That seems a nice change in specs to find - other than the tuner(s) - unless it went from dual analog to single digital.

If it doesn't already have one, really needs a remote

Matth79 wrote:

That seems a nice change in specs to find - other than the tuner(s) - unless it went from dual analog to single digital.

If it doesn't already have one, really needs a remote

The old spec had an analog tuner card and a digital tuner card, I think this one is a combined but I have not checked yet.

Instead of a GF 6600 GT there is a PCI-E x16 card with S-Video Out, HDMI and other outputs but its not a video card more like a add on to the onboard video.
Its possible to change this card to a real video card that can decode H264 but I think I will let the E6700 handle all video decoding

I did not get the remote but it has an IR receiver so it should be possible to program an universal remote. I have an ATI radio remote as a backup.
I think a small wireless keyboard with a trackball would be best but I do not own such a device yet.

That PC deserves a strip and good clean 😀

Is there really a Scart connector at the back? This could make a cool Emulator box with a CRT TV?

Skyscraper wrote:

I will upgrade the CPU to a E6700 2.66 GHz which is the fastest 0.065 micron socket 775 CPU with 1066 MHz FSB and 65W TDP, the memory from 3GB to 4GB and the DVD to a BluRay.

The fastest 65nm CPU I know is QX6800... Q6600 is not much slower and easily obtainable. Or are you worried about TDP?

philscomputerlab wrote:

That PC deserves a strip and good clean 😀

Is there really a Scart connector at the back? This could make a cool Emulator box with a CRT TV?

It is really a Scart connector and it has lots of friends of all kinds.

RacoonRider wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

I will upgrade the CPU to a E6700 2.66 GHz which is the fastest 0.065 micron socket 775 CPU with 1066 MHz FSB and 65W TDP, the memory from 3GB to 4GB and the DVD to a BluRay.

The fastest 65nm CPU I know is QX6800... Q6600 is not much slower and easily obtainable. Or are you worried about TDP?

I will stay away from the 130W QX6700/QX6800 monsters altough I have a spare QX6700. I have a spare Q6600 G0 aswell but even if it doesnt need as much power as the QX6700 its still a power hungry CPU. I want this system to run cool and quiet and the motherboard officially only supports Prescotts, E4x00 and E6xx0 CPUs with 1066 MHz FSB.

A BIOS update would probably add support for the 0.065 micron quads and perhaps even 0.045 micron CPUs with 800/1066 MHz FSB but I have read that BIOS updates for this board tend to brake some other features. The heatsink looks like it could cool any socket 775 CPU and the PSU is rated at 275W so perhaps I will change my mind in the future.

That is a very cool looking media center system. I hope it will serve you well for years to come 😀

The "Video card" is likely an ADD2 card, normally used to add a DVI output to Intel onboard video.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Digital_V … EC_form_factors

Cool! I might have an old 2.66 ghz core 2 duo that you can have if you want. I have no use for it anymore, I threw out my old LGA 775 mobo.

LunarG wrote:

That is a very cool looking media center system. I hope it will serve you well for years to come 😀

It is indeed a very nice system, the question is why others dont make systems like this one? I have seen many media PCs but most of them are butt ugly.

NJRoadfan wrote:

The "Video card" is likely an ADD2 card, normally used to add a DVI output to Intel onboard video.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Digital_V … EC_form_factors

You are correct, it is. I googled the specs when i first tore the system apart and came up with this.

http://www.prolink.com.tw/style/frame/templat … ent_set=color_5

I think I might replace it with a real video card as the only thing I loose are analog video outputs of different kinds which I wont use, at least not at the moment.
It depends on how well the 2.66 GHz E6700 will handle decoding video, the 1.86 GHz E6320 just barely handles Youtube 720P.

ahendricks18 wrote:

Cool! I might have an old 2.66 ghz core 2 duo that you can have if you want. I have no use for it anymore, I threw out my old LGA 775 mobo.

Thanks for the offer! But I bet yours is an E6750 with 1333 MHz FSB? Just like the ones I found when I searched my CPU hoardings.

The system does not even post with 1333 MHz FSB CPUs. I had hoped to be able to run an E6750 underclocked @ 2133 Mhz until the E6700 gets here but it was not possible.
I ordered an E6700 from China or Korea and it will get here within a month... if it dosnt get lost on its way here that is.

I tried using my older (now dead) MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R motherboard and Pentium 4 2.6GHz as a the basis for a media center. It was great for most things, up until I tried playing 1080p content on it. The CPU simply couldn't keep up with it. I swapped to an Athlon 64 2.2GHz (if I recall correctly, haven't used it for a while now), and that would play the 1080p content, but sound and video went out of sync on videos I had confirmed to be fine on my main system. Swapping to an Athlon 64 X2 sorted that problem out. I don't think anything less than a semi-modern dual core CPU will work out for HD content, but for anything below that, it shouldn't be a problem.

LunarG wrote:

I tried using my older (now dead) MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R motherboard and Pentium 4 2.6GHz as a the basis for a media center. It was great for most things, up until I tried playing 1080p content on it. The CPU simply couldn't keep up with it. I swapped to an Athlon 64 2.2GHz (if I recall correctly, haven't used it for a while now), and that would play the 1080p content, but sound and video went out of sync on videos I had confirmed to be fine on my main system. Swapping to an Athlon 64 X2 sorted that problem out. I don't think anything less than a semi-modern dual core CPU will work out for HD content, but for anything below that, it shouldn't be a problem.

Im not too worried, the E6700 isnt that slow. Im pretty confident that it will handle even Youtube 1080P.
Even the E6320 1.86 GHz can decode 1080P Blurays but it does not handle Youtube 1080P, Youtube 720P plays fine however.

It dosnt matter much though as I just bought this beautie.

I have now upgraded the system with the Core 2 Duo E6700 2.66 GHz CPU.

The new video card has not arrived yet so we get an answer to the question if the E6700 can handle Youtube 1080P when running at stock speed. The answer is yes 😀

Youtube 1080P, Windows Vista 32

SuperPi 1M with the old CPU

SuperPi 1M with the new CPU

3Dmark 2001 with the old CPU using the IGP

3dmark 2001 with the new CPU using the IGP.

With luck the new video card will be here soon...

The new video card has arrived!
I did also change the OS from Vista-32 to XP.

For some reason every system I own end up beeing a gaming system of some sort.
I wont throw away any of the old parts though so I can always restore the system to its original state.

I removed some clutter I wont use so the new video card gets enough air and I turned the CPU fan upside down so it will exhaust air from the chassie.
I did also add a low profile Audigy card (not in the picture) in place of the TV card.

It is a snug fit, the CPU heat sink will have to make do with 3 fastening points.

The video card manual states that I will need a 450W PSU with a 28A 12V rail... well they could be exaggerating.

At least I have some heavey-duty cables...

The cables were just long enough with 10mm or so to spare

Here are some performance numbers.

3dmark 2001

3dmark 03

3dmark 06

Doom 3, 1024*768 Ultra

The performance is about the same as I got with my Pentium D 950 @ 4533 Mhz and a Geforce GTX 285. Not too bad for an old media PC with a soon 9 year old CPU and a low clocked G92 card equal in performance to a Geforce 8800GT.

The video card runs pretty hot with the case closed but not too hot. Peak power draw was ~240W at the wall running 3dmark 06 "Firefly forest" but I think the PSU isnt very effective. When running the Doom 3 timedemo the system only uses ~170W at the wall and I think this is a more representative scenario. The PSU exhaust air stayed cool even when running 3dmark 06 so I am not very concerned.

That system has a very interesting look to it.

I have a bunch of core 2 1066 FSB CPUs (core 2 duos, core 2 quads, and even a QX6800). Long story why I have all of those CPUs...

Does that thing support a QX6800?

raymangold wrote:

That system has a very interesting look to it.

I have a bunch of core 2 1066 FSB CPUs (core 2 duos, core 2 quads, and even a QX6800). Long story why I have all of those CPUs...

Does that thing support a QX6800?

All first generation Vanilla Core 2 Duos with 800/1066 Mhz FSB works, perhaps also X6800,QX6700,QX6800,Q6400,Q6600 and Q6700 but Im not sure as I have not tried yet.

The original Scaleo E from what I can gather uses another motherboard with I915 chipset and only supports Pentium 4 so beware of that. My system is a Scaleo E(2), it was sold a short while before the 2007 version named Scaleo EV was released. The Scaleo EV uses the same motherboard as my system and I think there is a BIOS update with support for later Socket 775 CPUs as the E5x00 the new E6x00 and the E7x00 series. I have not found it yet but I have not really been looking.

I used to have one of those. Great machine for running Linux, it has a rare compliant BIOS (meaning, it will hibernate/suspend without issue).

what does CPU-Z list the chipset as?

cdoublejj wrote:

what does CPU-Z list the chipset as?

As seen in the screenshots above P965/Q965 (The chipset is Q965)

Why downgrade to XP? It's a dying OS