Small, powerful, fanless, lots of storage PC - is it possible??

[Bjohn]

Hello

I'm looking for a PC I can connect to my main LCD TV through the HDMI port. I'll use a wireless keyboard / mouse.

Looking to mainly surf the net but if possible I'd like to be able to do a few more powerful things - like graphics.

I'd also like the PC to be small and without a noisy fan. The intention is that the PC will always be on. Not sure if this is possible to have such a fanless PC.

And finally (are all these things possible???) I'd like to stack the PC with a couple of big hard drives for storage and back up purposes.

Anyone know if all these things are possible in a PC?

[alavahalf]

There are dozens to choose from depending on your budget...!
Quiet ...silent..they are all readily available...I've just spent the past hour reading about them.
Try putting...Silent..quiet..small pc hdmi... in google, you will have more info than you can read....really interesting..!

[ChuckFickens]

and if you want to push the boat out a bit more then google for media pc

[ChuckFickens]

BTW, another option that very nearly fits your requirements and it's what I use for doing pretty much what you want is.... a laptop!

Check Ebay for laptops with broken screens (you don't need the screen)

[Bjohn]

OK - it looks like the Google keywords are "Silent" and "Quiet" - Then all is revealed. Thousands upon thousands to sift through.

Any recommendations here - mid range??

PS - thanks for the broken laptop trick - also a thought.

[fo3nix]

If you don't care about beauty, then any machine will do.

If you do care (you've got the rest of your room looking nice presumably so why should this be an exception), then there is one simple answer: the Mac Mini.

It has a DVI port that (using a DVI->HDMI cable) connects very easily to a TV. It has bluetooth, wifi, and several USB ports built in. It does have a fan, but it's silent all the time except for when it's doing something heavy duty. Regular use, or even watching HD movies on it, shouldn't have it produce any noise.

It's also got a DVD player, to play your films with, and comes with the Front Row interface (using a handy remote, or your iPod touch or iPhone), making it easy to use from the couch.

If you really don't want to run Mac OS X on it (I'm not sure why not), then it'll also capably run Windows too, including the Media Centre release.

If you live near an Apple store, check them out.

[Bjohn]

Mini Mac - interesting. Always avoided the Mac route. I need a few applications that only run on Windows. Will boot camp run on a mac mini? Also I have a windows network. Not sure how many headaches I'll get introducing a Mac.

[fo3nix]

What are the programs? I have a mac laptop and mac mini, so can check compatability for you.

The Mac can run boot camp, which just means dual booting between windows and mac os x.

A better (perhaps?) solution is to run something like Parallels, which lets you run windows programs within mac os x itself, best of both worlds kind of thing.

As for network compatability, you shouldn't have any problems. The Mac can work quite nicely with windows machines, and the windows machines should treat the mac nicely too.

I have one under my TV, I'm currently experimenting with MythTV under Linux (basically turns your computer into a Sky+ type device, but with full computing capability).