I quite fancy building a small machine for an MCE 2005 system.
I would like to rob an existing system of the bits necessary but the
processor is a 1.9GHz P4 and I'm unsure if it's compatible or not?
Googling produced confused results on what a P4 1.9G is, some say it
predates Northwood processors but one site, DFI, says they go back to
1.4G.
Anyway, the long and short of it is will the 1.9 work on this board? if
not anyone recommend a small barebones that it will work on.
Cheers
Wooky
Check this page, and select "barebones" from the list on the left.
The original Pundit supports your processor. The newer Pundit-R
handles FSB800 processors and Prescott core processors (including
Celeron D), but the 1.9Ghz (Willemette ?) is missing. It is
possible the Vcore circuit is not compatible with your processor.
Your options are to buy the original Pundit (assuming it has the
interfaces you want) and use it with your 1.9GHz processor. Or
buy the Pundit-R, and a cheap Celeron.
2.0GHz Celeron 128KB cache 52.8 watts $65
2.4GHz Celeron 128KB cache 59 watts $70
2.8GHz Celeron 128KB cache 68.4 watts $109
The problem with the small computer cases, is thermals. If you
go with the 2GHz Celeron, that will ease the thermal load on
the machine. That should be enough horsepower to play back
a DVD, as the IGP has iDCT which reduces the computational
load. I think a 1GHz Pentium3 is enough for that, if iDCT is
available.
http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9100igp/features.html
There are probably ways to reduce the power consumption
further (like the use of desktop Pentium M chips), but
unless the BIOS for the board has the right adjustability,
you won't be able to get the FSB cranked up enough to
make a useful solution. (A Pentium M runs at 1200MHz,
and will be detected as FSB400. You need to crank up
the FSB higher than that, to get the good from it.)
It is too bad that mobile chipsets are not available in
some of the barebones machines, as this would allow a
different family of processors to be used, which would
have the potential to run cooler than normal desktop
processors.
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59931&highlight=mobile+intel
As for the MCE 2005, I notice the word "HDTV" is mentioned on
the Microsoft site. I don't know what implication that has
for your hardware selection, or whether MCE handles missing
hardware features in a flexible manner or not.
HTH,
Paul
