Hello, I can most certainly lend a hand here. I myself run a personal/business web server.
A server like you want (and what I have) does not require anything special at all. Here are my server specs:
MSI Motherboard
2.5Ghz socket 478 P4 Northwood
Stock CPU Cooling
1 GB cheapo ram
350W power supply
Floppy Drive
CD-RW Drive
8 GB Compaq piece of crap hard drive
200GB Seagate Hard Drive
300GB Seagate Hard Drive
Fans all over the place
Full tower computer case
On board LAN
Ok, floppy drive is optional (but recommended), cd-rom can be taken out after windows is installed if you will not need it (but recommend keeping it in), CPU is from 2 years ago (used to be my main computer CPU), Motherboard is actually new, but only because my crappy ECS board fried like burnt toast, Ram is cheap stuff I got just because it was on sale (different kinds of sticks) Power supply is the old one out of my main comp case because I upgraded that, 8GB drive is out of my Compaq computer from 6 or 7 years ago? And really isn’t used at all, just needed a place for it, 200GB hard drive is the main drive for the computer (OS, web server, etc), 300GB drive is bran new and I only got it cause it was on sale for a good deal, the fans that are all over are simply old fans that I had laying around (fans are not really needed, perhaps a intake at minimum), the case is my 4 year old case that I used to use for my main comp.
I would recommend a full tower case, better air = better cooling, especially for no fan systems. On my server I run e-mail hosting, web hosting, mysql server, FTP server, Ventrilo server (voice chat), and IRC server. These services use little or no CPU processes (yes even the voice chat). Ram is only using 194MB, and if I wanted to I could host a game server or two (maybe more) with no problems.
A good thing to have is Cable Internet or faster, but not wireless Internet. The problem with wireless Internet is that it is slow in reality. Why? Well, wireless Internet must ping back and forth between satellites, this causes delays, especially noticeable on a game server. Think of it this way: 1) you hold a football (server), 2) You throw the football to another person (User requesting stuff from server), 3) Other person catches the ball (User getting PART of the file/data), 4) Other person throws ball back (User requesting the rest of the data not sent, 5) You throw the ball again (User getting more of the file/data), 6) repeat 3-5
So basically to get you started I would recommend the following:
Decent motherboard (probably a brand name, only need a 3pci slot board)
2GHz processor or higher (AMD or Intel)
1GB or more rams
200GB Hard drive (relatively cheap these days, get a bigger one if possible)
Also, a good surge protector is recommended, even better if it is a backup battery (don’t get a cheap so called 15 minute backup battery, get a good one, probably $100US or more)
Hope I didn’t leave anything out. Please feel free to ask questions.