My homebuilt Thermaltake (cube) Lanbox HTPC

[airfirehorse]

Looks like a lot of other folks used Thermaltake so mine isn't really original, but I bought the case because it was portable. The LANBOX came with a handle and it only weighs between 35 and 40 lbs with all of the parts inside. I love the blue front fan color, too.

I used an ASUS AMD motherboard (full specs should be in my signature), an AMD dual core 3GHz CPU, 4GB RAM, a 550W power supply, an extra case fan, 2 TV tuners (AverMedia 780 and Hauppauge 1800, both with dual analog/digital), on board video and audio (yeah, I know, but the video could be expanded using my BIOS so my video is now bumped up to 512MB RAM total -- got rid of my stuttering in MCE), a Western Digital 500GB/7200RPM hard drive, 2 DVD-RW drives (Samsung & Pioneer), a floppy/media card reader (that I can't get the USB part to work on yet), Gbit LAN, etc.

I guess I'm still watching the Media Portal development progress. I've tried so many products that have given me grave problems with my system that I'm afraid to try Media Portal right now. Plus, I don't quite understand TV-Server being separate from MediaPortal so I guess I'm waiting to see if it gets better integrated.

One of my reasons for switching from MCE would be better features like QAM reception and being able to launch more external apps. Plus, MCE is burdened with all of those MS "for-pay" partners. Thanks to all of you who do the development on apps like this. It's always good to have choices!