Hey guys,
on some of the online retailer sites, they've got cheap refurbished dell optiplex machines that have decent RAM and an OK processor (P4 2.8 Ghz, not dual-core). main problem with them is that they generate too much noise from cooling fans to really be a decent MD. any ideas on how to quiet them down. The PC are low profile by design which i think limits what kind of heat managment solutions are available.
If anyone has an idea, please post!
With bare bone pc's with like 5000+ processors and 2gb ram going for $150 why mess with old stuff that will only do SD at best.
I think the current 2 cheapest MDs out there, that are known to work are the ASUS eee PC (not sure of the current price, dependant on where you live anyway) - this has a minor issue with the network interface which can be fixed up by following the wiki article
And the MSI Wind PC which NewEgg is selling for US$130 at the moment - add 512M SO-DIMM RAM at US$8 and you have an MD. Note, same issue with NIC, plus currently the photo screen saver occasionally crashes the box so you need to disable it.