Looking to kick new life into spare desktop...

Access

I have a spare dell optiplex GX620 desktop. (half height/smaller unit case).

It has Win XP SP3, CPU is Pentium D 3.40GHz, 80GB HD and 2GB Ram + USB Wifi

I would like to kick this desktop back into everyday use in the main living room attached to my tv as a Media player/HTPC running XBMC.
Ive have been testing it lately using its original dell monitor and a 1TB usb drive attached with my movies etc and it is running XBMC fine and smooth and relatively noise free.

I firstly need to get a HDMI graphics card (smaller height dell case) so i can connect my tv to the pc. Any advice on what card to get would be greatly appreciated (at a low cost if possible - as only require a HDMI output for the tv).

Secondly, i would also love to be able to access/stream the media files on this desktop to the other two computers (one xp and one win 7) in the house (house not wired so all will be done over wifi router for the moment till i later look into those homeplug options) - Any advice on how to do this would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

machalla

Access wrote: »

Secondly, i would also love to be able to access/stream the media files on this desktop to the other two computers (one xp and one win 7) in the house (house not wired so all will be done over wifi router for the moment till i later look into those homeplug options) - Any advice on how to do this would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

Perhaps Plex for streaming.

http://www.plexapp.com/

Also I believe WinXP with Windows media player 11 can stream to other machines or xbox. I may be wrong on that as I usually use a linux server for streaming media.

As for a card others can suggest what might be best . Something like the ATI 5450 or Nvidia 210 might be an idea. Anything with a hdmi output assuming you have a hdmi capable tv.

Access

machalla wrote: »

As for a card others can suggest what might be best . Something like the ATI 5450 or Nvidia 210 might be an idea. Anything with a hdmi output assuming you have a hdmi capable tv.

Thanks for the link, will check it out.

Yep, a samsung tv with HDMI input.

But i just want a hdmi output graphics card that is cheap and cheerful that will fit the dell optiplex i have... i think its PCI express?

Just want to make sure that the card also has the latest hdmi output that carries the sound to the tv too.

Any Ideas?

machalla

Any relatively modern graphics card from the last couple of years would be fine as they usually come with HDMI as standard. And pci-express but you may need to check that on the dell machine depending on how old it is. Is unlikely to be an AGP port (predecessor to PCI-Express) but best to look up the specs. I don't think AGP has been common for 5-7 years or more now.

Anything like these should do I'd say. The nvidia g210 should be fine also.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/EAH6450-Silent-512MD3-LP-Graphics/dp/B004XANNSE/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1323353276&sr=8-4

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-11190-01-20G-6450-512MB-Graphics/dp/B004WYV91O/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1323353276&sr=8-9

Depending on how much heat is in the case you can go with either a fan based card or a silent one. Silent has advantages but can of course generate more heat in a small case that might not be ventilated too well. I don't know that dell but I'd say it would be fine.

You may be able to find these cheaper of course with a bit of searching. With the free delivery from Amazon it makes them worthwhile though.