[Steve The Egg]

I have an old Dell Dimension 4600 just sitting in the corner collecting dust. I'd like to have both a home server and a HTPC, but I don't know what this computer is better suited to do. Everything is stock except the graphics card. What do you cool cats think?

 

[DanTheMiataMan]

Do both...

 

[dgbiker1]

How loud is it? My experience with old Dells is that they're pretty loud, so they wouldn't make fabulous HTPCs in stock form. You would probably want to upgrade the power supply (check to make sure you don't have the proprietary Dell supply, they look like ATX but they're not!!).

You might be better shoving a huge hard drive in it and putting it in a closet, then using something like the AppleTV (I can't remember the names of the other products off the top of my head, I'm sure logitech would make something) to play the content on your home theater. I tried using an old Vaio as an HTPC once and stopped using it after a couple weeks because Windows just isn't made to be used on a TV, it was more trouble than it was worth. Something like an AppleTV is much easier to navigate without having to bust out the mouse and keyboard and sitting up close to the TV.

 

[Steve The Egg]

Yeah, I've decided to scratch the HTPC idea and see if the home server will work.

How do I set this up? All I really want to do is share music and movie files around my house only. I might just be better off buying a NAS. What do you think?

 

[srozzman]

put some form of linuyx on it, and set it up as a network drive?