by René Pawlitzek, rpawlitzek@hotmail.com

Have you seen these TV shows where they visit someone's home and try to cook a delicious meal with the food found in the fridge? Just imagine they did such a TV show not with food but with PC parts instead. What would be the outcome in your case?

I build my spare part PC using the following items:

• 1 x Gigabyte GA-D525TUD motherboard (includes a Dual Core Intel Atom D525 CPU with Hyperthreading @ 1.8GHz)
• 2 x Samsung 1GB DDR3 RAM
• 1 x LC-Power 1400mi case with a 200W power supply (LC200SFX)
• 1 x Hitachi 250GB 7200rpm Harddisk (HDT722525DLA380)

I could have thrown in a DVD-Burner into the mix, but I decided not to do so, because CDs and DVDs just aren't that useful any more. To power the thing, I chose my favorite Linux distribution: Crunchbang++. This Debian-based OS with OpenBox window manager really doesn't put much load on the CPU. As a result, the system is responsive and fun to use.

A desktop without icons. Yes, it works great!

To put the icing on the cake, I purchased and installed two green LEDs to give the case a nifty nighttime look. One LED is mounted in the 5.25" drive bay and the other one between the memory banks.

A PC build from spare parts.

The system uses 35.8W when idle and 1.4W in stand-by mode.

A PC not a heater.

I primarily use this system to tinker with Linux and surf the web. How about you? Tell me about your spare part PC.