Did some searching, found good info but on other things...

I have a variety of old PC's from work that I want to assemble into one, with a 120 GB drive, to use as a glorified CD changer. I want it to be good at what it does, but CHEAP! So -

1) KVM recommendations? I'd like the thing to be stand-alone, that is I don't have to have my main PC on to gain access to it (noise and inconvenience). I'm thinking of getting a KVM switch and simply using the main PC's monitor, mouse, and KB to run it. Or, perhaps getting a video card with an S-output and using the TV instead (it's an HDTV so it can handle 800x600 with fine detail - meaning I can read song titles. Said TV is the cause for me being "cheap" on MP3 player). Combine it with a small, cordless, keyboard+mouse toggle deal to change songs?

2) O/S recommendations within the Windows family? Since it would be an always-on machine, I'm guessing NT, 2000, or XP are a must. I could do any of them. I'm guessing NT, being oldest, would have the least requirements out of the system?

3) Any idea on minimum power supply? There would be the chip, a hard drive, PCI video and soundcards, and that's all. 150W enough?

4) Soundcard - obviously there has to be one to get it connected to the stereo. But using winamp for example, does it matter what soundcard? That is, the CPU would do all the work, and having a nice soundcard won't really help that out much will it? (I'm looking at it how you'd see an AGP card being better than on-board video with shared memory).

5) Minimum CPU and RAM requirements? I can go up to a 233 with MMX, which I think would be the best chip for the job of what's available. I'd like to use the P-166 though, since there's no fan for the heatsink, and low/no noise is preferred. Do you think a big heatsink (only), with a strategically mounted power supply fan pulling air over it ,would be enough for the 233? Is the 166 enough for both Windows + winamp for hours on end? Is 80 MB SIMM's enough?

Would I simply be better off buyiing one of those Wal-Mart $199 Via PC's and transferring the guts to a slick looking black box to stack over my receiver?

Here's what I did....

And just the other day, I took delivery of a brand spanking new KVM switch from IOGear, it was $49.00 and works like a dream....

Alternately, you can use VNC to control your music box from your main system, it works well too but not as reactive as a hard-wired KVM switch.

I used WinXP for both my machines, it means that my music box also can fill in for my main system if need be in an emergency....

Yep, thanks for the link - I spent a lot of time looking over that particular thread the other night.

I'd like to have it independent of the other system, so the VNC program isn't the direction I'm headed. That looks like a good KVM switch, one of the lowest prices I've seen on one thus far as well. Hmm, it's a shame getting what you want typically costs money.

I still have those questions though

it would be nice if you could have a small LCD panel and a few button to browse around the directory structure and select tracks.....you know just like an empeg!