think i can manage it

any linkage is greatly greatly appreshated

oh also any 1u psu's you know where to find wuld help too

 

[UnseenMenace]

well i think im going to do the glass box
2 som how underneth with a laptop one ( dont know awbout this one

I generally use DVD / CDRW combo laptop drives for mine, as these still keep with the small as possible ideal and can be mounted horizontaly or vertically.. you do need adaptors to convert the IDE cable to that required by the laptop drive though, all good ITX stockists will be able to supply you with this

 

[UnseenMenace]

im not quite sure i follow the part of your post about the video leakage

( its late ill re read in the morning)

Ill try to explain in more detail the resource problem, I have over time taken specific PCI graphic cards like a TNT2 and placed them in my 'M' Series Mini-ITX based systems and discovered that when I play a DVD though the TV out's on these cards, the memory usage is excessive, far greater than if the graphic card is used for the same task in a normal full sized system or the non 'm' series Mini-ITX systems. Having spoken to various people about this situation ( not really a problem, but something you should be aware of ) I believe that this is because of the 'hardware' MPEG decoder on the 'M' series mobo which prefers to use the onboard graphics for TV out

anyway i know via's suck compared to a eqivlant pentium or amd

but they also run much much cooler ( some in the 600 range still have a passive hsf)

The 'M' Series and systems above 993 mhz all have fans, although these are tiny and can be compared to the heatsinks used on AMD northbridges in general.. I personally buy high performance northbridge heatsinks (without fans) and lap them flat and passively cool these systems.. I have even used normal full sized heatsinks (without fans).. I do not want quiet, I want silent

i plan on doing dvd's with the system or useing some screen savers to display on the tv / lcd
surf the web
play little java games like one web page

i would like no hassle with the dvd player so a medium duty vid card should do ( yes?)

With what you state that you would be doing with the system, I would believe that the onboard graphics and onboard TV-out would be most suitable and the easiest solution.. Obviously installing a graphic card adds to the heat and size of the system and unless you are attempting to play 3D games which require such, simply put why bother.

any linkage is greatly greatly appreshated

How about these !!!

Mini ITX ( Shop and Mod Site )

LinITX ( Shop and Site and Forums Dedicated to Running Linux on the ITX Platform

I personally run Linux on these systems as it handles memory more effectively than Windows which is important imho, because the onboard graphics, TV out and sound all suck of the system resources, I personally find that a good distro which has DVD software, Open Office. and a few games offers the best solution for me, with regards to having a system which is a joy to use.
My distro of choice is either SuSE 8.0 up to 8.2 or Redhat 7.3.. as these generally work the best from my experience, the only problem you have is the graphic card drivers are not recognized from default, however binarys can be found on Via's website.. The onboard Network card, Firewire, Sound anre generally problem free...
Windows 98 works pretty well on these systems as well. Windows XP however runs like a three legged dog unless you spend a great deal of time tweaking it and even then opening a large file in an application like Office gives you nothing but the endless enjoyment of watching the hour glass for a while... which quicky becomes frustrating.

 

[Crash893]

i think im going to dual boat it between a linux ( witch i want to learn) and windows 98 ( just so i can know what im doing and play some win games)

anybody know the dimentions of a 1u psu ( or are they all diffrent?)

 

[UnWishedLegacy]

Don't know if these can be bought in the USA but I stumbles upon THIS the other day in a UK based Dot.Com.

A Pentium4 in an Mini-ITX sized Mobo. Again- only one Dimm socket. so if heat isn't a problem you might want to consider this.

The dimentions of a 1U PSU can be found at the www.linitx.com shop- but it heats up VERY quickly because of it's cramped interior.
I would recomend a Flex-Atx PSU and LapTop parts.

FYI- I put a whole PC setup (ITX Mobo, full size CD Rom & HD, 1U PSU...) in an A3 Box File (would have been A4 but the CD Rom is big by a matter of centimeters). Keep an eye on the Front Page- Its about time I sent my yearly project to Joe. slightly better than my first one.

 

[Crash893]

do you think i should pick aboard with sdram or go for ddr

i found this board "VIA EPIA V8000 Mini-ITX Mainboard" that has two dimms of sdram

what would be better

 

[UnseenMenace]

First of I would decide upon what I require the overall size of the system to be. In my mind the MiniFlex-ATX's such as that in the link Legacy posted will never be as small as a Mini-ITX for the simple reason it requires a larger heatsink than ITX not to mention more a P4 requires power than the C3 which in turn requires a better and usually larger PSU, things like this effect system size greatly as does cooling..
Cooling conserations need to be made as well... I mean would you passively cool a P4 of any discription ?.. and this obviously effects where it can go.
Look at the systems dimesions, use and build more than specification and look at that as a secondary thing

If you go for a Flex or Mini ( SFF / Small Form Factor ) ATX system them these often ship with two ram slots however ITX only ship with one on the 'M' Series as size is an important consideration for these mobos'
If buying a Mini-ITX system I would personally would only go for the DDR based system (although I own both) and look for a reasonable amount of ram as the onboard graphics and stuff rob greatly from the system memory.. 512 mb PC2100 and these systems run like a dream.
If buying a 1 gig 'M' Series i would definitely look at what core you are getting ( Theres two different cores )..

Do not buy ITX for overclocking they really do not like it much

 

[UnseenMenace]

i found this board "VIA EPIA V8000 Mini-ITX Mainboard" that has two dimms of sdram

I do not believe that this will offer any major benefit to most people

 

[Crash893]

okay updates

im ordering the glass box

i will then procede to make paper dummy parts and arange them to see what i can get away with

the jury is still out on the cd/dvd /rw /whatever rom

i am still takeing canidates for mobos so please any suggestions or canidates at all just post a link and whell have a big vote or soemthing

 

[Crash893]

and do you think 512 of ram or 256

vote according to what you would pay for

 

[CrashOveride]

i would get 512 of the cheapes ram you can get (maybe Buffalo?)