Has anyone tried one of these chinsy little systems Microtel is selling? Their cheapest one is this thing with a Sempron 2200+, with no OS or with Linux. My question is: how hard are these to find drivers for? Microtel's website is not peculiarly friendly for finding downloads. I have copies of 98, 2000, and XP I'd like to try on one, but I don't want to waste a couple hundred bucks on just getting a headache. I assume the XP drivers would e readily available by the normal update process. Therefore, the 2000 driver problem is basically solved. Anyone running '98 on these? On something more than 16 colors?

:) You can always email there tech staff, and ask if you can upgrade the computers graphic cards. You can get good old cheap ones that display 32 bit color. For high end games you will want to make sure the ram is upgradable, allowing to add more ram without taking out what you get with the systems. Also make sure you have an available AGP slot :) in that pc if you get one. :) You will thank me later. Some cheap pc's only have 1 ram slot or 2, good computers have 4 or more available. Also check the faq's at corp, websites to see there own BIOS limitations some have 1GB limits others are higher. When ordering they must provide these answers to your questions, lol or don't buy from them. Make sure the Power supplies are not under powered too.. :) Remember adding Graphics cards fast ones, take more power :)... Oh by the way Microsoft started offering updates again for win98. Have to use the latest browser though. www.microsoft.com Microtel Link below http://www.microtelinc.com/Service/index.aspx?catID=3 Sincerely, Joe Christian

FTR -- I'll likely be testing the machine as a node in a network render system for 3DS Max. So, it doesn't need a ton of graphics, etc. It just has to work enough to put in a ton of processor cycles, and not screw up too often. I have several render node licenses, and I just want to build a render farm as cheap as possible. Since the Sempron is just an AthlonXP-lite, I figured it would serve the purpose. The first machine would be sort of a test bed. If it works, I'd buy more. Nothing useful is listed on the support pages. AT ALL! Oy. Not even an e-mail address. http://www.microtelinc.com/AboutUs/index.aspx?CatID=2&pageID=contactus.htm&o=112 Seems to be the best option. I'll send one in the morning when I'm more coherent.

"Some cheap pc's only have 1 ram slot or 2, good computers have 4 or more available." Probably meant PCI slots. Ram slots rarely exceed 3 or 4. Larry