Which is geek speak for saying that for the majority of people this is not possible.

I'll take the path of least resistance and go with C'n'Q. Nice to know what my options are before buying.

FWIW, I'm quite happy with the Linux vs. Windows tradeoffs. It all comes down to what is most important to you when selecting tools. For me, Linux wins hands-down, despite the downsides.

A discussion of NVidia 6150 boards might also be of interest to readers of this thread -- http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=31933

Good discussion! Going back to quiet performance though, it seems you can run the EN15000 without the fan, although obviously at your own risk, though the thread on this disappeared when epiacenter.com got hacked the other week...

Better still, this thread reports that the EN works with Speedfan, which is a first for the Epias, and makes it much easier to build a quiet/silent system. Anyone else had experience with Speedfan on the EN boards?

I've been looking at the digital sensors on the M-Cubed site . These use the SM Bus, and so does Speedfan, so I wonder how you might use such sensors using the I2C (SMBus) headers on the Via EN board?

Any guidance much appreciated

The fan on the EN15000 is actually a fairly quiet 40mm unit that can be completely silenced by a Zalman fan controller (it only needs to be turned down about 1/3 to 1/2 way). My experience with the fanless VIA EPIA boards is that the heatsink can get very hot (almost too hot to touch), as can the CPU. Run fanless, CPU temps of 50° C (or higher) aren't unusual. The addition of even the most minimal fan cures this and sends the temps back to 40° C or less, with the heat sink barely warm to the touch.

Otherwise, for basic desktop applications, the review is on target. The C7 is much zippier then conventional benchmarks would suggest. The main issue for some is that there are only 2 SATA headers, but if you don't need any other cards, an SATA PCI adapter is one solution. This would make it more practical to use, say, as a file server since, at idle, it tends to draw under 30W at the outlet.

In practical terms, the C7 has the feel of an 800Mhz - 1Ghz Pentium III, but one that uses half the power.

Update: Using the Zalman fan controller may be problematic, since turning it down too far will keep the fan from starting at all. In practical terms, the fan on the EN15000 can be silenced by even a minimally sound-proof case.

Also, I had to exchange a fanless EPIA SP800E with C3 processor because the SATA headers were defective. The replacement runs noticeably cooler, so there may be some variation in CPU heat output or the way the heatsink is installed.

Further Update: With the installed 40mm fan turned down to about 2500 rpm, CPU temps on the replacement EN15000 board are now about 30° C. However, without additional cooling, Everest reports motherboard temps of as high as 55° C. The addition of a small fan blowing on the board brings this down to the sub-50° C range.

Yes, I realize I'm digging in the dirt and pulling up an old thread, but, for the sake of completeness:

As it turns out, there will never be any hardware acceleraton support in the CN700 for HD -- its mpeg2 decoding is limited to 1024x1024. See Thomas' confirmation post here.

So, its software decoding all the way....which, as the above reviews make abundantly clear, is not up to the task. Stupid VIA, what were they thinking.