My HTPC Success Story!

[Stealth1]

Just wanted to say thanks to those who helped me out with answering my questions in regard to building an HTPC. I spent alot of the past weeks going back and forth whether I should spend the money and build a setup or not. Well I bit the bullet today and I am up and running using my new HTPC on my Samsung 50" DLP. Below is what I ended up going with for my setup and so far I have no regrets.

-M2A-VM ASUS MoBo DVI (saved like $15 over the HDMI version since it was on sale)
-AMD 4400+ 2.3ghz processor
-Samsung S202J Multilayer DVD writer
-WD 500GB SATA2 Hard Drive
-Antec NSK2480 case
-Logitech Wireless keyboard and Mouse
-Belkin CAT6 RJ45 cable
-Monster Cable DVI400 DVI cable (on sale)
-Crucial Rendition 1gig DDR2-667 x 2

Everything is great so far, just getting everything updated and adding the programs and stuff I need for the computer. I am running Windows XP Pro and plan to use Mediaportal as my interface.

My only gripe right now is that even on low the fans on the case are somewhat audible so any info on how I can fix this would be appreciated. I thought they were controlled by the Mobo for when to kick on but guess not.

Right now I am using 1152 x 648 @ 60Hz and it has less than an inch on the sides and top of black and the bottom is pretty much dead on. I want to run it at 1260 x 768 @ 60hz but when I do that the bottom is overscanned a bit and I cant find a way in the Catalyst control center to fix this. Any advice on getting over/underscan to a minimum is appreciated.

All in all it took me maybe 3 hours to build the computer and then another few to get the software setup right. Not knowing too much about partitions I setup windows iniatially on a 3gig partition thinking the rest of the HD would be visible but thats not the case. So i did a fresh install on the rest of the HD but cant seem to remove the small 3gig partition and in the storage management section it has it listed as the main partition and I cant figure out how to remove or change this.

For $600 I couldnt be happier with my setup.