Project: Family Room Media Center/Workstation

[NamesDontMatter]

I am about to start on a project for my family room downstairs in the dungeon. In the family we have realised the demand for a solid workstation (One my brothers can't kill by being young and killing OSes like we all once have). And then I began thinking where the hell am I going to put this sucker. The study is full with two computers and two desks, and I don't want this thing on the 40" LCD in the living room.

So I took a trip to IKEA, (Amazing store for cheap solid furniture grabbed myself a nice new computer desk too, Pictures later)

And I grabbed this little fold out table.









Some Pics

Here is the room.


Heres the entertainment center of the family room.


Heres where I plan on putting the PC, most likely top shelf, and will move all 4 game consoles down. (XBOX360, XBOX, Wii, and PS2)


Now I have a PC I have temporarily been using as a server, its specs:

Processor: AMD Athlon 3200 XP
Ram: 512mb Kingston
Graphics card: Evga 128mb 6200 Geforce graphics card
Motherboard: Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Sound: Audigy LS
Hard drive: 80Gb somethin

Pictures of it:





. . . I know I know, I need to clean up my wiring.

Unfortunatly I do not have anywhere near enough upload bandwith to actually serve anything of value. (4000kbps down/ 350kbps UP) So I think this is the perfect canidate for a mediacenter/workstation PC.

OTHER POSSIBILITIES FOR MOTHERBOARD/PROCESSOR
Old HP scavenged parts:
Motherboard: some asus oem board
Processor: for an old 2.4 GHz P4 Celly

Yuck!

And
Motherboard: Socket 478 ABIT IC7 865p
Processor: Intel Northwood P4 2.53 GHz 533 FSB can get about 3.0 GHz out of the processor

I personally am favoring the AMD Athlon 3200 XP Mobo+processor for this build. But the Intel P4 Northwood is a good candiadte as well. What do you guys think I should use?

Stuff laying around that I plan to add to turn the system into a media center/workstation:
Creative 5.1
Hauppauge PVR-150

I am currently debating between using XP or vista on it, since I am most comfortable with windows. Their is no question that with either one I will need more ram.

So next I come to the part where I have to choose what to buy for this workstation/media center.

Things it needs:
Wireless keyboard
Wireless mouse
-LCD monitor preferable 19" widescreen or larger. Due to space constraits 21" is about the widest Id go unless I relocate the desk.
-But I would like to keep it as low cost as possible to save for the 26" LCD TV we plan on -putting in the entertainment center.
-LCD wall mount bracket
-RAM?
-Possibly a new video card was thinking x1300 or x1600 (but I was thinking that a soundcard might be of higher priority because I want it to sport my 5.1 system.

- This is my first draft, pictures will be uploaded after I grab some food, I just wanted to get all my ideas/options out on paper. Feel free to comment.

[Steevo]

Intel with a quiet fanless cooler.


But first a projector.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16889106009



Free 360.

Then build a small box to fit the board and accessories, paint it gloss black. Or build a whole box to fit it and all your consoles.

[NamesDontMatter]

Steevo, I actually thought of build a projector DIY style, but I just don't have the money for this. This is mostly for the little ones we alreay have a 40" Samsung LCD 1080i upstairs, so no need for anything that massive or expensive.

I might take up that box idea, draw some stuff up in CAD for it, hell maybe Ill get it constructed from sheet metal and paint it. You have any links to previous game console boxes?

[Steevo]

$799?



Harr. Throw away the 40" and get this, at 9' it is at 82" in my basement and it provides higher resolution than DVD's today can output. And the majority of video that is able to be sent to it. and it negotiated 1080i with a 360 and looked awesome with a minor amount of color calibration.


When they actually stop talking about HD-DVD and get it going mainstream I will move to that and a higher resolution projector and keep this for playing games on. But read the review for it and it really is worth the money.