There is a computer surplus web site on the Internet that, well, sells surplus computer shit. :) I followed a link to a computer from one of the lists that I follow, and found a really cool computer kit they are trying to get rid of. It's a desktop model with everything but a hard drive and CD drive. It was $50 plus $20 for shipping, so I ordered one. I've been wanting to put a cheap computer in the living room for nothing more than playing music. I envisioned an ugly, slow tower running just the software I'd need to play all the mp3s I have through the receiver. Well, this thing looked like it would fit the bill. It's black, comes with everything... even has pads on the bottom that make it look like it belongs in an entertainment system. Well, it does actually. I think it was made to access the Internet, sort of like a webtv thingy.

It arrived day before yesterday. I had to install the processor, CPU fan and memory. I initially installed a 20gb drive I had lying around, and a CD drive for installing the software I would need. After all that was done, I fired that baby up!! It didn't work. Well, this thing is surplus... and old. There wasn't a lot of documentation that came with it. In fact, all the documentation for the system was on a CD rom. I had to pick the manual for the motherboard from a directory of manuals for all different models. I found the manual that's supposed to enlighten me on the mainboard, but the picture of the mainboard layout still wasn't exactly what I was looking at with the case cover off. I tried a PII CPU I had left over from other projects, and some different dimm memory chips as well. That didn't work.

After much pondering and reading, I found that the onboard video jumper was set to disable the onboard video. Although I do intend to install a video card that will allow me to access this thing with the TV, I wanted to check this baby out in the meantime. Fixed the jumper and it started up. (I left the PII CPU in, the kit came with a celeron processor so I figured, what the hell)

Things were going ok after that, so I installed Debian Linux on the hard drive. That went ok, and that's as far as I got yesterday. Today the used hard drive I bought specifically for this came, a 30gb IBM drive. I threw that in and decided for the time being I would do XP so it would be easy to use for my wife. That's on there, hard drive partitioned, with Creative Media Source software that came with the Nomad mp3 player I have. The interface is simple, and it will even rip audio cds to a high quality mp3 file. That I did all today, working on it on and off cause I had to take the kids to the dentist and get some other things done as well. Software loaded, ripped a CD my wife just bought directly to the hard drive, and it was ready for a preliminary test drive hooked into the receiver. Got all that hooked up and running, but when I tried to play a song it said the audio device wasn't detected. I used XP this time cause setup is a snap, it recognizes most devices automatically, at least it has every time I install it.

This board came with onboard video as I mentioned before, and sound was integrated as well. So I got to thinking and decided to check the BIOS. Sure enough, onboard audio was disabled in the BIOS. Enabled it and XP saw the new hardware. NOW it plays through the entertainment system. Next I will either plug it into the network for remote control, or get a video card with TV/OUT so I can control it using the TV. I also want a sound card with digital connections, maybe a fancy S connector to plug directly into the receiver. I also have a black CD drive to install, the one in there now is a CD burner with a white face... it clashes big time. Decisions, decisions.

See, if I plug into the network I will be able to transfer files over the network, making it easy to manage the sound files from my main computer. The drawback to that is I don't have an open cable for it, unless I put one of the other computers on the wireless USB device. That will slow things down for the computer I take the CAT 5 from. If I try to control it locally using the TV as the monitor, I'll have to install the Gyration wireless pointing device, sort of act as a remote control for the thing. My wife would have to get used to that thing, and it would frustrate her. She is already going to have to pick music she wants on it from my massive library, and also has to learn the Creative interface.

So that's what's going on with that project. It will sound great when we add the desperately needed subwoofer to the system....