Anyone building mini-ITX boxes?

[pmc]

I'm thinking about a PC for the kitchen and figured that some of you may have built a bartop that is constructed similarly. maybe you can point me in the right direction to get started on research, design, and bulding the parts-list? We want it for surfing, email, and reading recipes but I'll extend the functionality from there.

I'm looking for a tiny footprint, slick look, and dead silent. That leads me to this:

• Mini-ITX. I think Nano is overkill. No fans (or a near silent one if I have to).
• No HD (noise and heat). Boot off Compact Flash.
• Linux based (thinking PuppyLinux, PCLinuxOS, or something similar)
• Small LCD display
• WiFi to connect to the house network and Internet
• Wireless (membrane?) keyboard and mouse
• Anodized aluminum, brushed steel, plexi, or white plastic case. Looking at Hush, Nexus Psile, Morex Cubid and others
• Touchscreen if it makes sense
• Low cost. Possible?

or I'll just buy a Mac mini and be done with it.

Of course I'll have to throw a joystick in there somewhere....

Any pointers on where to find similar projects or do research? It seems like mini-itx.com is the place I keep getting back to, but I'd think that there'd be way more projects out there than what's listed there.

-pmc

[XyloSesame]

Jetto has one for sale in a BST thread...

[Neverending Project]

or I'll just buy a Mac mini and be done with it.

I actually have a mac mini that I am using in my cabinet. The problem is what to use as a FE. I am thinking about creating something for myself, but I can't seem to decide what to create it in.

If you are serious about a mac mini, check out the refurb store. You can find a 1.8GHz C2D mac mini for about $100 off, when they have them. They go quick, though, so you need to check often and act quick. Plus it will come with Leopard and iLife.

[SuperGodX1]

I picked up a Jetway J7F5M2G-VHE-PB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813153091)mini-itx mobo from newegg.com.  It arrived today, and I will be using it for a new project.

I hunted around a few different sites: mo-co-so.com, logicsupply.com, but eventually ended up back at newegg because they had better pricing.  I picked up an IDE to CF adapter, a 4GB A-Data 266x CF card, and have an XP Embedded image setup for it already.

The motherboard has onboard HDMI and VGA, and also has additional S-Video and Composite connections that mount in a PCI bay, so I think it will be perfect for my project since it will be portable, and made to connect to any TV.

[Kremmit]

These look good, especially for the price:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article780-page1.html

[Turnarcades]

Go to mini-itx.com and check out an all-in-one package from VIA (Epia series), or similar. I use them in my Box Arcade projects and they are great.

Bit of advice though; I wouldn't use the compact flash option if you intend to use this for many tasks like a regular PC - the read/write cycles are slower and less stable than using a mechanical magnetic disk drive, as I've found out with several corrupted CF drives. If you want to save space, use a 2.5" laptop drive instead. They are larger anyway and still run fairly quiet.

Oh, and grab a nice Cube shell for it with possibly an LCD display and a DVD drive - this makes it a music/video centre on it's own should you ever want it that way.

[pmc]

Bit of advice though; I wouldn't use the compact flash option if you intend to use this for many tasks like a regular PC - the read/write cycles are slower and less stable than using a mechanical magnetic disk drive, as I've found out with several corrupted CF drives.

I didn't know that. I'll have to learn a bit more about that. I really wanted to go solid-state but perhaps a quiet 2.5" drive would be OK. More $ though.

These look good, especially for the price:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article780-page1.html

Yah... looks like I can get it for $70 shipped. That's more in line with what I was looking for. I'm surprised that newegg doesn't sell these.

I'll follow up with all the other suggestions on this thread. Lots to consider. I've been using PCLinuxOS 2007 recently and it's nice enough that I may just go that route rather than look for a slim Linux.

Thanks for all the pointers so far...

-pmc