Time to go dumpster diving...

Look at an Asus UL50vt.

The best screen on a widely distributed notebook would be the 15" Macbook Pro, and somewhat lower quality, but still better than most would be the 13" Macbook Pro.

The 13" HP envy is better than average, too.

Review of the Zotac board at Anand Tech:

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3753

As for the gallery, pictures and anything unusual about how the build went together.

For old CPU's Linux is the way to go, possibly with a lightweight graphical shell. Win 98 has such severe security issues that its an option only if the machine is not connected to the internet.

atmartens wrote:I just got the Zotac board today and will get the rest of the components tomorrow. I'm building my dad an HTPC. Any tips on how to measure total system watts?

We will be looking for it in the Gallery.

Come to thijnk of it, Zotac now has a mini ITX H55 board

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813500043

As for the choice of the 661, its odd as it has a higher TDP than the rest due to its faster graphics clock.

danimal wrote:i paid $279 for the i7-920/x58m bundle.

Such a deal...

Tom's Hardware put together a machine that runs 25 watts at idle: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/25w-performance-pc,2551.html Its a Core i5-661 undervolted. This seems like a nice starting point for an ultra quiet system. Peak power consumption would allow the use of a Pico power supply. The lo...

I saw the i7-920 at Microcenter today for $200.

A system anyone could love.

bikinis, some tattos, lard ripples an old guy ... and no pc. :roll: The image of the PC is on the last page, and its the only image of that sort. As for an old guy... Trandy, thanks. You know the old saying, there is no accounting for taste. Aside from that, I had the time of my life in Mexico last...

One of the things you can experiment with on Gigabyte mobos is to change the CPU voltage from Auto to Normal. There is a setting (I think its DVID) on the same page that applies an offset voltage. This allows the voltage to go up and down with the C states, but follow a lower profile than stock. It ...

That SG03 is a nice case. As for cable annihilation, man that is an extreme way to say it. I guess I don't worry as long as the cables don't interfere with anything and the temperatures are acceptable.

I updated the photo today to reflect the current cabling which is slightly (very slightly) cleaner. My usage with the dynamic overclocking shows the machine to be generally more responsive than a 3600 mhz. static overclock as the top CPU frequency is 3840 with one or two cores under load, a situatio...

A nice mobo, but too expensive for this platform. What is going to be really cool is when this chipset makes it onto micro ITX.

Today I saw the Earthwatts 380 on sale at Fry's for $30. It makes me wonder why I put a $20 fan in a $30 power supply instead of just buying a whole new PS. Because you'd be equally annoyed with the new, as you were with the old one. And you've done your share of environmentally friendly maintenanc...

Another post script: After seeing an article at Tom's hardware on dynamic overclocking, I decided to try it. Essentially I bumped bclk from 133 to 160 while doing whatever was necessary in bios to keep all of the turbo and power saving features of the i5-750 enabled. It works like a charm. On a Giga...

Nice build. I for one think small cases are the future. I have one question. What did you do with the big hole left by removing the power supply? Is there an exhaust fan anywhere, or is this a one fan machine?

Nice build, but your photography needs a little work.

Rather than a static overclock, you might try one with all of the turbo, speed step and C states enabled. Just set Vcore to "Normal". that will give you stock voltage which is sure to work at a bclk of 146. You probably should make sure LLC is disabled for this one. For more performance, try 160. Us...

Nice build.

Who makes the HR-1 or HR-3. I also agree with those suggesting a direct outside air intake for the PSU. Its a great feature rarely seen and eliminates the need for a duct.

I find the power connector mod on the optical drive to be most interesting as it costs almost nothing and opens up the possibility of using some different PSU's in the cramped NSK3480 upper chamber. I am not intimately familiar with Ubuntu, but you might investigate if your system is using the gpu t...

Yesterday I reseated the cooler (again). I must have not done it right last time because temperatures dropped about 2C under load. Also, I have run across a number of forum posts where others are using the 180x20 CPU frequency and roughly 1.2 Vcore on the i5-750. It seems to be the sweet spot for hi...

Nice review. Now that notebooks have a 70% market share, quiet notebook computers are extremely relevant around here.

In windows 7 the Gigabyte fan control software caused a UAC prompt at every log on. Trying to get around this with the scheduler did not work. My solution was to buy 800 rpm fans and not use any other method of fan control. The other alternative would be to use hardware fan controllers.

The small size of the psu will make it popular in tight uATX case builds.

Probably the 9400 uses the least power under load, but the 4670 has power management that cuts its idle power consumption to about 8 watts. Passive 9400's can be had for under $50.

I want one.