Last year I went to a service call on a HP Pavilion a1253w. The customer said it stopped working after a lighting storm. The power supply was putting out higher voltage on the 12V and 5V rails than it should according to my multimeter. The video would not work and putting in a new power supply and video card in did not help the poor thing one bit. It was zapped! Well the customer bought a new PC and gave me the case. That was September of 2008. Last week when I received my Tax refund I decided it was time to build a new computer. I planned to use the case given to me and everything fit just fine. HP uses standard front panel connectors so the front audio and usb works great. Here are the specs:

HP Pavilion a1253w case
A-Power 500W Power Supply. (Since the old power supply was fried.)
MSI G14M Intel Motherboard 775 Socket
Intel Core Duo 3GHz Processor. (This has virtualization support.)
2GB of RAM
320GB SATA HDD
DVD Burner with Lightscribe. (The one salvageable part on the system.)

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Right now I am running Windows Vista Ultimate . So far it has been really stable. But I do plan to dual boot Ubuntu soon. The motherboard has a D-sub and a DVI connectors integrated on the board. I do plan to get a PCIx16 Nvidia Video Card in the future, however. My Windows Vista Experience Index is 3.3. I will let you know how the Ubuntu install goes on this machine.

Thanks Newegg for great prices, selection, and fast shipping!