It must be nearly 9 years since I last built a PC and escaped the expensive habit of continual upgrades and tinkering. Laptops, nettops and netbooks were to be the way forward - ideally only one or two of them in the house at any one time. For the most part it has been fine a certainly saved a lot of space. Gone are the days when it was ok to have a network of 5 servers in your bedroom but there is one project I never got around to, 'something' with a mini-ITX motherboard.

I've always had an interest in the possibilities that such a small form factor has to offer but there was never really a suitable use for what 5+ years ago would have been an impressively underpowered machine the expensive top of the range options peaking at around a 900 mHz CPU.

My last netbook, an EeePC 900, had a few months of active use including a stint as an in-car navigation GPS system during a driving trip around Florida. However, I soon found that it was usurped by the iPhone 3GS for convenience and usefulness. The netbook then became a static device permanently hooked up to my TV and Amp. It was fine for watching some low quality video and listening to music on Spotify but not ideal. What I needed was a dedicated Home Theatre PC (HTPC) and with the holidays upon us now seems like a good time to build one.