HTPC

I built an HTPC earlier this week.

I hit three snags:

• The 200GB Western Digital drive I had lying around happened to have a dead controller. The machine would take over a minute to POST with this old drive. I replaced it with an even older 45GB WD unit which makes loads of noise...but does actually work.
  
• The piece of crap on-board Realtek NIC refused to pick up a DHCP address on 100MB switches.
  
• The piece of crap Gigabyte 802.11 card I bought caused the machine to 100% hard hang every 20 minutes or so. A similar Buffalo card worked fine.
  

But it's all good now. It drives my TV at 1920x1080, runs Media Center great, and—apart from the noisy 10-year-old 45GB hard drive—is nearly silent.

Also, the Lian Li PC-C37 Micro ATX case I bought (pictured) is a great piece of engineering but looks like an oversized VCR.