OK. I just blew (another!) motherboard and I needed to fix that computer. When discussing what to do, my wife asked me what I "wanted" to do about it. I cleaned my ears out and said, "you said 'want'...you understand that 'want' is different than 'need'" and she said "well just tell me what you want to do about it".
<br><br>I was a bit shell shocked at first but then offered up something along the lines of the <a href="http://www.linuxtechtoys.com/ltt/product_info.php/cPath/24_25/products_id/235">LX-8100</a>. Surprisingly, this was not dismissed out of hand?!?
<br><br>That now has me wondering what other options exist. My problem with his particular LX-8100 is that it apparently isn't offered with a higher end CPU than a 2800+.<br><br>Here are some of my requirements (many of them conflicting). If anybody has any ideas, please let me know...
<br><br>1) Minimal hardware installation - I've blown two motherboards fiddling around in the last month and I think my wife is pretty fed up with that.<br>2) HDTV Playback - All my problems started because I started playing hardware games to try and get HDTV working (it still isn't!)
<br>3) Cheap - Important for WAF<br>4) Quiet<br>5) At least one full height PCI slot (for my PVR-150)<br><br>Now it looks like the LX-8100 that I linked to above would be close on all of these but I'd have to install my own CPU (violating #1). What AMD chip would I need where I would be sure to get HD working (without XvMC).
<br><br>Are there other things I should consider? I've seen <a href="http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=1210">these Shuttle "bricks"</a>, but they don't look as good (issues with #1, #2 and #5 at least).
<br><br>I don't know how long this "offer" will last so the sooner the better. :-)<br><br>P.S. - Does anybody have the LX-8100? How is it working out for you?<br><br>--<br>Mike<br><br>