Vista/Gaming Box, Parts 4, 5 & 6

The myDigitechnician Vista/Gaming box lacks only one part -- the micro-ATX motherboard, which is expected to arrive tomorrow!

Brown delivered parts 4 & 5, the RAM and DVD burner, on 20 September. The RAM selected was Crucial 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit System memory, part # CT2KIT12864AA667. This RAM was chosen over the other available sticks because of Crucial's good track record, the most reasonable price at this point, and the lower voltage on this RAM (1.8V) to meet the motherboard specs. The DVD burner was plain vanilla, a Pioneer DVD +/- RW, 111D, 16X DVD/40X CD.

Brown delivered part 6 today; the Ultra MicroFly micro-ATX model ULT33117 aluminum case with plastic windows on three sides, along with a side order of UV cold cathode lights. The two drawbacks to the case are the extremely flimsy feeling handle and the slightly large size of the case for a micro-ATX case. The case was bought knowing it was slightly larger than other micro-ATX cases, precisely because of that so there wouldn't be problems with standard power supplies, optical drives and PCI Express cards. The real problem comes when the Mac mini is set next to the desktop components in the micro-ATX box. Seems like micro-ATX should be able to be smaller. Maybe what's needed is a nano-ATX motherboard and associated components...

With some luck the Vista/gaming box will be assembled this weekend!

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