Hi guys as the title says I'm in need of a little help. I originally had the idea of putting together a passive ITX system that would let me play AVI's in my bedroom so i bought a little ITX rig of DDY the Intel D201GLY2 and its worked fine for what i needed. As an after thought i figured running media center would be a nice little touch and now as time has stretched on i mainly play .mkv files for HD media...but...unfortunately the D201GLY2 is onboard GFX and isnt gusty enough to cope with media center...never mind HD lol. So i started looking about for a PCI graphics card to use the one avaliable PCI slot which i thought would solve all my problems.......I was wrong!! lol. I managed to pick up a 8500GT PCI card but I have just found out the hard way that the D201GLY2 doesn't apply enough power to the PCI slot to power the card regardless of the Wattage PSU your using (I have tried 80W, 300W and 450W with no difference....the system just hangs and wont even get to post) I can force the motherboard to look at the onboard and get into windows with the pci card attached and windows finds new hardware, i install the drivers etc, reboot and force to PCI slot and nothing!! ) I have thought about undervolting and running apps in windows to customise voltages n that but not sure if It would help me acheive anything, if i could get the 8500GT and D201GLY2 going together i would be very happy as i wouldnt have to get my wallet out lol.

So I am now thinking about selling on my D201GLY2 and purchasing a new rig, preferably ITX, extremely quiet! and possibly have sufficent on board gfx to allow 1080p playback although this is not essential as i have this pci card and another spare pci-e gfx that would get me going. I am really wanting to do all this as cheap as possible and just want the minuim spec to allow me to play HD. I would prefer ITX but its certainly not essential....If someone says that a certain type of Pentuim 4 that will cost me peanuts along with my 8500GT will aloow me to play 1080p mkv's i would certainly consider it.

I haven't got allot of time lately or i would go research all this myself but thought you guys might be able to point me in the right way...I've heard little whispers of some exciting new ITX's coming out, maybe there an option for me?!

Any help is much apprecaited

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... a8fbedd31f

theres a post i found which confirmed my problem. I notice a few people saying they are running a 5200 with no problems so I'm just off to see if that will have enough welly to cope with HD as that would be cheaper than changing my mobo/cpu/ram arrangement...but i know before looking that its highly unlikely. the 8500GT has that nVidia PureHD on it so it free's up the cpu loadage which would make HD to playback

How much have you got to spend?

Well as the title suggest mate I'm just looking for the cheapest possible option...dont really have a budget. I wont be multi tasking at all...just watching movies one at a time laid in bed lol. However i have just noticed your post and the Intel DG45FC you mentioned seems a good option! just need to bang a cpu on and i would be good to go with the on board video would i not? So this could be an option as i already have a buyer for my old ITX i bought off you and the pico psu.....what u reckon?

I suppose the AMD m-ATX on board HDMI would be a cheaper option than a new ITX like the one i just suggested though....again though I'm not sure on whats good and whats not...I'm completly out of touch right now

I posted in another thread, there's a mini-ITX board on the way from Albatron using the 780G chipset from AMD, which supports HD decode.

Otherwise it's any other m-ATX 780G board for AM2.

if it helps...

my old HTPC setup was as follows:


P4 3.0GHZ

2gb 667

HD2600 Pro 512


this played 720p flawlessly and most 1080p...some 1080 was a little stuttery

I think there are some newer 3xxx series cards which are better but still sff. Didn't ddy have one for sale as well?

he did have, doesn't any more

Yep, sold a HD3450 to mac, ages ago

If you have £80 spare, a 780G matx motherboard and 4850e CPU combo will do great for 1080p.

I doubt any cheap AM2+ 780G ITX boards will be out any time soon, the cheapst I've seen is £95, there is also the nvidia 8200 which should do 1080p for a few pounds less.

Another ITX option is the £100 Intel DG45FC which supports practically all 775 CPUs with its G45 chipset, however this means you need a faster CPU to play HD like a E5200.