It's like a PVR, STB, DVD and MP3 player. All in one box !

I got myself a new toy to play with. A HTPC / Media PC setup (Windows XP Media Centre) to live in the living room and organise our viewing and listening.

The current specs are:
<dl>
<dt>Motherboard<dd>FoxConn / WinFast K8S755A-6EKRS
<dt>Processor:<dd>AMD 64 3000+
<dt>Memory:<dd>1GB (2x512MB DDR)
<dt>DVD:<dd>Pioneer R+/-W Dual Layer
<dt>HDD:<dd>WD 250GB 7200RPM IDE,2 x 300GB SATA plus external Maxtor 300GB. One of the SATA drives is in a 3.5” bay, the other is mounted in a 5.25” bay in a Zalman zm-2HC2 HDD Cooler (mainly to control vibration)
<dt>Graphics:<dd>Legend 6600GT with HDTV / DVI / Composite Out Audio: Onboard 5.1
<dt>Case:<dd>SilverStone LC03S-V with Samsung 16T202DA1E Parallel VFD (that’s a Vacuum Flourescent Display. Nothing to do with the works of Lemony Snicket)
<dt>Tuner:<dd>TwinHan Mini-Ter PCI HDTV x2
<dt>Network:<dd>Onboard 10/100/1000 + Netgear 802.11g with antenna extension
<dt>OS:<dd>WindowsXP Media Centre Edition 2005 plus Rollup#2
<dt>Remote Control:<dd>Logitech Harmony 880
<dt>Speakers:<dd>Utopia YF-1E Home Theatre setup
Currently replacing Altec Lansing VS3151R which had to go for repair (back now and in use on another machine).
</dl>
So far, all the bits have come from the good folks at Crazy Computers at Harbourtown on the Gold Coast, with plenty of advice from the XP Media Centre forums.

It seems pretty stable so far… hopefully that’ll improve over time with XP fixes and MCE rollups !