M11x motherboard as custom "gaming nettop" for cheap?

So I've known for a while now that you can get an M11x motherboard for about $100-150 on eBay (depending on the revision). My little brother plays Minecraft but he has a really really old laptop and it runs super slow. We've looked into nettop computers and cheap laptops but they are all atom based with crappy graphics, and cost like $300-400. So I was thinking about getting an M11x motherboard and using some of my spare parts like the 2GB of RAM and the HDD that came with my R2, and making a custom case or something to turn it into a little DIY desktop computer. We have an extra flat panel LCD monitor from an old desktop plus quite a few spare mice/keyboards/speakers.

What I'm wondering though is, out of the M11x parts out there, what would be the absolute bare minimum parts needed to get this thing to boot into Windows? I'm assuming all you would need is the mobo+hdd+ram, then plug that into an external monitor via HDMI (sending sound over HDMI, speakers plugged into monitor), mouse/keyboard over the USB port, wired ethernet for internet, and you've got a fully functioning computer, right? Then we can always add extra parts on to it later if we wanted, like the I/O board, WiFi card, etc. and maybe eventually build it into an M11x if we really wanted to (the rest of the misc. parts seem pretty cheap other than the LCD assembly, and I've disassembled mine enough times to know the ins and outs pretty well). I don't know, it seems like it could be fun to put it together and build a custom case for it, and it would be nice to make use of all the spare parts we have, what do you guys think, is this feasible?

Edit: Oh right, I forgot, we would probably need the power button board, and an A/C adapter to power it.

 

Dude. This is a great idea.

The single built-in USB port and a hub would get you all you need for keyboard/mouse/install media.

But here's another hiccup I see:
Can you install Windows with external monitor only? I'll see what I can find out and let you know.

 

I've done this before using a laptop with a broken screen.

I used it as a carputer.

I just removes the broken LCD, connected a Lilliput display to the VGA connector and that was that.

Works like a charm.

Sent from a real Google phone

 

I couldn't get the BIOS or installation environment to display on an external screen. I didn't use any of the buttons on the built-in keyboard to try to make it work, partly because I figured your plan wouldn't necessarily have a built-in keyboard, but mostly because I forgot to.

 

Yeah I thought about that, like if I were to use an R1 motherboard, I don't think FN-F6 would work on an external keyboard to switch GPUs. The BIOS and Windows installation might prove tricky without the internal LCD, but on the few occasions I need it I could probably just plug it into my R2's LCD temporarily.

 

You could do it if you have a spare m11x to install on like you said.
I have thought about taking a spare m11x motherboard and installing it into my alienware lcd to make a nice little all in one.

The only issues that rise from it are getting to the bios to boot from the windows dvd (fixed if you just install with another laptop)
Getting fnf6 to work, but if your hooked up to a lcd, there is no need to have switchable.

But, you will need to have the power button, and the daughter board (if you want sould other than through the hdmi)