Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with server and pc

Old PC as an HTPC and File + Game Server... Help Me Make It Happen!

Effigy2000 — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:01:26 -0800

I have an old computer I'm thinking of turning into a home theatre PC, as well as a dedicated FTP and multiplayer game server. Can it be done, and what do I need? Tech specs and more detailed questions inside. I have an old computer just laying around taking up space. I had considered selling it on eBay but it quickly became apparent I wouldn't get much for it. I figured out how to hook it up to my living room TV and started getting grand ideas about turning it into a HTPC and a dedicated server. But I'm new to most of this and the research I have done so far offers more questions I can't seem to find answers to. I would appreciate some advice.

Before we begin, the PC's tech specs are as follows;

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1.6GHz
RAM: 1GB
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600 X1050
Sound Card: NVIDIA nForce 2 MCP-T (onboard the motherboard, an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe)
Hard Drive: 320GB 7200RPM

My questions are as follows.

SOUND: Because this PC doesn't have an HDMI port, I've hooked it up to my TV via the RGB port. Looks great in widescreen, but I'm not getting any sound. According to my research, the sound card is capable of real time Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding with hardware accelerated 3D audio.

This page of the motherboard manual shows us we have an S/PDIF out jack to play with. This seems my best bet of getting the best 5.1 sound. I've always understood S/PDIF to be a TOSLINK cable. But the jack doesn't seem to fit a TOSLINK cable. So my questions here are;

1) What kind of cable would I need to hook this up to the back of my 5.1 surround sound AV receiver?
2) Would I be better off using the various line out ports to connect it to the back of my TV? What kind of cables do i need for this?

Here's an actual pic of the back of the computer, if it helps.

HOME THEATRE: I know and love Plex. I know and like XBMC. My research suggests neither of these two clients will work with windows XP, which is the best OS this system can run. I know of some other alternatives, but some recommendations would be appreciated.

FILE SERVER: So my research to date suggests the best thing to do to operate my own file server is to sign up a free dynamic DNS service, modify some settings in my modem configuration, and then get a free program like FireFTP. Sounds easy enough. Too easy. Am I missing something, or is this setup going to be harder than it sounds?

GAME SERVER: This I know less about, and what research I've done confuses me.

I'd like to install a Minecraft server at the very least (which I know how to do) and probably some other games like DayZ and a FPS (haven't decided which yet). The games themselves would be played on the other computers in my network and possibly remotely by my friends.

Problem is, those two computers are Macs (an iMac and a Mac Mini). So my questions are;

1. Can Macs play on a game server hosted on a Windows XP machine?
2. Is the Windows XP machine even up to the task?
3. How do I let friends (or even strangers) remotely join my server?
4. I'm guessing there's no grand, unifying software that lets you run multiple servers for different games?

Thanks in advance for all your help!

How to make my house sing with media server?

tseo — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:19:29 -0800

Multimedia home server solution controlled by iPhone/iPad and plugged into existing speakers/sound system - does it exist? Hello,

We just moved into a big house and suddenly plugging your iPod/iPad/iPhone/PC in order to listen to music starts to be more and more cumbersome.

What I imagine as a solution is a device that has some storage (1TB for example) or uses external storage. This device should be connected to the home network (WiFi) and also connected via an normal audio cable to my speakers.

This thing should have an autonomous audio player on it which can be controlled from all my devices by the most natural and easy way. I presume that later in my life it would be good to have the same function for video also.

I checked some solutions but all of them are all-in-one devices that also have the built in speaker. Am I missing something obvoius here?

What's in your virtual toolbox?

Lyn Never — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 07:56:07 -0800

System/network/desktop admins, what tools and utilities do you keep in your virtual toolbox? I had to un-retire an old desktop last night for a temp coming in this week, and as I was burning a fresh copy of my "Misc Stuff" CD to clean the nasty thing up I started wondering if there was a curated list of those sorts of tools maintained somewhere, or failing that what the IT Persons of Metafilter keep on hand for workstation and server utilities.

For example, I've got the obvious: Malwarebytes, Firefox, CCleaner, the contents of Bootdisk.com, Hijack This, several free anti-virus and anti-spyware products, UnHide, Wise Disk Cleaner, WinRAR (because our Chinese colleagues always .rar things, so I install it on all new workstations), and several Sysinternals tools.

What do you consider the best and most useful tools in network/Windows (we have a few MacBooks, including my personal one, but they don't cause much trouble aside from needing an FTP client to use our weird FTP site) administration and support? Help me build a better Misc Stuff CD.

What is the best way to sync folders on a Mac to folders on a PC media server?

raddevon — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 06:48:14 -0800

What is the best way to sync folders on a Mac to folders on a PC media server across a network? I'm a recent Mac switcher, but I still use a PC media server in my home. I have a few folders on my Macbook Pro (running Leopard) that I would like to sync to folders on my XP-based media server across my home network. I have looked at a few options, but I haven't yet found one I like.

I tried creating a folder action, but that didn't seem to work very well. I wanted the action to connect to the server first in case I had been using my computer elsewhere and the share was unmounted. However, if the action tried this when the share was actually mounted, it crashed.

Lacie makes a program for syncing that should work, but I read a horror story about it (involving losing all data on the destination drive) and got a little scared to try it.

MS has FolderShare, but it has to run in the background all the time and places an icon not only on the menu bar but also in the dock. It is a beta so I imagine the service will either disappear at some point or become a paid service. I would prefer a software solution to a service-based one.

Any ideas? Free is good, but I would pay a little for a really slick solution.

Home Server: Best Bang for the Buck?

CrayDrygu — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:03:41 -0800

I'd like to build a new PC for use as a headless server to run Asterisk. I've got a few conflicting goals for building it, and I'd like to get the Hive Mind's help for balancing power, size, cost, and efficiency. Asterisk has fairly minimal requirements, especially as this system would be handling, at most, 2 simultaneous phone calls and a single IP phone. The minimum requirements look something like:

Processor: 500mhz
Memory: 256mb
Hard drive: 20gb

And that's really it. I would like onboard video (since after it's installed I won't even have a monitor), onboard ethernet, a couple of USB ports, and a DVD-ROM drive. And it needs to work well with Linux, specifically CentOS/Fedora.

Now, here's what I'm trying to balance, and how they conflict:

1) Power. I'd like to go higher than the minimum, especially if I'd like to run other processes on it, or repurpose it later. But the higher the power, the more...
2) Cost. I really don't want to spend a lot more than $200 on this, and no more than $300, if it can be done (and I don't see why not). But you have to spend more money to get smaller...
3) Size. I'd love a small form factor that I can stash behind the entertainment center or somewhere inconspicuous. Especially since the smaller systems often have better...
4) Efficiency. I hate giving money to the electric company. I'd like this to use as little power as possible.

The most limiting factor is my budget, obviously. But how much power can I fit into the smallest, most efficient package that my $200-300 will buy me?

Homemade DVD server- Whats the best/easiest/cheapest way?

weiler63 — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:21:47 -0800

Homemade DVD server- Whats the best/easiest/cheapest way? I wanted to take my 200+ DVD collection and store it on something that could serve it up to my Infocus IN72 projector.

I was thinking DVD Shrink( ~3GB .vob each movie)--->External Hard Drive--->Mac Mini with DVI out. I'm a Windows guy, but I want to be able to integrate the IR codes to my universal.

I want something with ease of use (no Linux), Future expandability and as cheap as possible. Being able to network it is a plus, but not required.

Any Tips?

Thanks,

Weiler63

Networking computer help for a amateur turned vaguelly professional tinkerer

djstig — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 10:19:08 -0800

Help me to fix/setup/keep running a network of 4 computers the easy way. I enjoy tinkering with computers, but I am in no way an expert, however a friend has asked me to set up a network of computers for their business. I have previously sorted out the networking of computers at home, but what type of things do I specifically need to include or do to make it run as smoothly as possible.

The network will be wired and between computers in different rooms which need to be able to connect to the internet, share files and printers etc. The computers will be using Windows XP (but I've just started to us Ubuntu, so could that be a better way to go?)

I don't really know much about servers, but would 3-4 computers require one?

Any help or advice would be great.

Advice wanted on TV video server.

insomnia_lj — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 20:48:46 -0800

I have an old Intel Celeron 501MHz PC sitting around collecting dust. I'm wondering whether it would be suitable as a video server for my television, assuming I upgrade it with WiFi and a TV card. I don't have/want cable, so I don't necessarily need TiVo-like capabilities, but it would be nice to have something that could access my WiFi network, grab my downloads (mostly fansubbed anime, foriegn shows, etc.), and play them on the home theatre system. Is it worthwhile to use such a system for this purpose? Is there a more elegant solution that I'm overlooking that doesn't involve burning a ton of DVDs?

MediaWiki windows server synchronisation

suleikacasilda — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 15:09:47 -0800

How can I synchronise a local wiki installation (preferably MediaWiki) with an online server installation? I have been a longtime user of wiki's. I keep more and more of my stuff locally on WikidPad (which is lovely and has just gone opensource) and online I have tried quite a few online wiki installations, including TikiWiki and PMWiki. I had always intended to find a wiki to which I could import text files from my desktop wiki and set up some kind of synchronisation. But now, since getting to know WikiPedia by editing it, I am seriously in love with MediaWiki, and it occurs to me that I could use it on my Windows PC by creating a server there. Could I perhaps even synchronise it with an online mediawiki? Even if it were a one-way import from desktop to server that would make me very happy.

In the past I have successfully used Mambo stand alone server on my PC and it seemed to worked fast enough, so I wonder if something like WAMP would keep things simple. (I once attempted separate installations of MySQL, php and apache and failed to make it all work.)

Does anyone have experience of doing this kind of thing? Will the speed (on WindowsXP, 1.3GHz, 512MbRam) drive me insane? Are php/SQL applications too slow to use on a PC? Any pitfalls?