I am unfortunately one of those people who feel that any event, regardless of magnitude needs to be well documented photographically, unfortunately I have both run out of walls and surfaces for framed pictures as well as friends who I can torture by making them leaf through albums. However, a Mini-ITX motherboard seemed to offer a solution to my dilemma.. therefore I set out to make a wall mountable picture frame.

My first acquisition was a 15" Phillips 105S3 LCD from my nearby office supply store, which given a generous use of price matching, coupons and rebates came in at an affordable price. This LCD was then mounted into a frame, including glass and a 2.5 inch mat, which I had located that would provide me with the 2.75 inches of depth for the whole machine I thought I would need. (an assumption later proven wrong).

The frame I used came with a back rabbet to which I attached a 1/4'" plexiglass sheet with a piano hinge on which to mount the additional computer components, these were:

Motherboard: EPIA ME 6000
RAM: 256 MB PC2100
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda IV 40 GB
Microsoft USB 802.11b wireless network adapter
Wireless keyboard and mouse receiver
ATI remote wonder
AC/DC power converter block from a Cubid 2677R case
DC/DC power converter

All the parts except for the motherboard and hard drive were attached using heavy duty Velcro, allowing me to reposition them to determine the optimum position.

I also included rubber grommets on the hard drive to decrease vibration. Unfortunately during this stage I found out that given the depth of my frame, the motherboard would not fit no matter which way I turned it. So I turned to the dremel and wire snips and removed the audio outputs as well as the parallel port (it is only going to be a frame). I won't torture you with pictures of my poor mangled EPIA. Next I cut the power cords for both the monitor and the AC/DC converter and spliced them together to a single power supply cord. I then cut a large hole in the center of the plexiglass where I didn't have any parts attached and drilled several ½" holes to allow sufficient air flow along the back of the computer.

No fans allowed.