Marq Schneider wrote:
* Motherboard: Asus P5N7A-VM http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=8YiUFvK51IergAqY&templete=2
+ Powerful on-board graphics (nVidia 9300) + Supports 16 GB of RAM + eSATA port + Optical audio output + HDMI, DVI and VGA video output + Gigabit ethernet + Solid caps
- nVidia on-board graphics (requiring proprietary driver) - On-board graphics use system memory - Crappy realtek audio codec
As i mentioned, i use this motherboard in my HTPC. Works nice, but i'm afraid the heat dissipation from the nvidia chipset is a bit much for a fanless solution. If you are still considering this motherboard and want some numbers, i can turn off the fans and measure the case temperature to give you a ballpark figure.
Could you provide us those figures? If the nVidia chipset gets too hot, I'd try the intel board (the DG45FC discussed earlier). If it still gets too hot, we'll probably have to start looking at VIA solutions. But I'm affraid those will be underpowered and I have bad experiences with VIA grahpics chipsets and linux. Thanks, Glenn