Mailing List Archive: Opinions on quiet, capable MicroATX motherboards?

Kevin J. Slater wrote:

> Barring that, what other mobo's will fit in a MicroATX case w/200 watt
> power supply and be able to do medium res livetv, plus record /
> playback at 352 x 480 MPEG4? I know that I could couple the above
> motherboard with a PVR-250, but I'm $$ constrained at the moment.
> Thanks for any feedback.

The setup I use (i815-based motherboard with Celeron 1.1A is pretty
silent (the power supply and HD make any and all noise coming from the
box - though I had to 7-volt to CPU fan to achieve that; temps didn't
even rise when I did that!)
The exact motherboard I use is Intel D815EFV, works very well.
I have no trouble doing record/playback or liveTV at 320x480 MPEG-4 HQ,
which (here) looks better than regular MPEG-4 352x480 - though it works
then too.

If you want more power for not much, ECS and some other small
motherboard manufacturers make some KM266 (integrated video) and KT400
Athlon motherboards, with an inexpensive Athlon and a big heatsink and
small CPU fan, you could get something that's silent (not perfect, but
your PSU fan should drown the CPU fan noise anyway).

Pete

Pete