| Part | Manufacturer/Model | Type | Features | Problems |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Motherboard | DFI CA-64TC | ATX / VIA 694T/686B / Socket 370 | AGP slot and no onboard video; no useless slots (AMR/CNR); 4/5 PCI slots and one ISA slot in case I want to use an I/O card; Wake-On-LAN support; onboard sound. | Poor manufacturer support, and the revision I bought doesn't work with current Via C3 CPUs. No SMBus header that could have been useful for I/O expansion. Onboard sound not good for movie playback. |
| CPU | Intel Celeron 1.10GHz (A) | FCPGA Socket 370 | Quite low heat output; fairly cheap | None |
| Video | Asus V7100 Magic TV | AGP / nVidia GeForce2 MX200 | Cheap; has TwinView-capable TV-out (independent monitor and TV display at the same time) | No major issues |
| TV/Video Capture | Dynalink TView99 | PCI / Conexant Bt878 | Built in FM tuner; IR remote; well supported | No longer being produced (already had it) |
| DVD decoder | Creative Dxr3 | PCI | Already had it; should take the load off the CPU for DVD decoding; provides good TV output; digital sound (Dolby 5.1) output | None |
| Hard drive | Seagate Barracuda IV 80GB | IDE/ATA-100 | Fast (7200RPM); extremely quiet - barely audible while running, in fact. | None |
| DVD/CD-ROM drive | CyberDrive DM-168D | Tray-loading DVD-ROM drive | Slightly quieter than other drives (especially for CD-ROM reading). | None |
| Network | Belkin 10/100 | PCI | Supports Wake-On-LAN; based on Realtek RTL8139 chip which is common and fully supported. | None |
| Sound | Creative Sound Blaster Audigy | PCI | Good sound quality; built-in Firewire port; digital sound (Dolby 5.1) output | Expensive |
| Case | Procase Beetle B01 | Desktop ATX | Not too large for a full-ATX desktop case; doesn't have a moulded floppy bay (two standard 3½" bays instead); two 5¼ bays | No major issues |
| Memory | Hyundai 128MB / Kingston 256MB | PC-100/133 SDRAM | Kingston RAM was cheaper than generic brand (!). 128MB is plenty for just DVDs/video playback, but if you want to capture and encode video, more RAM helps. | None |