Living Room Media Center

The media center computer is located in the living room of the house. For the time being it does mostly media oriented stuff. Future plans call for a discrete PCI-E GPU for folding at least few hours a day. The case should suffice but if not then it can be swapped for another I have sitting around. For what it does and even the future plans most hardware is fine. At least the CPU/motherboard side of things. In current state it runns everything perfect on the monitor we have, but later a larger monitor will suffice a better video card. It already has issues playing HD content while other tasks are running in background.

Main Purposes

Download and Stream online media

Play music and videos daily

Specifications

Intel E2180 1.8GHz 65nm

ZOTAC N73 Value 7050 Nvidia 610i mATX

1GB DDR2-667 module

WD Caviar Black 250GB 16MB SATA

Generic CD/DVD Burner IDE

Generic 300W PSU(120mm exhaust fan)

DELL mATX Micro Tower

Aerocool 120mm 3-pin(intake)/Delta 80mm 3-pin(exhaust)

Windows 7 Professional x64

HP 15-inch LCD screen 1280x1024
Logitech 2.1 speakers
Logitch USB optical mouse
HP Black USB keayboard

Future Plans and Upgrades

Overclock CPU

Install better CPU Heatsink

Install 2GB+ DDR2 RAM

Video Card

Better PSU

Improve case cooling or swap case

Updates coming soon in future posts!