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Hey, I'm into the car-PC scene (where we replace our stock radio's with computers & touchscreens, in order to have all the features of the best touch-screen navigation/head units, in addition to things such as internet (wifi/edge/etc), engine management, etc..) [/carputer plug]

We frequently use LCD's in the 6-8" size, but they're usually touch-screen and that may be overkill for your application. If it's not, though, a good bang-for-the-buck 7" touchscreen is the Lilliput 7" touchscreen - ~$250. If you want something a little better, try the Xenarc 7" - ~$350 (I personally use the Xenarc 7" 700TSV and have tested the Lilliput 7".. I have only great things to say about Xenarcs)

The touchscreens connect to your computer via USB and the video source can be either VGA or a single RCA coaxial.
If you're on a budget, my best advice would be to search for a cheap Lilliput non-touchscreen in the size you want. A quick google search came up with this 7" Lilliput for $120

If you want touchscreens, a good place to start is www.mp3car.com. Non-touchscreens are less popular in the carputing world, so you will probably have better luck with google for those.

Then get an inexpensive SATA controller and a drive caddy like this with additional cooling. With 5400rpm drives this makes a nice alternative.

I had the same experience with TigerDirect. I was looking for a particular motherboard that newegg didn't have in stock, but Tiger Direct did. I ordered four and also four hard drives that were at a good price. After a day nothing had yet shipped. That's when the order showed the drives were backordered. Just as you experienced, the web page said nothing about that when I placed the order... Took about 5 emails and a couple phone calls to get them to cancel the hard drives and send the motherboards. I wouldn't have been so upset if they had just shipped the parts they did have. Sheesh.

A few weeks later, I received a form email apologizing for the shipping problems. I expect a lot of people won't be shopping there again.

Been getting majority of my parts from NewEgg and Case-Mod (get a small discount if you access some parts from froogle) where I know what to expect.

But my system has onboard hardware-assistend MPEG-decoding. It also has built-in TV out, both NTSC and S-Video. So it works perfectly as a standard-definition media PC -- and the CPU never breathes hard with this type of usage. In fact, mine runs exclusively as a Myth TV front end. And it works great!

The motherboard is availble for about $150.

Fanless cases are available for about $180. (I use the former case and can atest to its utter silence. My system boots over the net and has no local drives. So when I mean utter silence, that's exactly what I mean.)

So, if I had my choice between spending £999 vs $400 for a Myth TV-type system, I would go with the latter. Again.

WTF? Certainly PC users don't care about the machine.

Fucking Mac snobs.

This guy's modded a monitor, the v2, (i know, uhg flash, but some of the stuff is pretty cool) Also i'd think the Mac CRTs we have at school, came with the G4s, completly transparent would be perfect to put some lights inside. Also i got these and this(also avalible at thinkgeek). Got both in blue and arranged them like in the pictures, they're quite bright and light up my desk pretty well. I had to lengthen the cable on one of the small ones to get it to the other side of the monitor, i attached the control boxes(off-sound reactive-on, and sensitivity) tot he back of my speakers. I got a usb card for something like $5 and wired the ports into the switchbox i made in my empty 3.5" bay. 4 switches with blue LEDs, one controls the case fan, one controls this inside the front of my case. Its one of those radioshack Compaqs with the changable transluscent front panels, it lights up pretty well. The other two switches control the monitor lights. Its a pretty simple but uniqe mod, no window, no cold cathodes. Inside though, round cables for improved airflow and the case fan is a blue led fan and it shines out the vents pretty well. E-mail me if you want pictures.

This guy's modded a monitor, the v2, (i know, uhg flash, but some of the stuff is pretty cool) Also i'd think the Mac CRTs we have at school, came with the G4s, completly transparent would be perfect to put some lights inside. Also i got these and this(also avalible at thinkgeek). Got both in blue and arranged them like in the pictures, they're quite bright and light up my desk pretty well. I had to lengthen the cable on one of the small ones to get it to the other side of the monitor, i attached the control boxes(off-sound reactive-on, and sensitivity) tot he back of my speakers. I got a usb card for something like $5 and wired the ports into the switchbox i made in my empty 3.5" bay. 4 switches with blue LEDs, one controls the case fan, one controls this inside the front of my case. Its one of those radioshack Compaqs with the changable transluscent front panels, it lights up pretty well. The other two switches control the monitor lights. Its a pretty simple but uniqe mod, no window, no cold cathodes. Inside though, round cables for improved airflow and the case fan is a blue led fan and it shines out the vents pretty well. E-mail me if you want pictures.

I just put a really sweet computer together for my son's big Christmas present this year.

I made sure to get him all the best computer case stuff, since that what all his friend will see. Looks are really important to little kids! I can't wait until he opens this up and sees how non-beige his very own PC is!

Case: Kingwin KT-436B-WM Aluminum Case - Blue (image)

Power supply: Enermax EG365P-VE(FCA) 350 Watt (image)

Light kit: Dual Cold Cathode Light Kit (image)

Screws: Anodized Thumbscrew - Blue (image)

I just put a really sweet computer together for my son's big Christmas present this year.

I made sure to get him all the best computer case stuff, since that what all his friend will see. Looks are really important to little kids! I can't wait until he opens this up and sees how non-beige his very own PC is!

Case: Kingwin KT-436B-WM Aluminum Case - Blue (image)

Power supply: Enermax EG365P-VE(FCA) 350 Watt (image)

Light kit: Dual Cold Cathode Light Kit (image)

Screws: Anodized Thumbscrew - Blue (image)

I just put a really sweet computer together for my son's big Christmas present this year.

I made sure to get him all the best computer case stuff, since that what all his friend will see. Looks are really important to little kids! I can't wait until he opens this up and sees how non-beige his very own PC is!

Case: Kingwin KT-436B-WM Aluminum Case - Blue (image)

Power supply: Enermax EG365P-VE(FCA) 350 Watt (image)

Light kit: Dual Cold Cathode Light Kit (image)

Screws: Anodized Thumbscrew - Blue (image)

I came acorss this mod one time and thought it would be incredibly cool with a blue LED instead, but I thought about it and the plexi used for the mouse wheel probably wouldn't be as grippy/nice feeling as the slightly rubbery surface of the wheel I had. I looked around and finally I found a mouse that came with a clear scroll wheel. it was the new m$ Blue Intellimouse. I bought it ($20 after a $10 rebate) and ordered some superbright blue LEDs. Once they came I hijacked voltage from the USB cable and put one directly behind the clear scroll wheel. It lights up quite nicely and looks awesome, Then I replaced the red LED in the back and the one for the sensor with blue ones. It worked fine and it was bright enough that the responsiveness didn't drop, but... all microsoft optical mice have the clear red plastic for the bottom. It glowed quite brightly when there were red LEDs in it, but i unfortunately discovered that the red plastic completely filters out the blue light. So the only light coming from it is out of the wheel, and of course the bottom if you pick it up. I attached some longer leads to the one in the back and and siliconed it directly too the little red oval in the butt of the mouse and managed to get a faint purple glow out of it. It still looks pretty cool, but it dissapointingly glows less. My TI-83+ Silver on the other hand glows very nicely with the 2 blue LEDs i put in it.

round floppy cables

Actually the reason they got this reputation was (primarily) because they had a problem with the Socket 462 which would often result in a cracked Athlon core. I don't think this reputation was earned because of poor cooling though it certainly wasn't the BEST solution available at the time.

The reviews I saw indicated that they definitely delivered subpar cooling performance as well. The only thing they really had going for them was appearance, and unless you're one of those idiots who adds windows (this kind, not this kind...though some would say the same for the latter) and neon lights to a computer, you're never going to see it when the computer is closed up and shoved under your desk anyway.