I'm more than happy with my high spec Toshiba laptop for general use but I'm after a desktop PC for use when downloading from peer-to-peer networks etc. I've also toyed with the idea of putting it in the garage so I can use VAG-COM on the serial port

I'll be using it with my wireless network so I guess an XP machine would be easiest to manage security etc. and would also be easier for me to create a peer-to-peer home network if required with my laptop.

What sort of minimum spec would I need for such a achien? I'm going to be looking at a massive hard drive for the downloads and a PC wireless card - but what else?

Really, you don't need anything much at all. XP wouldn't really hold any advantage over 2000 in terms of security and using a wireless network.

There are plenty of P4 based ex-lease desktop units running at 2GHz or less which would do the job for not a lot of money - you can then fit an additional hard disk or swap out the existing one to get extra storage.

Minimum spec you could probably get away with that wouldn't be too painful would be a P3-500...

Rob.

Thanks, Rob.

Chris said you'd be able to help