Need advice...file server/mail server/media center possibly

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twharry

Member
Jan 30, 2005
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Hello everyone,

My fiance has a Sony desktop that had to be reformatted. Unfortunately, she didn't have the software install disks, so she lost all her drivers. I bought a new MoBo for her in December and planned to install it, along with my old sound card and video card so that she would have a well-functioning system again.

I finally got around to installing it today and it was just more work than it was worth, IMO. I decided we should buy the drivers and software from Sony (a copy of WindowsXP and Adobe Premiere for $17 is not a bad deal anyway), so her computer will be working just fine soon anyway. So now I have an extra mobo to mess around with.

I have been looking at building a file server that may double as a web server and a media center PC. I am going to build this partly out of parts that I have on hand, so I am wondering if this setup will be high-powered enough for what I want to do with it.

Soyo p4vgm v1.0 socket 478 Mobo
Have a 1.3gHz Celeron on hand
Will buy 1gb of PC2100 RAM
GeForce 4 mx440-8x 64mb
Various hard drives (30gb, 40gb, 80gb, 160gb)
XConnect 400w PSU

Is the processor going to be fast enough to run Windows Media Center?
Would it be fast enough to run Media Center reasonably well?
Is a file server more dependent on memory or CPU?

I am not looking to spend more than $125 on this project. Money is tight. Any advice is helpful!
 
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airfoil

Golden Member
Jan 17, 2001
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Fast enough to run Media Center - yes, certainly. But if you want to record HDTV and stuff, you'll need a P4 2.4 at the very minimum. You can do basic recording just fine.

As a file server, it will do just fine - assuming it will 'serve' another one or two computers, you'll be fine with 512 megs of RAM. Buy one stick and add another if you really feel the need.
 
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twharry

Member
Jan 30, 2005
94
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Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Have a 1.3gHz Celeron on hand
Click to expand...
That's socket 370 or you have the speed wrong.
Click to expand...

Jeez, I didn't even think of that. It's a pull from my Mom's old system. I don't mess with Intel, I only use AMD, so I guess I didn't even consider that a >1gHz Celeron would be anything but a 478. I might end up having to buy a processor afterall. Great.
 
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DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
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You might be better off selling the parts and getting some cheap Sempron combo from Outpost.com
 
rbV5

rbV5

Lifer
Dec 10, 2000
12,632
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Windows Media Center won't even install on that PC without DX9 graphics hardware. Your specs are fine for a media server, even PVR with a hardware encoder, but it won't run MCE without a bit more of an investment.
 
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dclive

Elite Member
Oct 23, 2003
5,626
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Originally posted by: airfoil
Fast enough to run Media Center - yes, certainly. But if you want to record HDTV and stuff, you'll need a P4 2.4 at the very minimum. You can do basic recording just fine.

As a file server, it will do just fine - assuming it will 'serve' another one or two computers, you'll be fine with 512 megs of RAM. Buy one stick and add another if you really feel the need.
Click to expand...

Close, but not quite.
MCE2005 wants a video card on the HCL -- and the GF4 isn't.
Also, encoding with MCE2005 is done 100% via hardware - either HDTV (which is an MPEG2 stream in the broadcast) or SDTV (MPEG2 encoding, handled by the tuner) is written to the hard drive.
 
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