[mythtv-users] Decisions, decisions

[David Rees]

On Mon, December 22, 2003 at 8:56 am, Joseph A. Caputo wrote:
>
> Since one of my 3 tuners is analog, plus I have a bunch of xvid-encoded
> movies, and do a fair amount of ripping, transcoding & burning, I think
> a mini-ITX (VIA Epia, etc) solution is probably inadvisable.  I've
> looked at the Pundit & Shuttle systems, but none of them have more than
> 2 PCI slots.  Even if I get an external wlan solution, that would still
> force me to abandon 1 tuner.  Does anybody know of any micro-ATX
> solutions (cases or mobos) with more than 2 PCI slots?

Currently I'm using an AOpen H400A which I picked up from NewEgg in black.
 It sits next to my receiver in my rack and is the same size as the
receiver so it fits right in.  NewEgg.com has some good pictures of it. 
It has room for 4 full-height expansion slots.

Drawbacks of the case are that the PSU fan isn't very quiet, so you'll
need to figure out how to either slow it down (I used a 50-Ohm pot to slow
it down) or a quiet 80x15 mm (NOT typical 80x25mm as I found out the hard
way!) fan.  The only quiet 80x15mm fan I found was going to cost almost
$20!  Make sure you get a CPU cooler which lets you use an 80mm fan as
well.  I've found that the PC Power and Cooling fans are very quiet, the
quiet Panaflows are almost as quiet.

> If micro-ATX isn't feasible, I was thinking of going with an Antec
> Overture case + full ATX mobo.  I was thinking of getting an nForce2
> mobo w/on-board GF4MX (my current AGP card is a GF4MX, and it suits me
> fine, but I'd like to keep it in the current box).  If I have to go
> this way, I know some people have no problem with nForce2 while others
> have had trouble getting theirs to work.  Any suggestions on a good
> full-ATX mobo?  I've seen some folks on the list recommend Chaintech,
> and I already know to stay away from VIA KT-XXX chipsets.  What mobos/
> chipsets are folks with M-179's using?

Right now I'm using a mobo based on the KM266 which works pretty well. 
Well, except for the onboard ethernet (Via Rhine II) which drops packets
when pushing it beyond a few Mbps.  Forcing it to 10Mbps didn't help
either so I had to use one of the PCI slots for an ethernet card.  I've
read that the Via Rhine II can be picky about cabling, but I didn't have
any good Cat5E cable to test.

-Dave