Lewin

The DN2800MT went out of production when Intel went out of the motherboard business, shortly after the board was proposed here as a basis for the CAPS. I still got one from an Amazon dealer, and there may still be more stock around. It's really worthwhile to check, since this is a good board. I find the way it accepts a laptop supply more convenient than having to deal with pico supply hardware. It also has more than enough processing power; when I play 192/24 FLAC files, Task Manager shows only about 7% load. Another nice thing of this board is the mSATA port, which I'm using with an SSD that stores the operating system, JRiver Media Center and a couple of other programs. Be aware, that there is no graphics driver available for Windows 8.1 with this board. I'm using an earlier driver, which works for what I need, but it crashes with certain programs, e.g. most Apps and Internet Explorer. However, Firefox works fine. As I'm using the CAPS mostly via my remote iPad, the driver issue doesn't really bother me nor does it interfere with the audio operation.

I recently installed a powerline connection over 3 floors in a friends house. It worked quite well. However, it all depends on the particular internal wiring, and results may vary. You really have to try it out to see how it works in your environment. I would also recommend to search for some recent reviews of powerline network adapters. There are a number of different brands, likely of different quality.