For those who missed out on the previous posts, I decided to build a machine targeted at emulation, plus DVD playback and DivX playback.
It is based around a miniITX motherboard. THey're tiny mobos, about 7"x7". They have the full outs and ins on a standard mobo, plus built in video, audio (with 5.1 audio, though I'm not using it), TV out (very nice quality, as that is a major design feature), and a built in processor. Cost was about $160 with shipping. The model I got has a 1 ghz processor, and only has one fan. They're very quiet and produce little heat. I should note, however, that like a Duron or Celeron, these don't perform nearly as well as a 1ghz Pentium 3 or Athlon t-bird. They perform more like a Pentium 3 500 mhz. Which is good enough for my purpouses. You just add case, power, ram, HDD, and CD and that's it.
Power supply is a standard ATX. $25.
Ram is 256 DDR@266. $30.
DVD-ROM (8x) was $30 shipped.
Power button came from an old machine.
10 gig HD was free, pulled from an old machine that I don't have very many other parts too.
The bracket piece that holds the DVD-ROM and HD was free, pulled from another incomplete computer.
Piece of wood (I'll get into that): $2.50
2-port PSX controller to USB adapter: $14 shipped.
Case: $25 (see the pics
)A few extra screws and rubber doodads: $4
Total cost of around $290.50. There's more stuff, little things, etc, so it's probably more like an even $300.
And here it is, in all its glory!!!
You can see it's pretty messy inside. The power button is below the Craftsman logo, along with LEDs. For some reason the LEDs don't work anymore. Dunno what happened. The upper right thing is front USB and firewire ports, which came with the mobo. Pretty nice really. Easy mount job, just cut the holes and cut screw holes, then screwed it straight in.
The DVD-ROM+HDD is mounted on a bracket which has this little overhang, so we ran some pretty strong wood through there, and just drilled screws into both sides. It feels solid, and if someone the wood cracked (
) the fit is good enough that it wouldn't fall onto the mobo, at least not for a long time - I would notice first.The power supply has a bunch of ventilation holes drilled, plus a hole cut for the plug, then it's just screwed straight in. Pretty quiet PSU, considering it's an offbrand. This thing is whisper quiet, the whole machine. Better then I expected.
That's the tray ejected, just to give you some idea. BTW, if you recognize what that is in the lower left: No, I am NOT a Mormon - someone at school gave that to me, hoping to convert me.
The back. This is probably where it looks worst. Oh well. To some extent, I wish I had custom cut the holes, but it was a huge pain getting this to fit as is, so I'm not that concerned.
Here it is running. Works perfect. It seems to stay pretty cool, but I'm not going to stress test it. I have no intention of this PC staying on for more then a few hours at a time, so heat dispersion is probably fine as is.
If you're wondering, I have quite a bit of MAME roms, SNES, NES, Genesis, and Master System ROMs on there. Still have like 6 gigs free too. Pretty happy with it all. What do you guys think?
