Guide to Building a HD HTPC [Text View] - Page 12

renethx

07-28-08, 06:27 AM

Thanks for that reply, renethx! I don't necessarily need post processing would you have a suggestion for a processor/mb combination that has very low power consumption/heat development and is still good enough for BluRay, 1080p mkv? How much does the 780G/Phenom 8450 combination consume?
Is it possible to boot the system via a remote control or what would I need for that?
Athlon X2 4850e is recommended. Power consumption of the total system consisting of CPU, mb, two sticks of memory, a HDD and a BD drive in Antec NSK2480 with two 120mm fans:

- Athlon X2 4850e: 46W at idle, 80W at BD playback
- Phenom X3 4850: 72W at idle, 94W at BD playback

To be able to boot via a remote, you will need a built-in IR receiver (as with Antec Fusion 430). But you can still wake up the system from S3 standby via a remote.

RichTJ99

07-28-08, 08:43 AM

Renethx,

With money not being an issue for the graphics (out of these two cards):

Giga 8600 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125070)

ASUS EN8600GT SILENT/HTDP/512M (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121098)

Which will fit & run better/cooler in the 430(or are those two items not compatible)?

My goal being quiet, cool (as much as possible), web/email/dvd with a slight possiblity of gaming (not likely though)

Thanks,
Rich

Skylinestar

07-28-08, 09:38 AM

i'm planning to build an HTPC.
after reading many articles about PCM and bitstream, i'm still confused about it.
i have a few MKV files with AAC 5.1 audio. in a conventional typical setup, AC3filter can output the audio in AC3 format, send the signal through SPDIF, and let the AVR decode the audio happily.
what if i'm using a motherboard that features LPCM? is the signal flow the same, but through HDMI port? or;
does the pc decode the AAC 5.1 audio, sending the audio stream, through HDMI, to the AVR, and let the AVR amplify the audio?
do i need a special AVR that can support LPCM? or just a typical AVR with HDMI?

sloth0815

07-28-08, 10:01 AM

Athlon X2 4850e is recommended. Power consumption of the total system consisting of CPU, mb, two sticks of memory, a HDD and a BD drive in Antec NSK2480 with two 120mm fans:

- Athlon X2 4850e: 46W at idle, 80W at BD playback
- Phenom X3 4850: 72W at idle, 94W at BD playback

So I guess I'll go with the Athlon. Is the Gigabyte still the recommended mainboard for HD3200 since there are now several mATX boards available? Would the Scythe Shuriken fit on the board?

renethx

07-28-08, 10:13 AM

renethx

07-28-08, 10:45 AM

renethx

07-28-08, 11:15 AM

Is the Gigabyte still the recommended mainboard for HD3200 since there are now several mATX boards available? Would the Scythe Shuriken fit on the board?
Yes.

Yes, Shuriken fits the board.

HT Slider

07-28-08, 01:27 PM

Post-processing is very good with Phenom and your choice is right. :) Find a good CPU cooler is the hardest part. The case height is only 94 mm.

- Zalman CNPS8700 LED (H67 mm) is perhaps barely OK.
- SilverStone NT07-AM2 (H36.5 mm) is designed for 65W, but perhaps OK for 8450.
- Dynatron A48G: too loud unless you change the fan.

I tried some of the lower profile CPU coolers, including the 8700 and found them relatively loud (the 8700 wasn't terrible, but I could hear it easily).

I then tried a ThermalRight Ultra 120 combined with an expensive 120mm Noctua fan, but discovered I couldn't install the cover.... (it was absolutely silent though and kept the CPU very cool)

Eventually I discovered that the Zalman 9500 AT (Intel PWM) was a perfect fit. I did have to raise the cover by about 1mm to make sure it didn't resonate on the cooler, but even with the Intel Q6600, the CPU cooler is very quiet.

The only time I can hear the cooler is when all 4 cores are running at 100% for extended periods of time. Even then, if the room temperature is in the 70°F range or less I can hardly hear it since upgrading to the HIS 3870 IceQ video card (that blows heat directly outside the case and has been totally silent). With the ATI 2600XT and heat staying inside the case, the Zalman 9500AT was audible when the CPU was really being taxed though. These new IceQ coolers work very well and are very quiet (some of the older ones had slightly out of balance fans).

One significant improvement to our HTPC's noise was when I installed an expensive Noctua 80mm case fan (http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=9&lng=en). It is so quiet (expecially as a function of the amount of air it flows) that I found I can crank the speed up quite a bit (using a fanmate; even at full speed it is very quiet) and this cools the case well enough that the louder fans slow right down. I highly recommend Noctua fans. They do cost quite a bit, but blow incredibly well and are incredibly quiet.

The loudest parts by far in my main HTPC are the Seagate hard drives.

sloth0815

07-28-08, 01:48 PM

I tried some of the lower profile CPU coolers, including the 8700 and found them relatively loud (the 8700 wasn't terrible, but I could hear it easily).

Did you try the Shuriken? I have read it is supposed to be very quiet. The WD Caviar Green should be quiet but since the case I am interested in (Lian-Li PC-C36) is not out yet I am a bit worried about the PSU that comes with it but I could still exchange it later.
Does anybody here add WiFi to their HTPCs?

Thanks,
Jonas

Skylinestar

07-29-08, 10:07 AM

AAC is decoded into LPCM by an AAC decoder, which is then sent to HDMI, then to AVR (preamp, amp), to speaker.

Any AVR supporting HDMI (not HDMI pass-through) can do this.

as far as i know, all AVRs with HDMI have the capability of HDMI pass-through.
i'm looking for a budget AVR, targetting the yamaha RX-V363. it can accept this LPCM signal from the pc's HDMI and deliver the sound to the speakers, isn't it?

gunbunnysoulja

07-29-08, 10:12 AM

as far as i know, all AVRs with HDMI have the capability of HDMI pass-through.
i'm looking for a budget AVR, targetting the yamaha RX-V363. it can accept this LPCM signal from the pc's HDMI and deliver the sound to the speakers, isn't it?

No, the av receiver needs a repeater, not switcher/pass through.

Without repeater, you will not get MPCM audio. The receiver needs to be able to accept MPCM.

You need to step up to the 463 for this.

Skylinestar

07-29-08, 11:32 AM

No, the av receiver needs a repeater, not switcher/pass through.

Without repeater, you will not get MPCM audio. The receiver needs to be able to accept MPCM.

You need to step up to the 463 for this.

ok. now i understand.
quote from yamaha 463 brochure:
HD Audio LPCM 5.1-channel reception (up to 96kHz)
any alternative from onkyo or denon that support multi channel LPCM at a low price?
does multi channel LPCM work for pc games?

gunbunnysoulja

07-29-08, 11:55 AM

ok. now i understand.
quote from yamaha 463 brochure:

any alternative from onkyo or denon that support multi channel LPCM at a low price?
does multi channel LPCM work for pc games?

My #1 inexpensive recommendation always goes to the Marantz 4001 found here (http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/MARSR4001/MARANTZ/SR4001-80w-x-7ch-Surround-Receiver-w/HDMI/1.html).

If you want new, it's $50 more.

Further recommendations can be found over in the Amps, Receivers and Processors section.

tyfoon

07-29-08, 02:59 PM

I have just upgraded from a HDMI 1.1 TV (a philips 37PF9731) to a HDMI 1.3 TV (Philips 42PFL9703) and with this change my audio part of my HDMI from my HTPC is not working anymore. (Spdif to receiver still working OK, checked cable, checked port etc.)

My current setup is a P5B-E Plus MB with a MSI 7600GT HDMI graphic card. Audio is passthrough via a coaxil SPDIF connector to the videocard. I also have the MB Toslink connector conneced to my DTS/DD receiver.

I have tested all permutations to find the issue but the only reason I can think os why this suddenly stopped working is propaly related to the fact the the new TV has HDMI 1.3 and/or is more critical on the audio part of the HDMI signal.

Does this make sence? Any suggestions in how I can solve this problem e.g. is changing my somehwat outdated videocard with e.g. a 4850 a solution that will solve the problem?

renethx

07-30-08, 02:28 AM

tyfoon

07-30-08, 03:29 AM

@renethx; already tried this (by the way configuraion is still working on the original TV I was using) an it looks like a hardware/compatibility problem. The SPDIF connected to the receiver directly also works.

Do you know if there was a change in how the audio was 'injected' into the HDMI stream bij the first generation HDMI graphics card (like the one I have now MSI VGA GeForce NX7600GT Diamond Plus 256 MB ) versus the newer versions like a 8600GT? Or can it be that the SPDIF from the asus P5B-e Plus is not compatible with the correct HDMI standard?

I'm happy to buy new hardware, I just want to be sure it works...

renethx

07-30-08, 04:46 AM

I don't think there was a change.

tyfoon

07-30-08, 08:42 AM

I don't think there was a change.

Is there any other hardware related reason why this does not work anymore? could it be related to HDCP?

I'm really strugling with this and it is costing me heaps of time to find a solution!

renethx

07-30-08, 10:42 AM

Is there any other hardware related reason why this does not work anymore? could it be related to HDCP?

I'm really strugling with this and it is costing me heaps of time to find a solution!
HDCP matters only when you play premium contents (the player would refuse to play the content if HDCP is broken). Even if HDCP is broken, you should be able to get audio through HDMI for other tasks.

Try ASUS EN8400GS SILENT/HTP/512M GeForce 8400 GS card (~$30 after rebate). It's cheap and perfect for playing back BD movies. The card has an S/PDIF connector and you can use a generic DVI-HDMI dongle to get S/PDIF through HDMI. I used the card for a while and it worked fine.

romanTotale

07-30-08, 02:41 PM

renethx

07-30-08, 03:52 PM

First, thanks to all for the info in this thread.

I'm hoping to build a cheap and low power media server to stream to my ps3. I will keep it in a closet, and since hd pvr isn't really available now (right??), I probably won't worry about pvr at this point - so I'd like to just serve files. I don't need 14 TB of space to start, so I'd like to start small but keep expansion options open. So, based on the server build recommend in thread 2524, I was thinking of starting with the following:

Cooler Master Centurion 590 RC-590-KKN1-GP
ASUS M3N78 PRO AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8300
CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W
A-DATA 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
AMD Athlon X2 4050e 2.1GHz Socket AM2 45W

First - I was thinking of starting with only 3 to 5 drives and just using the mobo Raid 5 then adding the HBA and drive expansions when I need it. Is this a really bad idea? Would a pata drive (which I have) be the boot drive and the sata drives form the raid?

Second - I was thinking of using the 45w CPU above instead of the 65W Athlon 64 X2 4400+, is this also a bad idea?

Finally - I already have a 500gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 sata, would it be best to add identical drives, or just the same capacity drives? I don't care about noise, but I do care about power consumption

Thanks in advance for the suggestions, I've been having trouble finding recommendations for a small sized, 4-5 driver raid 5 media server online.
Using mb RAID 5 is a bad idea because it supports only up to 6 drives. Use a hardware RAID controller card from the beginning. But you'd better think about pros and cons of RAID 5. Tom's Hardware article Can Heterogeneous RAID Arrays Work? : Homogenous Vs. Heterogeneous RAID (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/HETEROGENEOUS-RAID-ARRAYS-WORK,1789.html) is interesting. There are several other choices: single drives, JBOD, unRAID (M3N78 PRO does not support it right now; go with AMD chipsets), FlexRAID.

45W CPU is no problem.

If you use a 500GB drive in a RAID array, all the other drives are limited to 500GB. That's one of the cons of RAID. You can mix drives of various size in unRAID and FlexRAID. If you buy new drives for storage, go with 1TB, in particular, Western Digital GP. As the number of drives increases, the difference of power consumption between GP and the other drives becomes large.

Maybe RAID specialists want to comment. :)

RockChok

07-30-08, 08:43 PM

I am focusing on the storage portion of the guide and thinking small. I figure with storage becoming cheaper I won't need a lot of drives. This is what I am thinking of building

Motherboad - GA-MA78GM-S2H
Memory - G.Skill 1GB DDR2 1066
Storage enclosure - Athena Power BP-SATA2131B 2 x 5.25
Case - APEVIA X-QPACK-NW-BK/420
CPU - AMD Athlon X2 4800+ 2.5GHz Brisbane
Drives(2) - Samsung Spinpoint S1 HD502lJ

Basically going for a backup solution with the ability to store pics, movies, tv shows, and music. This will feed a VMC which will then stream out up to 5 extenders not necessarily at one time though. Are there any mistakes I am making or limiting myself in some way by focusing on going small?

Thanks for any feedback

RichTJ99

07-30-08, 10:14 PM

romanTotale

07-30-08, 10:25 PM

renethx,

Thank you for the reply and suggestions. I currently have very little video data, and about 250GB of music, so I'd like to start small (and cheap) with the option to expand. I'm not intending to store any critical data on this server, so I'd just like to minimize inconvenience when a drive dies. I'd also like to keep the power consumption as low as possible so I can set it in a closet and forget it. UnRaid looks good except that I'd like to run XP or a windows server - I use TVersity (or I'll use something similar to stream to my PS3) & I probably like to add other server apps (maybe squeezecenter and tivoserver). FlexRaid looks very promising, if a bit young. Thanks again for highlighting these options.

urvi

07-31-08, 02:15 AM

I currently have a very budget HTPC but would like to start upgrading it. I want to start with a new mobo and go from there. I want to use all the current hardware i have (less ram) if possible. I have a wd raptor 150gb as the boot drive, a seagate 7200.11 750gb media drive. The GCC is a Sapphire HD3650 512 gddr2 (should be here soon). The CPU is a P4 3.2. The power supply is the one that comes with the microfly case, it a 400watt i belive. So my question is which mATX should a go with? I dont OC anything (don't have a clue how to but wouldn't mind learning), and the only game it might see would be Flight Simulator. Im going to use component to a Sony 60" but will switch it to HDMI when i get my new reciever (out of HDMI inputs). There's just so many boards out there that i can't tell which are good and which are bad. Thanks for any help guys.

renethx

07-31-08, 02:53 AM

renethx

07-31-08, 03:03 AM

Hi,

A quick question about the Fusion 430. It says it has a built in IR port. I cant seem to find it & my WMC remote doesnt work with it (when I plug in my IR USB it does). Where does the IR get its power from? My VFD is working & I figured it was all part of the same thing.
IR port itself is somewhere in VFD. As you see in the manual, you have to do three things:

- Connect the 3-pin pwer connector from VFD to the 3-pin connector from the PSU.
- Connect the USB connector from VFD to a USB connector of the mb.
- Install software.

renethx

07-31-08, 03:14 AM

RichTJ99

07-31-08, 08:11 AM

IR port itself is somewhere in VFD. As you see in the manual, you have to do three things:

- Connect the 3-pin pwer connector from VFD to the 3-pin connector from the PSU.
- Connect the USB connector from VFD to a USB connector of the mb.
- Install software.

Renethanx,

I have the VFD USB cable tied into the mobo & the VFD display works & displays information about my PC (which says to me that it is installed properly). The IR doesnt seem to work. There is nothing missing in the device manager, the 3 power pin is plugged into the power from the ATX, & the software is installed but I dont see the IR & my MCE remote isnt doing anything when I point at the unit. The IR should be on the front right?

On a side note (as this could be related) as these cables arent plugged in:

http://www.antec.com/us/support_roductInfo_FAQ.php?Qnumber=12&FAQno=24

I still dont get it, do the two wires get plugged into my Mobo, or into somewhere on the case itself? Do those wires get plugged into the VFD somewhere (if so, why didnt antec do that themselves)?

Thanks,
Rich

renethx

07-31-08, 10:18 AM

Renethanx,

I have the VFD USB cable tied into the mobo & the VFD display works & displays information about my PC (which says to me that it is installed properly). The IR doesnt seem to work. There is nothing missing in the device manager, the 3 power pin is plugged into the power from the ATX, & the software is installed but I dont see the IR & my MCE remote isnt doing anything when I point at the unit. The IR should be on the front right?

On a side note (as this could be related) as these cables arent plugged in:

http://www.antec.com/us/support_roductInfo_FAQ.php?Qnumber=12&FAQno=24

I still dont get it, do the two wires get plugged into my Mobo, or into somewhere on the case itself? Do those wires get plugged into the VFD somewhere (if so, why didnt antec do that themselves)?
This problem? (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11898865#post11898865) The thread is good for troubleshooting.

IIRC the two wires from the case power buttun go to the the two pins PWN & GND on the VFD module and the two wires (red and black) from the module go to the mb's power switch pins. Search with key word "wires" in the thread.

SteveV

07-31-08, 12:55 PM

First, thanks to renethx and to everyone that has contributed to this excellent thread. It's been 3+ years since my last HTPC build and this thread was a great place to catch up with the hardware changes/advances that have occured over that period.

I just finished up building a new box based on the following hardware:

ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Mobo
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
ASUS EN9600GT/HTDI/512M GeForce 9600 GT 512MB
A-DATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Antec True Power Trio TP3-650 650W ATX12V Power Supply
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA HDD
ZEROtherm BTF90 with manual fan controller CPU Cooler
Moneual MonCaso 932B HTPC Home Theater PC Case

Overall, I'm happy with performance, low heat, and low noise. One area that has been very disappointing has been the 9600GT. It was frustrating to find that PowerStrip was no longer usable with NVidia products. My bad of course--I should have done a little more reading before commiting to the 9600. It would have been helpful, however, if the hardware recommendations included a footnote indicating that PowerStrip with NVidia is a no go.

I'm using an older Mits WS-65909 RPHDTV so custom rez and timings are a must. After countless hours of screwing with the NVidia Control Panel's custom resolutions I was able to get it to work but the level of "tweakability" stinks. Also, I think that the picture is much softer than with my old 6600GT based HTPC--nothing to back this up really, just my impression.

The last straw was attempting to calibrate my TheaterTek video settings only to discover TheaterTek's video adjustment don't work with the 9600. I'm not sure where the problem lays but suspect it's another NVidia driver issue.

Anyway, I'm thinking of taking a 15% restocking hit at Newegg and returning the 9600 for a comparable ATI card. Can anyone suggest a model that works well with PS, low fan noise, etc?

Thanks again -- Steve

excise

08-01-08, 12:28 AM

Well, I've been lurking in this thread for a while and I think it's time to put one of these together for myself. I'm a first time builder so I thought I would run my BOM by you all for some assurance before I commit. I know the case is expensive compared to the rest of the system but the look of the case is important for me and I don't want to wait for the, better IMO, looking Omaura TF8 to be readily available and consistent in quality.

Case: OrigenAE S10V
Optical Drive: UJ-85J-B Slim Slot Load DVD+-RW
IR Module: OrigenAE IR221 Vista IR Module Kit for S10V, S14V, S16V, S21T
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX
Processor: AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core
CPU Cooler: Silverstone NT07-AM2
RAM: mushkin 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Power Supply: Antec earthwatts EA380 380W ATX12V v2.0
System Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200AAJS 320GB
Data Drive: Western Digital Caviar GP WD10EACS 1TB 5400 to 7200 RPM

I plan on running vista media center, and I will probably get a tuner in the not too distant future. I will probably also upgrade to a BD player when I get a TV to show off the difference, but that will be a while. If you see any issues or anything I have forgotten about, please point them out. And lastly, thanks to everyone who keeps this thread so interesting and full of great info, the help is very much appreciated.

Smitty2k1

08-01-08, 12:42 AM

jim tressler

08-01-08, 09:47 AM

I have had mixed results - I have an amd athlon 64 3000 paired with an ati 3450 and on some "ripped" 1080p movies from either a bd source or hd dvd source - the mkv file is sometimes hardware accelerated if I use the mpc codec from mpc-hc (media player classic home cinema - http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpc-hc/) with either media player classic or windows media player 11. The cpu load is around 10% and it plays beautiflly! Other ripped 1080p files get chopped to hell and the cpu is pegged at 100% - If I try to use a front end such as media portal - there is no hardware acceleration at all.. very strange.

720p material allways plays fine - even without hardware acceleration the cpu never gets above 60%

All of that being said - all of the 1080p stuff plays fine on my core2 duo e7200 with nvidia 6800 - cpu load never goes above 30% and thats with no acceleration.

Reading in other foruns i saw some people mentioning that .mkv files doesnt support hardware aceleration, is that true?

If yes, what people do to run such videos?

tyfoon

08-01-08, 10:54 AM

On the MSI site I noticed the introduction of the silent MSI N9500GT (passive).

On the site:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1534&maincat_no=130&cat2_no=136# (http://http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1534&maincat_no=130&cat2_no=136#)

It also states it supports 'multichannel PCM' only via 'HD Audio' (and not SPDIF).

Are there external audiocards (so not motherboards) that deliver multi channel audio to inject into the stream?

renethx

08-01-08, 11:18 AM

On the MSI site I noticed the introduction of the silent MSI N9500GT (passive).

On the site:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1534&maincat_no=130&cat2_no=136#

It also states it supports 'multichannel PCM' only via 'HD Audio' (and not SPDIF).

Are there external audiocards (so not motherboards) that deliver multi channel audio to inject into the stream?
Specs of GeForce 9500 GT (http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_9500gt.html) in the NVIDIA site.

Audio Input for HDMI: SPDIF

That means there is no way to get multichannel LPCM over GeForce 9500 GT HDMI.

Maybe the MSI card has an HD Audio Link header? If this is true, you could get multichannel LPCM with several motherboards with an 16-pin HD audio link header. For example,

GIGABYTE GA-G33-DS3R
GIGABYTE GA-G33M-DS2R
GIGABYTE GA-G33M-S2
GIGABYTE GA-G33M-S2L
GIGABYTE GA-G33M-S2H
Intel DG33TL
Intel DP35DP
ASUS P5E
ASUS P5E3
ASUS P5E3 Deluxe
ASUS P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP@n
ASUS Maximus Formula
ASUS Maximus Formula (Special Edition)
ASUS Maximus Extreme
Intel DX38BT
ASUS P5E Deluxe
ASUS Rampage Formula
Intel DG45ID (Icedale)

ASUS P5N32-SLI Premium/WiFi-AP
ASUS P5N32-E SLI
ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus
ASUS Striker Extreme
ASUS Striker

tyfoon

08-01-08, 12:27 PM

Maybe the MSI card has an HD Audio Link header? If this is true, you could get multichannel LPCM with several motherboards with an 16-pin HD audio link header. For example,

This card has just been released one of these last days. p.s. made a type in the previous link. should be: http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1532&maincat_no=130&cat2_no=136

On the site it mentiones:

Support for audio input via SPDIF and HD-Audio
Support for stereo as well as multi-channel LPCM audio streams (multi-channel is only supported via HD-Audio)
Support for Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus*, DTS, WMAPro, MPEG*, audio formats.
* The GPU supports these formats, but requires OS support to output audio in these formats.

Are there besides the motherboards , AUDIOCARDS only that support multi-channel LPCM?

I don't like to change my motherboard (whick is the P5B-E Plus, which unfortuantely is not on your list).

renethx

08-01-08, 12:30 PM

Are there besides the motherboards , AUDIOCARDS only that support multi-channel LPCM?
AFAIK, no.

If you don't like to change the mb, then you'd better wait for ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 or Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1. These cards do exactly the reverse way: grab video from a graphics card, mux it with audio and output them through HDMI.

SteveV

08-01-08, 01:16 PM

I'm returning my ASUS EN9600GT/HTDI/512M GeForce 9600 GT to NewEgg. I have an older Mits RPHDTV not being able to use PowerStrip to fine tune rez's with NVidia products is a problem.

So I'm looking for an ATI card with comparable performance to the 9600. I'm looking at either the HD 3650 or the HD 3850. Can someone confirm that PowerStrip works properly with these models.

Are there other options I should be looking at?

prosper0

08-01-08, 01:18 PM

awesome thread, thanks for all the hard work into compiling the info

jim tressler

08-01-08, 03:55 PM

this is the most comprehensive thread on anything I have seen in a while.. kudos to all the participate in it.. one problem is that there is so much info your head spins.. I was able to free up some money in the budget and was originally going to upgrade the TV - but after some research and viewing of the new crop of dlp and lcd and I have decided to stick with the crt rp :) - after we put the money back in the budget -I have a few hundred bucks to play with.. so what better way to squander the cash then upgrading the htpc :) - Case, PSU, RAM, Hard Drives, and video cards are all still good to go - so that leaves the cpu and mobo.. right now I have an athlon 64 socket 939 1.8ghz with a nforce3 or 4 mobo - anyway it chokes on some 1080p content.

How about this combo - Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L mobo and the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 - total price $226 - can anyone think of a better combo / bang for the buck? My current e7200 / asus pk5 Pro that I have for the desktop in the office seems to do quite well with 1080p stuff - hence the basis for my decision..

thanks

jim

renethx

08-01-08, 04:10 PM

How about this combo - Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L mobo and the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 - total price $226 - can anyone think of a better combo / bang for the buck?
You can save $13 by going with GA-EP43-DS3L. The only difference between them is P45 vs P43 (obvious :)); more precisely, P45 officially supports FSB 1600MHz and DDR2-1200 which you will never use, while P43 supports them in overclocking mode. There is no other difference as GA-EP45-DS3L does not have a second PCIe x16 slot.

gunbunnysoulja

08-01-08, 04:50 PM

Does anyone have a recommendation of an inexpensive amplified antenna for ATSC OTA HD content?

I just picked up the AVerMedia AVerTV Combo PCIe.

I don't get anything with the included antenna, as I'm about 80 miles from Boston... Which was expected. Analog cable from comcast works fine.

Also, if I want QAM unencrypted, am I also able to use regular analog cable channels via the same coax, and also ATSC OTA via an antenna?

I believe I read I lose functinality of one of these when bringing QAM into the picture...

SteveV

08-01-08, 05:09 PM

Does anyone have a recommendation of an inexpensive amplified antenna for ATSC OTA HD content?

Have you tried http://www.antennaweb.org. The website allows you to enter your address and other geographical info and returns a list of recommeded antennas.

carrera1

08-01-08, 05:15 PM

audionewer

08-01-08, 05:47 PM

i want to know if i can encode with this config:

Asus P5Q (P45) motherboard
e8400
ati 3450
4 GB of Ram (DDR-800)

i want to know if this system enough to encode or not? do i need any change on this system? can this system do PP (post-processing) or not?

etcarroll

08-01-08, 07:47 PM

Good grief - Winchendon?

I haven't been there in years. There will be nothing inexpensive about it, you are going to need a BIG UHF antenna on the roof, some altitude and a rotator and preamplifier.

You should be able to get the HDTV material on UHF by using a Channel Master 4228 and a Channel Master Titan 7777 mounted on the roof and using a rotator.

Gene

Does anyone have a recommendation of an inexpensive amplified antenna for ATSC OTA HD content?

I just picked up the AVerMedia AVerTV Combo PCIe.

I don't get anything with the included antenna, as I'm about 80 miles from Boston... Which was expected. Analog cable from comcast works fine.

Also, if I want QAM unencrypted, am I also able to use regular analog cable channels via the same coax, and also ATSC OTA via an antenna?

I believe I read I lose functinality of one of these when bringing QAM into the picture...

cnickersonjr

08-01-08, 09:56 PM

I have a mobo with intergrated (ATI Radeon X1250) GPU, which has DVI & VGA out. I have a VGA to component cable running from the PC to my Onkyo 604. A component to VGA cable then leaves the Onkyo to my Epson 83C projector. Now here is the problem.

I boot up my pc. I don't get any video until the log in screen for XP comes up. I log in, the screen flashes and I can hear the sound of it starting up but no video comes back up.

I then hook my monitor up via DVI. Lower the resolution from 1680X1050 to 800X600, thinking maybe the resolution was too high. I shut down then hook it back to my receiver. Weird thing is the resolution of the screen isn't 800X600 when the log in screen comes back up, and the same thing happens. No video after I log in.

I'm out of ideas, anyone else have any troubleshooting tips?

gunbunnysoulja

08-01-08, 09:57 PM

redjr

08-01-08, 10:12 PM

You made a great choice going with the Origen case. I have built systems with the S10 and TF8 and the S10 is supperior in quality and a little more generous with space. I also used the IR221 module but would probably not order it again since the built in IR was sufficient (unless you want a blaster). Good Luck!

I agree. That is one classy looking case. I've never seen that brand before. I'm jealous. I just might have to upgrade after seeing it. ;) Honey, can I have an extra $400.....

ericeash

08-11-08, 11:29 AM

origen cases look great

amicusterrae

08-11-08, 11:52 AM

Renethx and everyone--
I am having problems getting a picture over HDMI after I install the Nvidia chipset drivers. The mobo is the Abit A-N78HD. I bought an Athlon 64 X2 2.6Ghz, 65w CPU to go with it. After several weeks of trying to find an answer in forums online or from Abit tech support, I'm ready to give up and get another mobo with a different chipset. The problem seems to be an issue with my Samsung DLP TV and the Nvidia drivers. Sound familiar?

Since I already have the AMD X2 processor (and I cannot return it), and I want blu-ray playback, what about the new AMD 780G chipset? I see the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM is now in the recommedned systems list. My processor was fine with GeForce for smooth playback, but is it enough with the ATI integrated graphics, and what ATI video card would you mate with the mobo for better performance and occassional gaming?

Are people having issues with HDMI / DVI outputs and the ATI chipsets? I see cnickersonjr's post above--doesn't sound promising!

And, does Gigabyte have a good reputation for providing technical support?

gunbunnysoulja

08-11-08, 12:59 PM

outspoken

08-11-08, 02:17 PM

Since the database crash, I noticed everything after August 2nd was lost.

Hopefully there is a easy way for renethx to get the updated mATX config's back up.

I will feel really bad if all his hard work updating to the thread was lost for good.

as neat and tidy as he did everything i'm going to say he's probably the kind of person to have a local copy that was written up on his local machine before posting here.

i hope. ;)

gunbunnysoulja

08-11-08, 04:36 PM

8IronBob

08-11-08, 04:49 PM

brianley

08-11-08, 05:00 PM

Just curious, if I decide to upgrade my primary hard drive to a larger one, is it simple to switch over all data, including the OS and then boot from the new hard drive?

Wasn't sure if I was gonna need to re-install the OS when I go from my 320gb to 1TB.

Easy with programs like Acronis or Ghost - just add the new drive to the machine, use either program to clone the data from the old to the new and expand out the partitions in whatever manner you choose.

If you don't want to spend any money on software and have a intermediary place to store 300+ GB, you could use the backup program built into Windows to create a full backup, which you could then restore to the new hard drive - you'd have to perform a base windows install on the new drive though.

IMHO, the minimal cost of Acronis more than makes up for the savings in time. You can also use it for online, incremental backups of your system.

gunbunnysoulja

08-11-08, 05:04 PM

Easy with programs like Acronis or Ghost - just add the new drive to the machine, use either program to clone the data from the old to the new and expand out the partitions in whatever manner you choose.

If you don't want to spend any money on software and have a intermediary place to store 300+ GB, you could use the backup program built into Windows to create a full backup, which you could then restore to the new hard drive - you'd have to perform a base windows install on the new drive though.

IMHO, the minimal cost of Acronis more than makes up for the savings in time. You can also use it for online, incremental backups of your system.

awesome.. thanks!

SteveV

08-11-08, 05:30 PM

All drive manafacturers have disk utilities that will allow you to clone your old drive to the new one without having to install Windows on the new drive. If you bought a retail box drive it should contain a bootable CD that contains what you need.

If you purchased an bare oem drive, you should be able to download what you need from the manafacturers web site.

gunbunnysoulja

08-11-08, 06:09 PM

as neat and tidy as he did everything i'm going to say he's probably the kind of person to have a local copy that was written up on his local machine before posting here.

i hope. ;)

Since its back to normal, I'd say you were right. Renethx is the man!

BobZoron

08-11-08, 08:59 PM

Awesome. Just came here to pray that renethx still had his post somewhere

renethx

08-11-08, 09:47 PM

Since I already have the AMD X2 processor (and I cannot return it), and I want blu-ray playback, what about the new AMD 780G chipset? I see the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM is now in the recommedned systems list. My processor was fine with GeForce for smooth playback, but is it enough with the ATI integrated graphics, and what ATI video card would you mate with the mobo for better performance and occassional gaming?

Are people having issues with HDMI / DVI outputs and the ATI chipsets? I see cnickersonjr's post above--doesn't sound promising!

And, does Gigabyte have a good reputation for providing technical support?
Video playback performance of AMD 780G is basically equivalent to Radeon HD 3450, GeForce 8200, and GeForce 8400 GS. If you add a discrete graphics card, then the chipset itself does not matter. For example, you can use Abit A-N78HD + Radeon HD 3650 for better 3D performance.

renethx

08-11-08, 09:55 PM

I think that I already posted my build somewhere already, not on this thread, but one here in the HTPC forum. However, needless to say, I've got a pretty comprehensive AMD Phenom/nVidia build, and might go Blu-ray soon, even tho right now I'm primarily using my PS3 for BR, but may probably eventually go with a Blu-ray burner once they start to dip below $200. Any chance that the ASUS M3N78 Pro mobo will handle a BD-RE/RW without too much difficulty down the road?
I remember GeForce 9800 GTX+. If you use this card, ASUS M3N72-D (nForce 750a SLI chipset, the SLI x8 version of GeForce 8200/8300) is better because the card won't block SATA ports. Any of M3N78 Pro, M3N72-D and 9800 GTX+ should be able to handle BD-RE/RW.

TiaoMacaleh

08-11-08, 10:09 PM

My post disapeared, so i guess it was due to last night forum bug.

I need some help with my first HTPC config. I want it to be a media HUB, to play ripped HD videos 720p and 1080p .h264 .mkv / avc / wmv / etc. I'm looking for a low end config. One important note: in my local market (Brazil) there aren't many hardware options avaible, even that some motherboards are very recommended, most of them i simples can't find here avaible for sale.

The config:

Motherboard: ASUS M2A-VM HDMI
Processor: ATHL 64X2 5200+ 640KX2 (or 5600+)
2gb memory
500gb seagate SATA2 Hard Disk

Is that ok? Will i be able to play any ripped HD video?

renethx

08-11-08, 10:20 PM

amicusterrae

08-12-08, 11:39 AM

renethx

08-12-08, 12:23 PM

thanks, Renethx, that's what I was hoping.
If you match the discrete card with the integrated chipset, then both Nvidia and ATI offer some power saving features, right? What ATI card would you recommend to mate with the 780G? I like the idea of having a great card that doesn't draw a lot of power when it isn't needed.

And for what it is worth to anyone thinking of buying the Abit A-N78HD or any Universal Abit product right now, I think it's a good board with decent features. But, I have been unable to get ANY technical support from them over the last two + weeks. I've sent two emails, left phone messages, and waited on hold for one-hour stretches. Yesterday and Friday, I could only get a busy signal for the tech support line.

Anyone have an opinion on the support of other vendors like Gigabyte and Asus?
Power saving feature is offered only by the latest NVIDIA chipsets (GeForce 8200/8300, nForce 750a/780a SLI), called Hybrid Power, and it works only with the latest high-end graphics cards (GeForce 9800 GT and higher > $150). ATI chipset has a similar feature called PowerXpress, but right now it is available only on notebook PCs.

Usually abit USA does not reply to emails and phones. RMA has been excellent, however. It is rumored that abit has gone: Abit reportedly leaving motherboard business (http://arstechnica.com/journals/hardware.ars/2008/08/11/abit-reportedly-leaving-motherboard-business).

gunbunnysoulja

08-13-08, 01:48 PM

Does anyone know if the Asus Xonar HDAV1.3 will fit in the Antec Fusion 430?

LankyJ

08-13-08, 02:02 PM

Hello, sorry, new here, but I'm trying to put together an HTPC and I'd just like to know if what I've got is going to work for me, or is it all a lost cause?

An older (June 2005) HP A1130N w/ Windows MCE
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
3 gb RAM
Diamond Radeon HD 2400Pro 256mb
LG Super Mlulti Blue combo Blu Ray / HD DVD Rom Drive
47" 1080p JVC LCD TV

I don't have my DVI->HDMI Cable yet so I haven't been able to try any 1080p, but 720p seems to work fine, I'm no videophile, but the picture looks nice on my JVC. However, I noticed that PowerDVD is still using about 40 - 55% of my CPU when playing HD DVD's. Am I not getting any hardware acceleration here, or is that kind of CPU usage to be expected?

If that's the case with 720p, I guess I've got no shot at all with working 1080p without buying a new case and starting from scratch, right?

Thanks for any help!

John...

renethx

08-13-08, 02:25 PM

Does anyone know if the Asus Xonar HDAV1.3 will fit in the Antec Fusion 430?
From this picture (http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/4431/xonarhdav131024uq3.png), the card should fit Fusion 430 with no problem.

renethx

08-13-08, 02:36 PM

However, I noticed that PowerDVD is still using about 40 - 55% of my CPU when playing HD DVD's. Am I not getting any hardware acceleration here, or is that kind of CPU usage to be expected?

If that's the case with 720p, I guess I've got no shot at all with working 1080p without buying a new case and starting from scratch, right?
That's normal for a single-core processor. The CPU usage depends almost only on the source. If your source is 1080p with 40 - 55% CPU usgae, then your system should be fine whatever the output resolution is.

TiaoMacaleh

08-13-08, 09:35 PM

Perhaps yes.

Is that a yes or a no? :D

renethx

08-13-08, 09:48 PM

Is that a yes or a no? :D
The answer to the question "Will i be able to play any ripped HD video?" depends on the player you use. I assume you play ripped BD (and HD DVD) movies.

- PowerDVD/TMT: they are CPU cycle-hungry and even with a 2.9GHz processor you may see stuttering depending on the bitrate and the audio track (e.g. decoding TrueHD requires some CPU power).

- Media Player Classic with, say, CoreAVC: OK.

whiskeynsoda

08-13-08, 11:47 PM

I want to build an HTPC mainly for recording tv, but wondering if its wiser(cheaper) to buy a media computer.

This is what I was speced out:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz
ABIT AX78 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
EVGA 512-P3-N861-AR GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1800
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA

This is just the meat and potatoes, but is this config. overkill,
is the tuner card a wise choice?
is the CPU gonna be fast enough?
is the video card decent (if i wanted to play the occasional game)?
How will this look on a 50" Plasma?

Cheers

Jim

TiaoMacaleh

08-14-08, 12:39 AM

The answer to the question "Will i be able to play any ripped HD video?" depends on the player you use. I assume you play ripped BD (and HD DVD) movies.

- PowerDVD/TMT: they are CPU cycle-hungry and even with a 2.9GHz processor you may see stuttering depending on the bitrate and the audio track (e.g. decoding TrueHD requires some CPU power).

- Media Player Classic with, say, CoreAVC: OK.

What kind of modification do i need for a more compatible/future proof setup? Better cpu?

renethx

08-14-08, 06:53 AM

renethx

08-14-08, 06:55 AM

What kind of modification do i need for a more compatible/future proof setup? Better cpu?
You can add a video card later for perfect playback with PowerDVD/TMT.

Skylinestar

08-14-08, 11:48 AM

how does a typical 42" plasma (1024x768..not FullHD) handles HTPC job through HDMI? Does Vista Media Center works with plasma and display everything properly in widescreen? How about watching widescreen movies using media player classic? will the soft-subtitle be place at the correct place, which is at the bottom? I am worried due to the weird plasma res compare to that of lcd which has 1366x768 res.

gunbunnysoulja

08-14-08, 01:23 PM

Would the EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1 790i be a better option than the MSI P7N Diamond 780i, if gaming was a factor besides HT?

I do realize there is a significant price difference, unfortunately.

renethx

08-14-08, 01:57 PM

renethx

08-14-08, 02:07 PM

Would the EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1 790i be a better option than the MSI P7N Diamond 780i, if gaming was a factor besides HT?
Basic difference is memory: DDR3 vs. DDR2. If you look for the best performance in gaming, you should choose DDR3. You can find several benchmark results between 780i and 790i on the Internet.

gunbunnysoulja

08-14-08, 02:21 PM

Basic difference is memory: DDR3 vs. DDR2. If you look for the best performance in gaming, you should choose DDR3. You can find several benchmark results between 780i and 790i on the Internet.

great. thanks!

renethx

08-14-08, 02:28 PM

I will be on vacation until August 25th. During this period I can't answer questions in this thread. I am sorry for that.

amicusterrae

08-14-08, 02:34 PM

Have fun! With all your work on this thread, the break is well deserved.

gunbunnysoulja

08-14-08, 02:42 PM

I will be on vacation until August 25th. During this period I can't answer questions in this thread. I am sorry for that.

Have a great vacation. Thanks again for all your support and contributions to this thread.

tsteves

08-14-08, 05:37 PM

renethx
With all your work on this thread we should pay for your vacation!

RichTJ99

08-14-08, 10:07 PM

Renethx,

What would a comparable ATI card be to the Geforce series you recommended (8500, 8600)? I am looking for something fanless to replace my X300 ATI card (yep, you read that right :)

Thanks,
Rich

Lostclusters

08-14-08, 11:43 PM

I will be on vacation until August 25th. During this period I can't answer questions in this thread. I am sorry for that.

Have a great vacation!

bokis

08-15-08, 01:54 PM

I will be on vacation until August 25th. During this period I can't answer questions in this thread. I am sorry for that.

Well we all need one, with any luck thier be new drivers out when you come back :D

etcarroll

08-15-08, 02:28 PM

I will be on vacation until August 25th. During this period I can't answer questions in this thread. I am sorry for that.

Have a blast!

Vieux

08-15-08, 08:14 PM

Hi guys,

Bult my HTPc a few months ago foloowing the low end recommendations:

# Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G chipset microATX
# Memory: Crucial Ballistix BL2KIT12864AA804 DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit

Received the single sided chips, but tried anyway and all worked well for a while. Then I started to lose audio over hdmi, needing a reboot to bring it back.

Now the htpc won't even boot.

No POST. No Video.

It happened before, and leaving only one stick of ram did the trick to bring it back from the dead.

But not now.

So, i'm sick of troubleshooting. And the wife is about to go berzerk.

Please, please, please... what do you guys suggest as a worthy replacement to the board and ram?

I need to get this working 100%. All the time.

Thank you very much.

tsteves

08-15-08, 08:40 PM

Try reseating the ram and video card.
you may need to replace the ram, not sure why crucial memory would go bad, though.
Whats the video card, and whats the display?

SammyB

08-16-08, 05:56 AM

To my fellow HTPC builders, WARNING: NVIDIA HDMI driver (171.37) prevents you from hooking your HTPC to an HDMI switching receiver.

I built my HTPC based on the ASUS M3N78 PRO motherboard. I have the HDMI from the HTPC going into my Onkyo TX-SR705 receiver as one of the three inputs the receiver switches between. Whenever I switch away from the HTPC input, the HDMI port on the receiver goes electrically dead. This causes the NVIDIA driver (version 171.37) on the HTPC to uninstall the HDMI "monitor." When I switch back to the HTPC input, the NVIDIA driver will not automatically reinstall the "monitor" so I have to go to the NVIDIA control panel, do a hardware scan, find the new monitor, clone the VGA to the HDMI with no way to automate this. NVIDIA tech support confirms this behavior. Until they come out with a fix for the driver, my system is practically useless. My HTPC is in the basement with all of the other AV gear so walking downstairs to switch inputs is less than useful. I must now find something that will sit between my receiver and my HTPC that serves no other purpose than keeping the NVIDIA HDMI port electrically active.

Any suggestions (or google search terms) would be greatly appreciated.

John Tibbs

08-16-08, 07:15 AM

....To my fellow HTPC builders, WARNING: NVIDIA HDMI driver (171.37) prevents you from hooking your HTPC to an HDMI switching receiver...

Perhaps I misunderstood, but can you revert back to an older driver or has this been like this since you built it?

jim tressler

08-16-08, 08:20 AM

sammy - nvidia drivers have always done that.. both mechanical and electonic - so for my ati 3450 does not suffer from that problem

To my fellow HTPC builders, WARNING: NVIDIA HDMI driver (171.37) prevents you from hooking your HTPC to an HDMI switching receiver.

I built my HTPC based on the ASUS M3N78 PRO motherboard. I have the HDMI from the HTPC going into my Onkyo TX-SR705 receiver as one of the three inputs the receiver switches between. Whenever I switch away from the HTPC input, the HDMI port on the receiver goes electrically dead. This causes the NVIDIA driver (version 171.37) on the HTPC to uninstall the HDMI "monitor." When I switch back to the HTPC input, the NVIDIA driver will not automatically reinstall the "monitor" so I have to go to the NVIDIA control panel, do a hardware scan, find the new monitor, clone the VGA to the HDMI with no way to automate this. NVIDIA tech support confirms this behavior. Until they come out with a fix for the driver, my system is practically useless. My HTPC is in the basement with all of the other AV gear so walking downstairs to switch inputs is less than useful. I must now find something that will sit between my receiver and my HTPC that serves no other purpose than keeping the NVIDIA HDMI port electrically active.

Any suggestions (or google search terms) would be greatly appreciated.

zicoz

08-16-08, 08:58 AM

What cabinet do you use in the "and a new workstation recommendation" in the first picture in the OP?

And is it just me or is there a lack in the market when it comes to "shallow" 3U cabinets? Something as simple as this:

http://bildr.no/image/240927.jpeg

The top part is cabinet seen from above, and the bottom seen from the front. It really should be able to create something like this and sell it for not more then $75 shouldn't it? It could then be used for connecting extra disks to a NAS.

But is there a way to make the NAS see each and every HD in an external cabinet like this? I was thinking maybe one of those Addonics 5-to-1, but those just create a JBOD don't they?

Vieux

08-16-08, 08:58 AM

Try reseating the ram and video card.
you may need to replace the ram, not sure why crucial memory would go bad, though.
Whats the video card, and whats the display?

That's the first thing I did for the ram. The video card is integrated (HD3200).

Believe me, I took it all apart more than once, checking every connexion and reseating everything.

Tried booting with only with everything disconnected but ram and hard disk.

Two stick, one stick, no stick.

The fans turn, the hard disk spins. That's it.

I can't tell for sure if it's the ram or the board.

I've read nothing but horror stories about the crucial ballistix since they went with one sided sticks instead of the double sided.

The board is a GA-MA78G-S2H rev.1.0.
I might get something else as it seems to be complicated to find compatible ram.

I guess I should start with buying new ram sticks and see if it solves my problem.
Or maybe find another board more ram friendly, hoping to use those ballistix.

What do you think?

teknoguy

08-16-08, 10:46 AM

That's the first thing I did for the ram. The video card is integrated (HD3200).

Believe me, I took it all apart more than once, checking every connexion and reseating everything.

Tried booting with only with everything disconnected but ram and hard disk.

Two stick, one stick, no stick.

The fans turn, the hard disk spins. That's it.

I can't tell for sure if it's the ram or the board.

I've read nothing but horror stories about the crucial ballistix since they went with one sided sticks instead of the double sided.

The board is a GA-MA78G-S2H rev.1.0.
I might get something else as it seems to be complicated to find compatible ram.

I guess I should start with buying new ram sticks and see if it solves my problem.
Or maybe find another board more ram friendly, hoping to use those ballistix.

What do you think?

Have you tried getting into BIOS and resetting the board to it's default settings?

Also, most boards with a memory problem will beep a pattern on powerup, that you can decode by going to the MB website.

If there is no beeping on powerup, it may not be the memory.

-t

deshwasi

08-16-08, 11:28 AM

I have this setup:

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H mb
AMD BE-2400 CPU
2GB RAM

everything works good EXCEPT for the AVCHD files from my Canon Camcorder stutter. the file is a .m2ts on my htpc hard drive and drivers are pretty much upto date (just built this recently). I have ffdshow & Haali Media Spliiter installed and some registry hacks to make the files show up & play in Vista Media Center. Any ideas? is hardware acceleration working for these files? incidentally, the same thing plays smooth on my OC'd (3Ghz) E2180 PC with a 8600GT video card and the same software setup (ffdshow & haali media splitter).

BCDouglas

08-16-08, 01:15 PM

That's the first thing I did for the ram. The video card is integrated (HD3200).

Believe me, I took it all apart more than once, checking every connexion and reseating everything.

Tried booting with only with everything disconnected but ram and hard disk.

Two stick, one stick, no stick.

The fans turn, the hard disk spins. That's it.

I can't tell for sure if it's the ram or the board.

I've read nothing but horror stories about the crucial ballistix since they went with one sided sticks instead of the double sided.

The board is a GA-MA78G-S2H rev.1.0.
I might get something else as it seems to be complicated to find compatible ram.

I guess I should start with buying new ram sticks and see if it solves my problem.
Or maybe find another board more ram friendly, hoping to use those ballistix.

What do you think?

I have your exact board but use the G.Skill F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ w/o issue. I'm running the onboard HDMI (video & audio) to my Harmon Kardon AVR347 then HDMI to DVI on my Sony.

SammyB

08-16-08, 03:54 PM

Perhaps I misunderstood, but can you revert back to an older driver or has this been like this since you built it?

That's the one that shipped with the MB. NVIDIA says that is the designed behavior of their driver. :(

Xuivo

08-16-08, 05:27 PM

Hi all,

I've been reading this thread for a while. I'm looking to build an HTPC to replace my old Xbox. I was about to go with the recommended system from this thread, but I would like your input on the build.

CPU: Core 2 Duo E8400
Memory: DDR2-800 2 x 2GB Kit
Graphics Card: RADEON HD 4850/HTDI/512M
HDD: SEAGATE 320 GB SATA 2 (Already have one, not sure model number, I'm planning to stream anyway from a NAS, so no big need for a large hardrive in it)
PSU : OCZ Game XStream 600W (Already have, will use it if compatible)

Here's what I need input from you : ATX or mATX. From what I've looked, it would either be :

Motherboard: ASUS P5K-VM Intel G33 chipset microATX
CPU Cooler: Scythe NINJA MINI SCMNJ-1000
or
Motherboard: ASUS P5Q PRO Intel P45 chipset ATX
CPU Cooler: ZEROtherm BTF90

My needs are :

- Play HD and SD files (I will backup my DVD collection, I got some blu-ray and I want to be able to play the HD content found on the net (mkv, x264, etc.) with quality and stability.
- I connect to a Pionner Elite VSX-82 Receiver (7.1 setup) via HDMI to a Pionner Elite 5010 Plasma (1080p). The receiver does not decode directly the new HD audio codec neither is it HDMI 1.3, but I would want something futureproof on this side since I planned to upgrade it.
- Play audio (mp3, wav, FLAC, OGG, etc.)
- Rip and encode Blu-Ray disk (backup)
- Use it as a HD-PVR connected to a Bell Xpressvu (similar to direct TV)
- Play emulators (which is not a problem, I'm sure)
- Occasionnal gaming
- Be able to use a PS3 controller on it to control if possible (blutooth?) and/or harmony 880.

Can you give me your input on the build... I've let the case section empty for your suggestion, with the CPU cooler if possible? Do I need an audio card with this?

What would be a good frontend (simple)? I know XBMC is coming to windows, but in the mean time?

Lot of question, I know... But thanks for helping!

wiak

08-17-08, 12:58 AM

the 780G recommadaion needs a little tweak
if you pair a 780G/GX with a phenom it will enable more postprosessing of HD video

I have this setup:

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H mb
AMD BE-2400 CPU
2GB RAM

everything works good EXCEPT for the AVCHD files from my Canon Camcorder stutter. the file is a .m2ts on my htpc hard drive and drivers are pretty much upto date (just built this recently). I have ffdshow & Haali Media Spliiter installed and some registry hacks to make the files show up & play in Vista Media Center. Any ideas? is hardware acceleration working for these files? incidentally, the same thing plays smooth on my OC'd (3Ghz) E2180 PC with a 8600GT video card and the same software setup (ffdshow & haali media splitter).

what decoder do you use?
try Totalmedia theatre or powerdvd
those have hardware supported decoding that the motherboard you have supports

shanshan

08-17-08, 10:43 AM

Now I have finally ordered my new HTPC! :D
I went with the new G45 Gigabyte motherboard, since that was now available here in Sweden. Here is what I finally decided to order:

Antec Fusion Black 430
Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3,0GHz
Scythe Ninja Mini
Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD753LJ 32MB 750GB
LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray reader, DVD writer
Logitech diNovo Mini keyboard
FloppyDTV S2/CI Internal DVB-S2 receiver - HDTV

I'm gonna see (and listen) what the ALC889A sound chip performs like and see if I want to upgrade to a better separate sound card instead. I'm gonna use the analogue outputs to my receiver and HDMI to my Pioneer PDP-LX508D plasma.

mingus

08-17-08, 11:33 AM

which OS? I'm putting together something similar and can not decide between XP and Vista. Using a slim case and have not seen any low-profile or USB sound cards that look interesting so far. was hoping for higher-end 2 channel analog out also.

You will use adapter to adapt the mini phone jacks to RCA and run 6 RCA cables? that works for my Arcam receiver.

Now I have finally ordered my new HTPC! :D
I went with the new G45 Gigabyte motherboard, since that was now available here in Sweden. Here is what I finally decided to order:

Antec Fusion Black 430
Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3,0GHz
Scythe Ninja Mini
Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD753LJ 32MB 750GB
LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray reader, DVD writer
Logitech diNovo Mini keyboard
FloppyDTV S2/CI Internal DVB-S2 receiver - HDTV

I'm gonna see (and listen) what the ALC889A sound chip performs like and see if I want to upgrade to a better separate sound card instead. I'm gonna use the analogue outputs to my receiver and HDMI to my Pioneer PDP-LX508D plasma.

shanshan

08-18-08, 10:52 AM

which OS? I'm putting together something similar and can not decide between XP and Vista. Using a slim case and have not seen any low-profile or USB sound cards that look interesting so far. was hoping for higher-end 2 channel analog out also.

I'm gonna use Vista, but I will probably use Media Portal instead of VMC. When I was looking at sound cards, I was planning on the ASUS Xonar DX which is a low profile, but maybe you'd prefer a more high-end card?

You will use adapter to adapt the mini phone jacks to RCA and run 6 RCA cables? that works for my Arcam receiver.

Yes, that's the plan. :)

amicusterrae

08-18-08, 01:17 PM

Please, please, please... what do you guys suggest as a worthy replacement to the board and ram?

I need to get this working 100%. All the time.

On Newegg, there are A LOT of similar complaints about this board, though the overall rating remains high (I just ordered one). Some people think it has to do with the high temperatures generated by the integrated Northbridge graphics. In the 1.1 revision, Gigabyte put on a beefier heatsink, as well as a fan header. That seems like a an admission to me! What temps were you getting before failure? What case and how many fans are you using? Are you overclocking? There's a great thread on this mobo here at avs forum. You maky try there. If you RMA the board, you should get the new revision back.

If you wanted to stay with the 780G chipset, Asus has two microATX boards that compete with the Gigabyte. From what I can tell, the Asus boards have a beefier heatsink (same as Gigabyte's 1.1 revision) and they accept EEC memory, if you care about that. One has optical out, but neither board supports DTS or Dolby encoding. That was the dealbreaker for me.

You could switch to a Nvidia GeForce board and reuse the same AMD processor. I had a terminal problem with the Nvidia drivers and my Samsung DLP tv via HDMI, so I've given up on that chipset. Many, many others, though have had no issues.

Vieux

08-18-08, 08:51 PM

On Newegg, there are A LOT of similar complaints about this board...

...What case and how many fans are you using? Are you overclocking? There's a great thread on this mobo here at avs forum. You maky try there. If you RMA the board, you should get the new revision back.

Well, the case is the Antec Fusion 430, meaning two 120mm fans.
No overclocking.

I'm looking at the GA-MA790GP-DS4H as a replacement, but it is a bit early to get burned again...

ndabunka

08-19-08, 12:05 AM

myoda

08-19-08, 12:49 AM

Looks like the master is out until the 25th but I'll throw my question in here anyway. I use to build systems but that was 10 years ago. I currently design 4G wireless solutions so am still fairly technical. Now, here's my issue. I've got a desktop that runs my Cinemar component control software and I have been using it (just fine) to play movies and std DVD's to my SVGA projector. I understand that some video cards will process the video so the CPU processor doesn't matter that much so here's my question. Which is the cheapest AGP-type video card that off-loads the video processing from my CPU so that I can simply throw in this video card and a BluRay player into my PC to my LCD and Plasma 1080p systems? In reading the Buyers guide, it appears that only the GefForce products off-load the processing? Is that accurate? I can get one of the recommended Radeon 3650 for $70 but it seems that people writing reviews state that it doesn't off-load processing yet it's appears to be a favorite here in this forum. This HTPC is used ONLy for Whole house application control and BluRay playback only (no gaming, no ripping, etc). Any help or direction as to what video card would make the most sense would be appreciated. Remember that I can not use a PCI-E card at all. I "could" use a standard PCI but think that a 4x AGP card would be the best solution.

Hi - I am in the same boat you are. I weighed the options, upgrade, or build a new pc. I decided to upgrade - I get good performance from the living room pc, but wanted to add a combo blu-ray/hd dvd drive. (I have a Toshiba XA2, but am not ready to spend 300 bucks on a stand alone blu-ray device) The video card has to be HDCP compliant. Most GPUs do take the load off the CPU, so shop around. (Decent AGP cards are DDR memory are becoming harder to find, aren't they?) Make sure your power supply can handle the load. You did not indicate what your current mainboard and PC configuration is, but an 8X agp solution would move video data slightly faster.

I have an Asus P4P800-E Deluxe with a 3.2Ghz P4 chip. The bare minimum for blu-ray playback. Stuff to install later this week:

2 gb of OCZ Platinum DDR 400 sdram
LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray/HD DVD drive
Asus AH3650 Silent HTDI 512 MB Radeon HD 3650
Seagate Barracuda 7200 ST3750330AS 750GB SATA hard disk
CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W ATX12V V2.2 Power Supply (Those video cards draw some current)
We'll see how that works by this weekend. Let us know what you decide. Thanks.
By the way, all of the above components can be migrated to a more current motherboard, with the exception of the video card and memory. Guess I'm just old school....Cheers!

ndabunka

08-19-08, 01:35 AM

I didn't mention the motherboard directly but did demonstrate that it is a dinosaur. The AGP will do 4x (because I have a 4X AGP from ATI in it now). However, it is a single processor 600MHz AMD Athlon Slot A.

However, if the new graphics card can handle 100% of the processing I am hopeful that this CPU shouldn't be an issue. I also run Windows 2000 on this server rather than XP or Pissta and have no plans to upgrade. I use table PC's to access the control screens and can run the newer OS's on them if I want to.

I see a 512MG Radeon 2600 AGP card for $60 and also see the 256MB 3450's for ten or twenty less and then also see the 3650's but don't know why one is better than the other (and I've been on ATI's site for a while now. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right areas).

amicusterrae

08-19-08, 09:58 AM

The AMD/ATI 780G chipset offloads from the CPU. One review I read successfully played blu-ray with a Sempron processor (though they didn't recommend it with Vista)!

amicusterrae

08-19-08, 10:00 AM

Well, the case is the Antec Fusion 430, meaning two 120mm fans.
No overclocking.

I'm looking at the GA-MA790GP-DS4H as a replacement, but it is a bit early to get burned again...

Well, the Fusion should have great airflow. That board you picked looks awesome with the heatpipe, but it won't fit in that case.

Have you tried getting a replacement from Gigabyte?

wellVersed

08-19-08, 10:15 AM

Does anyone have any good information on how to make a choice if neither of the prices bother me?

I am not much of a gamer, but it seems to me that the NVIDIA is 2x as powerful a card than the ATI.

Silence is golden though, and thus a requirement.

shalom

08-19-08, 11:00 AM

Hi all, this is my first post.

and I'm looking to fix up a HTPC.

After gathering some info here, I've come up with this config:

AMD X2 5000+ (65W) or 4850e (45W)
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H using onboard graphics and sound.
1x 2Gb DDR800 Ram
1x WD6400AKKS Hdd
1x DVDRW or DVD-rom
Antec NSK2480 (with supplied 380W PSU)

I don't game, so I don't need graphic card to install.
I intend to use this for watching HD videos / DVD / DivX playback via LCD TV. Other usage are web browsing, emails, IM chats, photos, Office, music on Audioengine A5 speakers.

Between AMD and Intel cpu, which is a better choice now?
Is there any suggested equivalent Intel cpu for the above setup?
Any comments, please feel free to response. Thanks.

zicoz

08-19-08, 12:23 PM

Could anyone tell me how an OS will see disks connected to one of the Addonics 1-to-5 SATA port multipliers?

Wil it see 5 disks, or one raid/JBOD?

ndabunka

08-19-08, 12:51 PM

The AMD/ATI 780G chipset offloads from the CPU. One review I read successfully played blu-ray with a Sempron processor (though they didn't recommend it with Vista)!

Are you implying that the 2600 uses a 780G chipset? If so, I don't see any references to that on ATI's website for the 2600. I would think that a Sempron would support just about anything (including BluRay). I guess my question is "would the 780G chipset" also run BluRay with a MUCH older Athlon processor like I have.

zicoz

08-19-08, 12:59 PM

Well that depends completely on what old Athlon you have, if it's just a AMD Athlon Socket A then I really doubt it.

ndabunka

08-19-08, 01:06 PM

Hi - I am in the same boat you are. ...I have an Asus P4P800-E Deluxe with a 3.2Ghz P4 chip. The bare minimum for blu-ray playback........Cheers!

If this really is accurate then my CPU wouldn't be adequate as it is nowhere near that speed (it's probably about a 1/4th your CPU's capacity). So, I go back to the OP who posted "NVIDIA's second generation PureVideo HD engine provides 100% offload for H.264 decoding. That means that any decent PC with a video card with this engine can play back HD contents smoothly"

My current PC is "decent" IMHO as it does everything it needs to to support the minimal functions it is currently doing. The only thing I don't know is if it is "decent" ENOUGH in regards to playing BluRay disk if all the graphics processing is (actually) truly being handled directly by the graphics card.

If a certain processor is needed in order to assist in this offload, then it might not work. If this is the case then maybe I haven't read enough on this subject.

ndabunka

08-19-08, 01:09 PM

Well that depends completely on what old Athlon you have, if it's just a AMD Athlon Socket A then I really doubt it.

Yes, as stated four or five posts above ^^^ it is just a 600MHz Athlon Socket A. I was looking for others who may have already done something like this but it does appear that most in here are only working with the newer CPUs and therefore may not have the expertise necessary to provide guidance on such an effort.

Therefore, it looks like I will try it and let others who might want to try the same thing how it turns out. Heading to one of the local B&M stores that will accept returns if it doesn't work. It doesn't look like it would cost much (under $500) to build a new 2U-height, rack-mounted mid-range HTPC to fit into my 19-inch equipment rack.

chanakya

08-19-08, 02:17 PM

Looking for the same here. I am thinking of
Antec New Solution NSK2480
GA-MA78GM-S2H
Vista 32 Ultimate
AVerMedia AVerTV Combo PCIe MCE ATSC/NTSC/QAM Tuner Card
Ninja Mini (SCMNJ-1000) + Athlon x2 be-2400 cpu
A cheap Scythe SY124010L fan should cool the northbridge...

MrFoxer

08-19-08, 03:01 PM

Could anyone tell me how an OS will see disks connected to one of the Addonics 1-to-5 SATA port multipliers?

Wil it see 5 disks, or one raid/JBOD?

I looked into this and concluded that it will look like 5 disks connected to 5 SATA ports. If you want to configure it as RAID/JBOD, you can. You do it the same way you would with 5 disks connected to 5 separate ports. See here. (http://www.sata-io.org/portmultiplier.asp) I haven't actually bought one yet, so this is not from personal experience.

zicoz

08-19-08, 03:40 PM

Thanks I'll probably try it out then :)

MrFoxer

08-19-08, 04:11 PM

Thanks I'll probably try it [a port multiplier] out then :)

My conclusion was that software like FlexRaid or UnRaid would work fine, but I wasn't certain what would happen if I tried to use a built-in bios to mirror/raid the drives. I suspect that won't work, so make sure you can return or wait for some more comments from someone who has tried it if that's important to you. Let us know how it turns out if you buy.

tahalouzi

08-19-08, 05:22 PM

thank yoooooooooooou

ansetou

08-19-08, 05:52 PM

Guys, I'm trying to build a powerful HTPC system for watching OTA HD TV, download movies, home HD video view/minor editing/database. My selecting criteria is to build a system using almost the best components that has very good cost/function ratio. I tend to pick not the most advanced parts unless I have to. Also, since this whole thing takes so much time, I do pick parts that will allow my system to be useful for maybe the next 5 years. So here is my list:
CASE
Thermaltake DH101 $209 zipzoomfly.com
MOBO
ASUS P5Q Deluxe Intel P45 $190 zipzoomfly.com
MEMORY
CORSAIR PC2-8500 TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF 4GB $139 zipzoomfly.com
CPU
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processors Q9550 $326 zipzoomfly.com
HDD
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD753LJ 750GB 7200 RPM 2 for $220 zipzoomfly.com (RAID 1 setup)
HEATSINK
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - Retail $37 newegg.com
POWERSUPPLY
CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX $76 zipzoomfly.com
VIDEO CARD
ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M $188 newegg.com
KEYBOARD/MOUSE
Logitech diNovo Mini $133 amazon.com
HD TURNER
Silicondust HDHomeRun $142 amazon.com
DVD DRIVE
LG Blu-ray Burner GGW-H20L $250 newegg.com
OS
Windows Vista Ultimate Service Pack 1

TOTAL COST: $1,910

Please let me know what you think about this whole setup or each component. If you have a better part, definitely let me know.

I'm especially not sure about the Blu-ray burner. I'm not even sure if I need the write part of it as I plan to use the HDD for storage. When I need more space in the future, I think will most likely get a RAID tower for that. Even for sharing data with other ppl, I think I can use a USB drive for that. So maybe I should just get a RD ROM + DVD R/RW (LG GGC-H20L $150 ) ? What do you think.

Thank you.

myoda

08-19-08, 10:11 PM

Are you implying that the 2600 uses a 780G chipset? If so, I don't see any references to that on ATI's website for the 2600. I would think that a Sempron would support just about anything (including BluRay). I guess my question is "would the 780G chipset" also run BluRay with a MUCH older Athlon processor like I have.

Hi - you need more horsepower - run this tool for a breakdown on what you need for smooth playback. The 780G socket has a different pin array than your current processor, won't fit.

http://www.cyberlink.com/english/support/blu-ray_support/index.jsp

Vieux

08-19-08, 10:44 PM

Well, the Fusion should have great airflow. That board you picked looks awesome with the heatpipe, but it won't fit in that case.

Have you tried getting a replacement from Gigabyte?

Hmmmm, you sure it won't fit?

Damn...

I guess it's time for RMA then...

I've tried everything again. Took it all apart. Reassembled everything out of the case. NADA. No post.

Since I've only had it for 5 months, I should be able to send it back to the e-merchant.

Hoping for a credit. Or at least a rev1.1 board.

ndabunka

08-19-08, 11:46 PM

Hi - you need more horsepower - run this tool for a breakdown on what you need for smooth playback. The 780G socket has a different pin array than your current processor, won't fit.

http://www.cyberlink.com/english/support/blu-ray_support/index.jsp

Moda - Thanks but (of course) I am QUITE familiar that the 780G is a VERY different processor. I wasn't even considering changing the CPU. In fact, the OBJECTIVE is to do this without doing anything EXCEPT upgrading the Graphics card (as it appeared possible from what the creator of this thread had originally posted in his initial outline). Heck, maybe I'd even kick $400 into one of the higher end video cards with the premise I could re-use it in the future in my next system. Of course, then I would need to find one that used the standard PCI bus rather than PCI-e as my current motherboard only has PCI and/or AGP. However, I think nearly all the higher end ones assume you have the PCI-e bus that they can then leverage. If it won't work, it won't work. But I would at least like to give it the ole college try before I jump over to alternate motherboards, CPUs, memory, case, etc...

Thanks for the performance link but it doesn't appear applicable. Rather, it shows that they recommend higher-end/newer CPU's and this is an older CPU not capable of anywhere NEAR those speeds. Of course, the entire premise is that ALL the graphics processing would be occurring on the Graphics card and therefore the CPU doesn't need to do much (if anything) in order to support BluRay playback. At least that is the way I read the OP's original post in this thread. Seems nobody has addressed this yet. I wonder why nobody directly answers my inquiry but rather reverts back to these reference points. If that site has something on offloading the graphics processing onto the video card, then I must have missed it.

The application they offer is useless to me at this point in the process as I don't yet have a high-end graphics card on which to run the tests.

Actually, the site does reinforce my approach by using the following statement in their FAQ's...
"Which graphic cards support Hardware Decoding?

The playback of Blu-ray Disc requires a powerful computer, such as a Dual-core or Quad-core CPU. Some graphics cards include hardware decoding, meaning that you don’t need to use a powerful computer. When you play back Blu-ray Discs, the graphics card will share the decoding process and reduce the CPU usage. The following is a list of the graphics cards that support hardware decoding:
Nvidia: GeForce 8000, 9000 Series
ATI: ATI Radeon HD 2000, 3000 Series"

Of course, I already know that these cards support the decoding (from this forum) but what remains unclear is ... How weak of a computer can I use in the role outlined by this statement"? Nobody on here appears to know (yet)... Certainly, someone on here has tried it with a 1.2 celeron, right?

duff99

08-20-08, 03:23 AM

tsteves

08-20-08, 08:01 AM

amicusterrae

08-20-08, 11:47 AM

Just wanted to update the thread on my successful build and offer my thanks, as it is finally working great:

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H microATX mobo w/ integrated AMD/ATI 780g chipset, rev. 1.1
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6 GHz 65w CPU
2 x 1GB Kingston EEC server memory DDR2 800 (KVR800D2E5K2/2G)
Scythe Ninja mini cpu cooler
Antec Fusion Versis Black case
Western Digital caviar blue 500GB hard drive
Sony Blu-ray drive BDUX10S

I first tried an Abit A-N78HD mobo with Nvidia GeForce 8200 integrated graphics, but I could never get display over HDMI after installing the chipset drivers.
So, I returned the Abit and got the 780g board, and what do you know, 1080p over HDMI--no problem! I liked the EEC support in the Abit board (which was why I bought server memory), but it's not a big deal.

The Gigabyte board has DTS connect and optical out, which is great if your receiver doesn't accept HDMI. And, the two channel version of PowerDVD that came with my drive is sufficient for now, as I still get a multichannel DTS signal over the optical out.
I chose the Sony drive because of a lot of recent negative comments on Newegg about the Lite-on drive. And, I figured Sony should provide the best firmware support considering they developed blu-ray.

I almost went with the 45 w X2 processor, but I decided it wasn't worth the slight price premium since you can undervolt a 65 w processor if you really want to.

My experience with the Scythe nija mini was a hassle--it's a scary mounting process for rookies like me. On the Abit, I had to really crank it down, but on the Gigabyte, it is not as tight. Somewhere in between would have been nice. Still, it is a good match with the Fusion case. I'm using the Arctic Silver ceramique and it really does take a few days for the temps to come down.

The case made for an easy build. All in all this was a lot easier than I expected. The biggest headaches were the software issues related to the Nvidia chipset drivers and my TV. I haven't tried the Fusion's display yet--another long story!

Thanks to Renethx and everyone else for your help. And, to any other first time builders--you can do it.

ndabunka

08-20-08, 01:12 PM

ndabunka
There is no way!
My 3Hz P4 is not good enough according to the Cyberlink Blu Ray advisor.
A 600MHz Athlon? You can run XP on it, but does any program work fast?
Spending money on an AGP slot video card is wating your money. All new boards have pci express, none have agp slots.
Spend the $400 on a new computer.

I guess you see my point. The Advisor ONLY shows CPU requirements WITHOUT regard to the considerations required when the Graphics board takes over the graphics processing function so your right, there is no way to tell if my Athlon will work using that type of analysis.

ndabunka

08-20-08, 01:21 PM

ndabunka I think the reason that nobody has directly answered your question is that nobody has a definitive.

As we all know the oracle is on vacation, he'd probably give you a proper answer. As for my two cents. I strongly suspect that even with a high-end video card you'd be out of luck. Even if the video card could handle it I think the rest of the sub-systems couldn't keep up. Then you'd have software issues to deal with also.

If your willing to spend $400 on a video card then your most of the way to a new HTPC. Get a motherboard with IGP and you might be able to reuse some of your old things, drives, maybe even the case.

You could also find one of the cheap pre-builts and add a $50 video card and still be pretty close to $400.

AGP is dead. It's going to be pretty hard to find a modern video card using it. Especially a high-end one. Spend your money on something that will have a more useful life span. Good luck.

Duff - Thanks for the well thought out response. I agree that AGP is dead and that was one of the reasons I figured I might be able to find a high-end card with AGP pretty darn cheap (The 512MB ATI 2600 that was (and still is) $150 at most places is available on clearance for $70).

I have already scoped out a replacement Motherboard/CPU/Memory combo (if necessary) for $180 that I can use if I decide to replace the MB and would most likely use of the mid-level $100 graphics boards (I can't find any with the rebates others mention) for a total of $300 or so. However, being an engineer, I am still interested in KNOWING if the $70 card can actually off load all the processing as indicated by both the original creator of this thread as well as the vendor site I quoted above.

ansetou

08-20-08, 01:35 PM

Any one care to comment on my list? Newbie needs help here. Thank you.

Guys, I'm trying to build a powerful HTPC system for watching OTA HD TV, download movies, home HD video view/minor editing/database. My selecting criteria is to build a system using almost the best components that has very good cost/function ratio. I tend to pick not the most advanced parts unless I have to. Also, since this whole thing takes so much time, I do pick parts that will allow my system to be useful for maybe the next 5 years. So here is my list:
CASE
Thermaltake DH101 $209 zipzoomfly.com
MOBO
ASUS P5Q Deluxe Intel P45 $190 zipzoomfly.com
MEMORY
CORSAIR PC2-8500 TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF 4GB $139 zipzoomfly.com
CPU
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processors Q9550 $326 zipzoomfly.com
HDD
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD753LJ 750GB 7200 RPM 2 for $220 zipzoomfly.com (RAID 1 setup)
HEATSINK
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - Retail $37 newegg.com
POWERSUPPLY
CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX $76 zipzoomfly.com
VIDEO CARD
ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M $188 newegg.com
KEYBOARD/MOUSE
Logitech diNovo Mini $133 amazon.com
HD TURNER
Silicondust HDHomeRun $142 amazon.com
DVD DRIVE
LG Blu-ray Burner GGW-H20L $250 newegg.com
OS
Windows Vista Ultimate Service Pack 1

TOTAL COST: $1,910

Please let me know what you think about this whole setup or each component. If you have a better part, definitely let me know.

I'm especially not sure about the Blu-ray burner. I'm not even sure if I need the write part of it as I plan to use the HDD for storage. When I need more space in the future, I think will most likely get a RAID tower for that. Even for sharing data with other ppl, I think I can use a USB drive for that. So maybe I should just get a RD ROM + DVD R/RW (LG GGC-H20L $150 ) ? What do you think.

Thank you.

jim tressler

08-20-08, 01:51 PM

I would say you are not going to have any problems doing what you want... What is your front end going to be?

fitret

08-20-08, 01:54 PM

This is pretty much exactly what was recommended for a mid-range system, but here's my wishlist.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=5162329

Additionally, I have a Microsoft Remote Control and Receiver for Media Center PC with Windows and a have a DVD-RW drive that I'll put into the system and I'll be loading 32-bit Vista. I also have a M-Audio Revolution 5.1 sitting around collecting dust (I'm running Vista 64-bit on my new PC, and that sound card isn't supported :() Is there a benefit to putting that in my HTPC, or is the onboard sound chip from that motherboard sufficient?

I have both a 360 and a PS3, so I have no intention of ever adding a blu-ray drive or an HD-DVD drive.

I want to use the PC for gaming, but not hardcore gaming - just emulated SNES games and the like. My primary use will be watching pre-recorded content (both SD and HD), though I'd also like to be able to record TV and backing up DVDs would be nice since storage is so cheap. I'm having a hard time deciding between the two HD tuner cards that are in the OP. Is the advantage of the network one just that it can go to multiple PCs, or that your cable input doesn't have to be in the same physical location as the HTPC? Can they both do 1080p? Should I even care about recording 1080p since most TV stations are only 720p?

Edit: The more I think about it, maybe I should just get one of the high-end systems since I'll want to record TV and back up DVDs. Given what I want to use the system for, which is recommended, or are they really all about the same?

Lastly, have I forgotten anything? The list on newegg + what I already have is the full extent of what I'll be ordering.

ansetou

08-20-08, 02:33 PM

I would say you are not going to have any problems doing what you want... What is your front end going to be?

I understand my system is powerful enough to handle the work I plan to throw at it. I was more worried about one component not matching another in performance. Do you all think I should go with a $326 Q9550 instead of a $188 E8500 (Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16 GHz 6MB )? My friend thought the Q9550 is an overkill given that not all softwares are taking advantages of the 4 cores yet. But I think that will happen in a short time and if I upgrade my CPU, say, in 2 years, I expect to spend more than $140 for a Q9550 then. So why not get that power now and start enjoy it early? What do you think?

Also, do you think I should get a BD burner? Like I explained in my original post, I plan on using the RAID 1 setup to store all data and share data using USB drives. So I really don't see any need to burn a big BD disc. In fact, I've never burnt a DVD/CD that I actually used since maybe 2005. SD and USB HDD have really taken over in storage in my lifestyle.

By front end, do you mean software? I'm not sure about that yet. I guess this would be the next thing to research. Any recommended thread on this?

If you meant what's for display, I currently have a 4 year old 42" plasma which I'm think about replacing soon. The resolution of it is just way too low for today's standard (1024x768).

jim tressler

08-20-08, 03:18 PM

Either the quad core or the dual core would be fine as far as playback. The speed difference should come into play if you get into encoding and editing - how much of a speed difference.. no idea. A few seconds would be my guess. If spending $140 extra is not a budget killer now.. then why not...

Where will you play your media? If you are just going to play it on the pc you record it to, then a bd burner is a waste at this time. Give them a year and they will be cheaper. Plus look at the cost of media - through the roof. If you are going to port it then there are other options out there that are more cost effective - but it depends on how you plan on using it. From what it sounds like you are already using the more cost effective alternatives. You may just want to get a bd rom drive to play blu ray flicks instead.

Front end means the way you view your media - ie.. Windows Media Center, SageTV, GBPvr, MediaPortal... I currently use MediaPortal - free and open source - but it has its drawbacks when it comes to atsc signals. Look around and you will find many - for me the htpc does not have a keyboard or mouse - its all done via radmin and a remote.

You dont list a remote.. is this more a living room unit or in an office where the keyboard and mouse are right there?

I understand my system is powerful enough to handle the work I plan to throw at it. I was more worried about one component not matching another in performance. Do you all think I should go with a $326 Q9550 instead of a $188 E8500 (Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16 GHz 6MB )? My friend thought the Q9550 is an overkill given that not all softwares are taking advantages of the 4 cores yet. But I think that will happen in a short time and if I upgrade my CPU, say, in 2 years, I expect to spend more than $140 for a Q9550 then. So why not get that power now and start enjoy it early? What do you think?

Also, do you think I should get a BD burner? Like I explained in my original post, I plan on using the RAID 1 setup to store all data and share data using USB drives. So I really don't see any need to burn a big BD disc. In fact, I've never burnt a DVD/CD that I actually used since maybe 2005. SD and USB HDD have really taken over in storage in my lifestyle.

By front end, do you mean software? I'm not sure about that yet. I guess this would be the next thing to research. Any recommended thread on this?

If you meant what's for display, I currently have a 4 year old 42" plasma which I'm think about replacing soon. The resolution of it is just way too low for today's standard (1024x768).

ansetou

08-20-08, 04:00 PM

thanks for confirming my thoughts, I guess I'll drop the BD burner and just get the LG reader that's recommended.

Any beginner's reading on the softwares to use? I have no clue about what to expect from the software and what standards they should support.

I have a mac air and a very old dell x300 laptop for internet browsing between the 2 of us. I plan on use this HTPC mainly for entertainment but occasionally for work too when necessary. i have a friend who uses a keyboard/mouse combo to control his HTPC and it's quite useful to watch online stream video since you'll need to type url some times. the diNovo Mini is palm size so it's not too bulky to carrry around. I never used a remote for PC. is it really more convenient?

ansetou

08-20-08, 05:51 PM

Damn, i just realized that the heat sink i bought is way too tall for my case. Now I have to try to sell it.

AbMagFab

08-20-08, 06:01 PM

Defcon

08-20-08, 06:30 PM

AbMagFab

08-20-08, 06:49 PM

Comments are welcome on my wishlist -

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=9006226

(I'm not actually going to buy the case from newegg since its cheaper at other places)

Would like suggestions for -

- IR receiver and remote. Are there any that can fit inside the case so there's nothing external? And I would like to power up/down using the remote - is that possible?

- other cpu coolers. Not sure if the Ninja will fit in that case.

Looks great to me. Might want to consider the E8500 just for a little more headroom. Not sure you need the card reader. And I use the regular MSoft IR receiver, and an IR emitter from my RF remote base, which is adequate.

Defcon

08-20-08, 07:27 PM

The card reader is one of those things I've never used but always thought would be useful to have. I should probably get rid of it, all its going to do is make the case look ugly.

The E8500 is $70 more. Not sure why I need any more power in the HTPC, since the whole point of the G45 is HA. The new E7300 are supposed to be great overclockers with a 10x multi, almost equal to an e8400 it seems.

fitret

08-20-08, 09:03 PM

Sorry, but there's not one thing I agree with on that list:
- The 780G is obsolete, and doesn't do multichannel PCM over HDMI
- The Keyboard is useless for a HTPC - if you must, get the diNovo mini
- The hard drive is loud, you should be going with the "green" ones
- The case display is almost universally hated after people get it - go with the Antec case with no display
- I'm not an AMD fan, but that's more subjective

Well, good thing I checked here before buying it! I based almost everything off of the guide post, so is it really that outdated?

What's wrong with the keyboard / why is it useless for a HTPC? It seems like that's exactly what it's built for.

I switched the hard drive out for a GP one.

The case was also recommended and I think the shell looks really nice. What's wrong with the display? Is the one without the display this one? http://techgage.com/article/antec_nsk2400_htpc_case/ If so, I think I'd prefer the fusion...

As for CPU and mobo, can you recommend another pairing? Once again, I chose those based on the guide, and while I'm also an Intel fan, this board had an integrated graphics chip and HDMI out. Most of the graphics cards recommended here only have S-Video and DVI out, and my TV doesn't have DVI in. I'd much rather be using HDMI than S-Video.

Edit: Does the board in Defcon's build not need a graphics card? If so, I could definitely go with that CPU and mobo and replace the one in mine.

Defcon

08-20-08, 09:53 PM

ansetou

08-21-08, 10:01 AM

Has anyone used this heat sink-- XIGMATEK HDT-S1283? It seems that it's taller than what most HTPC case can hold. Or am I reading the dimensions wrong?

amicusterrae

08-21-08, 11:31 AM

Fitret:
I have the caviar blue Western Digital hard drive, and I don't hear it at all. The power savings in the green model are arguably negligible unless you are talking about a server or many, many desktops. And, the power savings are obtained by reducing the RPMs. But, hey, every kw/h counts!

As for 780G, the lack of multichannel PCM is the big negative. If that's your priority, and you want an AMD platform, try the GeForce boards.

jim tressler

08-21-08, 12:33 PM

Remember not all content will accelerate. If you are ripping and econding it yourself then you can make sure its encoded right.. however, if you are relying on others, not everything accelerates. the e8400 is cheap by comparison.. I just picked one up at microcenter retail for $149

The card reader is one of those things I've never used but always thought would be useful to have. I should probably get rid of it, all its going to do is make the case look ugly.

The E8500 is $70 more. Not sure why I need any more power in the HTPC, since the whole point of the G45 is HA. The new E7300 are supposed to be great overclockers with a 10x multi, almost equal to an e8400 it seems.

jim tressler

08-21-08, 12:35 PM

There are a few stickeys on front ends in the forum - however, its mostly trial and error.. To be honest, the remote is a pain in the ass so I am looking for a small wireless keyboard with a trackball - however when waching movies and flipping mp3's the remote is all I use - but with more and more streaming, a keyboard is a necessity.

thanks for confirming my thoughts, I guess I'll drop the BD burner and just get the LG reader that's recommended.

Any beginner's reading on the softwares to use? I have no clue about what to expect from the software and what standards they should support.

I have a mac air and a very old dell x300 laptop for internet browsing between the 2 of us. I plan on use this HTPC mainly for entertainment but occasionally for work too when necessary. i have a friend who uses a keyboard/mouse combo to control his HTPC and it's quite useful to watch online stream video since you'll need to type url some times. the diNovo Mini is palm size so it's not too bulky to carrry around. I never used a remote for PC. is it really more convenient?

fitret

08-21-08, 02:17 PM

The main difference between G45 and the AMD solution is going to be 7.1 audio over LPCM, which is not possible in 780g. There are many threads here about it. Other than that I think its a great solution, well tested, and as you can see AMD comes out ~100 cheaper than comparable Intel build. Both of them don't need a graphics card and both do HDMI.

I thought that the G45 boards ended up getting bad reviews and people were saying they weren't all that they were cracked up to be? Is this not true? Are people happy with their G45's?

jim tressler

08-21-08, 03:28 PM

i think the g45 has promise, but intel has placed the blame on 3rd party drivers..

fitret

08-21-08, 04:19 PM

i think the g45 has promise, but intel has placed the blame on 3rd party drivers..

So what's a solid Intel mobo or a solid Intel mobo/graphics card combo that has HDMI output? Like I said, I'm mostly interested in high def content playback, recording TV, and DVD playback (no Bluray or HD-DVD playback).

My personal computer has a E6750, and if that processor is powerful enough, I might drop that into the HTPC and upgrade the processor in my PC instead.

Edit: I supposed composite out would also be acceptable. I've seen a lot of cards that have S-Video out that include a S-Video to composite converter - are those really the same quality as HDMI or regular composite out?

GooberedUp

08-21-08, 05:55 PM

fitret, I have 2 possible builds.

with Intel - http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=9006226

with AMD - http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=12636807

My AMD list matches yours, but I went for a cheaper cpu. Since I don't plan to do any gaming or use tv tuners, I went for the cheapest yet latest and reliable HTPC parts based on what I've learnt.

Antec NSK2480 is the same as Fusion without lcd, volume knob, IR and a different PSU. From all accounts, the vfd/lcd is hard to get to work and may even cause crashes. You can easily add a better display like iMon in the drive bay if you want. I'm not even sure the volume knob will work with Vista. Is there a reason you prefer it?

The main difference between G45 and the AMD solution is going to be 7.1 audio over LPCM, which is not possible in 780g. There are many threads here about it. Other than that I think its a great solution, well tested, and as you can see AMD comes out ~100 cheaper than comparable Intel build. Both of them don't need a graphics card and both do HDMI.

I agree with you about the keyboard, its a pc after all and for many things it makes sense to get one. The diNovo is stylish, I would get it if I could afford one :(

I have both cases. The 2480 is a plastic, silver painted front without a Firewire port. The Fusion (I have a black one) is solid aluminum on the front. I've never experienced crashes with the built-in Imon LCD. It's not very readable from a distance, which is the problem. The volume knob works with Vista, no problem. The MCE remote or a Harmony controls Vista with no problem either, when using the Imon driver.

I prefer that Fusion over the other case, so I bought that one for the living room. Bought the 2480 for the basement, in case my kids decide to beat it up somehow (plus it goes with the silver components I have down there).

Looks wise, I prefer the Fusion. Functionality-wise, it's probably a toss up.

fitret

08-21-08, 06:14 PM

I have both cases. The 2480 is a plastic, silver painted front without a Firewire port. The Fusion (I have a black one) is solid aluminum on the front. I've never experienced crashes with the built-in Imon LCD. It's not very readable from a distance, which is the problem. The volume knob works with Vista, no problem. The MCE remote or a Harmony controls Vista with no problem either, when using the Imon driver.

I prefer that Fusion over the other case, so I bought that one for the living room. Bought the 2480 for the basement, in case my kids decide to beat it up somehow (plus it goes with the silver components I have down there).

Looks wise, I prefer the Fusion. Functionality-wise, it's probably a toss up.

I agree, I think the Fusion looks nicer. Also, while I'm going to use a MCE remote for now, I'll probably switch to an IR remote in the near future, and having the receiver built into the case is a huge plus.

GooberedUp

08-21-08, 06:45 PM

Just be aware that the Imon receiver takes some tweaking to get it to work just right with some applications. But, it can be done. Witness the thread on this site showing how to make it work with TotalMedia by Arcsoft.

The other thing I like about the Fusion is the stealthed drives. It's a little more elegant not being able to see the drives. Makes it more stereo equipment like, even though I have a silver faced optical drive. The 2480 still looks nice, just not quite as polished.

GooberedUp

08-21-08, 06:48 PM

Also, while I'm going to use a MCE remote for now, I'll probably switch to an IR remote in the near future, and having the receiver built into the case is a huge plus.

The Imon IR receiver built into the Fusion is MCE remote aware. In fact, that's how it has to be used. It will not recognize the other Imon remotes.

Defcon

08-21-08, 07:10 PM

I don't know the exact details and I'm sure things can be worked out by tweaking them enough. I was going to get the Fusion as well, then reading many threads came to the conclusion that the display and volume know were not worth the problems, if you didn't care about the looks that much. The 2480 is the same case and is cheaper, so I recommended it.

jarrod1937

08-21-08, 07:46 PM

Jumping into this topic for the first time. I must ask the original poster a question.
Why are you giving specs for systems with 16+ drives? Especially ones that use raid types like raid 6? First, 16 drives is extremely overkill and excessive, and not in the good way (quadruple your chances of drive failure anyone?), and then you threw in raid 6. Raid 6 is known for its nice redundancy, but it suffers terribly from writes, as dual parity data must be calculated.
Truthfully, you could get a few terabyte drives, which give very high data density, so better throughput. Then put these in a raid 01 or 10 system. You get the same level of redundancy as raid 6 but better performance, less drives, and therefore less chance of drive failure (drive failure is increased the more drives you have). The total throughput would be more than enough to satisfy even the most used media server, unless you're serving 10+ people at once.
I am making this post, just out of curiosity to hear your justification for such an overkill system, as there is no need for it. With the load you'll be p-utting on the server, you quickly reach a point where more hard drives, and hard drive speeds will not affect anything. This is especially true if the server only has a single 1 gigabit connection out, that's 125 MB/s, you'll quickly reach the bottleneck in your server net connection before any drive latencies catch up with you. Now, i'm a hardware lover, but i fail to see the point of improving one subsystems performance when your bottleneck is another, not to mention when that subsystems performance exceeds the users need.

fitret

08-21-08, 07:46 PM

So what's a solid Intel mobo or a solid Intel mobo/graphics card combo that has HDMI output? Like I said, I'm mostly interested in high def content playback, recording TV, and DVD playback (no Bluray or HD-DVD playback).

My personal computer has a E6750, and if that processor is powerful enough, I might drop that into the HTPC and upgrade the processor in my PC instead.

Edit: I supposed composite out would also be acceptable. I've seen a lot of cards that have S-Video out that include a S-Video to composite converter - are those really the same quality as HDMI or regular composite out?

Now that my case issues are closed, I still have questions about the mobo/processor/graphics card. Can someone help me out here?

Defcon

08-21-08, 09:16 PM

I would suggest the G45 with your cpu, either the Asus P5Q-EM or Intel DG45ID boards. There are some complaints about it but IMO its the most capable and future proof HTPC solution out there right now, unless you are spending big bux on a dedicated video and sound card.

fitret

08-21-08, 09:38 PM

Okay, all that's left now I think is CPU. Is an E6750 sufficient, or do I need a beefier processor? If the E6750 will work fine, I'd rather pull that out of my PC and put a new chip in there, otherwise, what do I need? E7300? E8400?

Defcon

08-21-08, 09:42 PM

For any SD content, e6750 is more than enough. For HD (bluray, mkv etc) most of the time you should get hardware acceleration from the G45, and even if you don't, it should still be enough (I think 40-50% cpu). I say go for it.

fitret

08-21-08, 11:01 PM

ndabunka

08-22-08, 12:25 AM

I bought an ATI 2400-series AGP card and was not able to get my system to recognize it so I have "given up" on this angle. Next effort will be to pick up one of the non-express PCI-based cards off eBay (for cheap) and try that as my final effort on this pursuit.

jim tressler

08-22-08, 07:53 AM

Looks good - if you already have the conroe processor running - get some 1080p material inside a mkv container and try playing it and see how it runs without acceleration. It should be fine - I have an e7200 wolfdale and the e8400 wolfdale - both on p45 chipsets and they both play un-accelerated 1080p stuff very smooth. The e7200 is around 20-25% cpu and the e8400 is between 15-22%. the combo of the wireless mouse / keyboard looks sweet - let us know how it works. my machine is a dedicated htpc with no keyboard and mouse - remote only.. however its a pain in the ass - so I am looking for a nice wireless combo with trackball built in. the a data ram is fine - I am using it with no problems. One word of caution - asus is known to use the marvell pata ide controller on some boards - it is a piece of crap - so much so that I can not hook up a pata drive on my asus pq5 pro board because it is so slow. From what the specs say you have all realtek stuff so it should be fine.

Okay, here's the final list:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=5162329

There are a few exceptions - the processor listed there is going to replace the processor in my current PC, which I will then use in the HTPC. That means the HTPC is going to have a E6750 Conroe. Additionally, I have a like, 5 year old DVD-RW drive that I'll be using and a MCE remote.

Do I need anything else / did I forget anything? How does this build look? I plan on running MeediOS on Vista 32-bit and I mostly want to watch and record SD/HD content, play DVDs, and play some small amount of games (old school emulated games, no Crysis or anything crazy).

BenSanford

08-22-08, 08:11 AM

Okay, here's the final list:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=5162329

There are a few exceptions - the processor listed there is going to replace the processor in my current PC, which I will then use in the HTPC. That means the HTPC is going to have a E6750 Conroe. Additionally, I have a like, 5 year old DVD-RW drive that I'll be using and a MCE remote.

Do I need anything else / did I forget anything? How does this build look? I plan on running MeediOS on Vista 32-bit and I mostly want to watch and record SD/HD content, play DVDs, and play some small amount of games (old school emulated games, no Crysis or anything crazy).

I have many of the same components on my current system, which is based a P35 chipset MB, but plan to build a G45 based system soon. I like the Edge keyboard, but didn't see a mouse in your system. I also bought a E8400, and moved the E6750 to my wife's machine. The E6750 isn't that much slower than the E8400, but generates more heat due to higher voltage. You might want to just use the E8400 in the HTPC, especially is heat is a concern.

Only thing I would change is maybe go with 4GB memory (use 2GB sticks), since memory is so cheap now, and a bit more can't hurt.

Ben

fitret

08-22-08, 11:53 AM

Looks good - if you already have the conroe processor running - get some 1080p material inside a mkv container and try playing it and see how it runs without acceleration. It should be fine - I have an e7200 wolfdale and the e8400 wolfdale - both on p45 chipsets and they both play un-accelerated 1080p stuff very smooth. The e7200 is around 20-25% cpu and the e8400 is between 15-22%. the combo of the wireless mouse / keyboard looks sweet - let us know how it works. my machine is a dedicated htpc with no keyboard and mouse - remote only.. however its a pain in the ass - so I am looking for a nice wireless combo with trackball built in. the a data ram is fine - I am using it with no problems. One word of caution - asus is known to use the marvell pata ide controller on some boards - it is a piece of crap - so much so that I can not hook up a pata drive on my asus pq5 pro board because it is so slow. From what the specs say you have all realtek stuff so it should be fine.

How do I try to play content without acceleration? I've got an 8800GTS - I presume it's in the control panel somewhere but I can't find it.

I have many of the same components on my current system, which is based a P35 chipset MB, but plan to build a G45 based system soon. I like the Edge keyboard, but didn't see a mouse in your system. I also bought a E8400, and moved the E6750 to my wife's machine. The E6750 isn't that much slower than the E8400, but generates more heat due to higher voltage. You might want to just use the E8400 in the HTPC, especially is heat is a concern.

Only thing I would change is maybe go with 4GB memory (use 2GB sticks), since memory is so cheap now, and a bit more can't hurt.

Ben

I'm planning on using Vista 32-bit for a couple of reasons, so I'm not sure I'll get much benefit out of going for 4GB. Still, maybe I'll switch it to a single 2GB stick so I can more easily upgrade to 4GB in the future. Also, doesn't the Edge keyboard havea mouse-type tracker on the right? That's part of the reason why I like it - only need one input device.

jim tressler

08-22-08, 11:59 AM

trial and error then - its a good bet that some of it wont accelerate properly - you will be stuck with processor decoding.. if your cpu usage is below 5% then acceleration is on.. if its higher then you know the cpu is carrying the load.

How do I try to play content without acceleration? I've got an 8800GTS - I presume it's in the control panel somewhere but I can't find it.

fitret

08-22-08, 12:16 PM

trial and error then - its a good bet that some of it wont accelerate properly - you will be stuck with processor decoding.. if your cpu usage is below 5% then acceleration is on.. if its higher then you know the cpu is carrying the load.

Found a 720p file that's causing 40% load on my CPU.

MrFoxer

08-22-08, 12:33 PM

I must ask the original poster a question.
Why are you giving specs for systems with 16+ drives? .... 16 drives is extremely overkill and excessive, and not in the good way (quadruple your chances of drive failure anyone?)

I'm not sure who the original poster is you[re referring to - possibly renethx, and I'm not going to explain his thought processes, but if you're going to question suggested specs, it would help if you explain you['re concerns better. How can you say that 16+ drives is overkill and excessive? If you need more than 16+ terabytes, you don't have much choice. If you need the space, you need it. Second, you don't quadruple your chances of drive failure unless you have four times as many drives. The number of drives you choose depends on factors like how much space you need, what fault tolerance/RAID you choose, how much the drives cost, how much power they consume, etc.

Truthfully, you could get a few terabyte drives, which give very high data density, so better throughput.

I just don't see how you can say this, unless you know how much space is needed. I certainly agree that for equal cost drives, with equal MTBF, equal performance and equal power consumption, larger is better, but that's seldom true. If your concern is that someone is recommending small drives over large drives, then say that. I'd also be interested in why.

Then put these in a raid 01 or 10 system. You get the same level of redundancy as raid 6 but better performance, less drives, and therefore less chance of drive failure (drive failure is increased the more drives you have).

Raid 01 and 10 are both mirrored systems using up half your space - 16 drives gives you 8 drives of space. Raid 5 uses a single additional drive - 16 drives gives you 15 drives of space. Raid 6 uses 2 parity drives, so 16 drives gives you 14 drives of space.

I am making this post, just out of curiosity to hear your justification for such an overkill system, as there is no need for it.

I'm interested in the answer, too, and I'm not defending anyone or attacking anyone, but I don't follow your reasoning.

With the load you'll be putting on the server, you quickly reach a point where more hard drives, and hard drive speeds will not affect anything. This is especially true if the server only has a single 1 gigabit connection out, that's 125 MB/s, you'll quickly reach the bottleneck in your server net connection before any drive latencies catch up with you.

These don't seem like the major concerns addressed in a media server design. I'm not sure about others, but I don't buy additional hard drives for drive latency or transfer speed issues. I worry about cost per GB, power consumption and reliability.

jarrod1937

08-22-08, 01:32 PM

I'm not sure who the original poster is you[re referring to - possibly renethx, and I'm not going to explain his thought processes, but if you're going to question suggested specs, it would help if you explain you['re concerns better. How can you say that 16+ drives is overkill and excessive? If you need more than 16+ terabytes, you don't have much choice. If you need the space, you need it. Second, you don't quadruple your chances of drive failure unless you have four times as many drives. The number of drives you choose depends on factors like how much space you need, what fault tolerance/RAID you choose, how much the drives cost, how much power they consume, etc.

I just don't see how you can say this, unless you know how much space is needed. I certainly agree that for equal cost drives, with equal MTBF, equal performance and equal power consumption, larger is better, but that's seldom true. If your concern is that someone is recommending small drives over large drives, then say that. I'd also be interested in why.

Raid 01 and 10 are both mirrored systems using up half your space - 16 drives gives you 8 drives of space. Raid 5 uses a single additional drive - 16 drives gives you 15 drives of space. Raid 6 uses 2 parity drives, so 16 drives gives you 14 drives of space.

I'm interested in the answer, too, and I'm not defending anyone or attacking anyone, but I don't follow your reasoning.

These don't seem like the major concerns addressed in a media server design. I'm not sure about others, but I don't buy additional hard drives for drive latency or transfer speed issues. I worry about cost per GB, power consumption and reliability.
You seem to be missing the point. Go look at what drives he recommended for the 16+ drive systems.

"HDD: WD800JD 80GB SATA 3.0Gb/s"
He is recommending a ton of low gig drives for a complex raid system. The only reason for doing this is throughput and access time concerns, both of which are not concerns in this type of system. Compare 16 80 drives to 2 terabyte drives... which one has a greater chance of drive failure for the same storage space?

"'m not sure about others, but I don't buy additional hard drives for drive latency or transfer speed issues. I worry about cost per GB, power consumption and reliability."

If those are your goals, then you can see why i am against his system recommendations of 16 or more drives for the same storage space of a lot fewer drives. That many drives increase power usage, increases cost per gig, increases chance of a single drive failing...etc."Raid 01 and 10 are both mirrored systems using up half your space - 16 drives gives you 8 drives of space. Raid 5 uses a single additional drive - 16 drives gives you 15 drives of space. Raid 6 uses 2 parity drives, so 16 drives gives you 14 drives of space."
If you use 4 terabyte drives in raid 10, you get 2 terabytes of storage, thats more than his recommendation of 16, 80 gig drives in raid 6, which is 1120 gigs of data.

See my point? His recommendations are wasteful, and useless for their use. Again, the only reason to use many smaller drives is to increase throughput and access times. But for their use, and other bottlenecks in the system, there is no reason for this. You may as well get few, larger drives, and do a raid 10 config.

halia34

08-22-08, 02:41 PM

this is my first attempt at a htpc:

gigabyte ga-ma78gm-s2h motherboard
amd phenom x3 8450
corsair twin 2x2048 kit
seagate 1tb
thermaltake lanbox mini case
thermaltake 450w psu

i was thinking of adding a liquid cooling system, but not necessary, also i was interested in the radeon 4850 graphics card because of the hdmi(video & audio), i would probably be using this to watch hd content and occasionally surf the net. any recommendations before i complete my purchase? if i don't use the liquid cooling, would anyone recommend a different cpu cooler other than the stock one with the amd. thanks

Morphyne

08-22-08, 03:12 PM

By watching HD content do you mean HD DVR'ing? If so I would recommend a small os drive and a fat DVR file drive.

As far a cooler is concerned I have always had good luck with my Zalman 9500 but it barely fits in my HTPC case (height wise). I just installed a coolermaster gemini cooler because it has a very low vertical height. It works great but it is very big horizonatally check if it will fit your case first. But great for low profile systems.

ilovejedd

08-22-08, 06:00 PM

08-22-08, 06:32 PM

I see people suggesting the G45 chipsets. I have not read too many good things about this chipset yet specifically in regards to video quality. Have the bugs already been worked out? All the bad press is why I've sort of given up on G45 and gone with something that is sort tried and true like the P45. Am I missing something because I would certainly like to save the money by going with integrated graphics.

jarrod1937

08-22-08, 06:47 PM

Read the post carefully. It mentions that the cost is for the base system only, no hard drives. The inexpensive 80GB hard drive is for the operating system. It wasn't recommended to be used as part of the RAID array. Populate the system with your choice of HDD, be it 1.5TB, 1TB, 750GB, 640GB or even 80GB.
Oh ok, in that case i misunderstood. Thank you for the explanation.

AbMagFab

08-22-08, 09:11 PM

You seem to be missing the point. Go look at what drives he recommended for the 16+ drive systems.

"HDD: WD800JD 80GB SATA 3.0Gb/s"
He is recommending a ton of low gig drives for a complex raid system. The only reason for doing this is throughput and access time concerns, both of which are not concerns in this type of system. Compare 16 80 drives to 2 terabyte drives... which one has a greater chance of drive failure for the same storage space?

"'m not sure about others, but I don't buy additional hard drives for drive latency or transfer speed issues. I worry about cost per GB, power consumption and reliability."

If those are your goals, then you can see why i am against his system recommendations of 16 or more drives for the same storage space of a lot fewer drives. That many drives increase power usage, increases cost per gig, increases chance of a single drive failing...etc."Raid 01 and 10 are both mirrored systems using up half your space - 16 drives gives you 8 drives of space. Raid 5 uses a single additional drive - 16 drives gives you 15 drives of space. Raid 6 uses 2 parity drives, so 16 drives gives you 14 drives of space."
If you use 4 terabyte drives in raid 10, you get 2 terabytes of storage, thats more than his recommendation of 16, 80 gig drives in raid 6, which is 1120 gigs of data.

See my point? His recommendations are wasteful, and useless for their use. Again, the only reason to use many smaller drives is to increase throughput and access times. But for their use, and other bottlenecks in the system, there is no reason for this. You may as well get few, larger drives, and do a raid 10 config.

I generally agree with you, but you might be missing the real point of RAID.

Remember - RAID = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. One of the points of RAID is to get a lot of fault-tolerant storage out of cheap disks. The other is that when there's a failure, it's quick to rebuild the disk. That means the smaller the better.

Many office RAID arrays, which use high-speed disks, are in the 80-200GB per disk. Certainly not TB disks.

That all being said, my RAID-5 array at home is 10 x 1TB disks. I want space and fault tolerance, and $160 per disk is "inexpensive" to me. And about 5 hours to rebuild a replacement disk is quick enough for me as well.

jim tressler

08-22-08, 10:26 PM

7%-15% on a 720p mkv file using mpc video decoder played in mpc home cinema with dts soundtrack (ripped blu ray of what happens in vegas) on the e7200 without hardware acceleration

Found a 720p file that's causing 40% load on my CPU.

jim tressler

08-22-08, 10:26 PM

What about this for a keyboard / mouse combo?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823202004

Okay, here's the final list:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=5162329

There are a few exceptions - the processor listed there is going to replace the processor in my current PC, which I will then use in the HTPC. That means the HTPC is going to have a E6750 Conroe. Additionally, I have a like, 5 year old DVD-RW drive that I'll be using and a MCE remote.

Do I need anything else / did I forget anything? How does this build look? I plan on running MeediOS on Vista 32-bit and I mostly want to watch and record SD/HD content, play DVDs, and play some small amount of games (old school emulated games, no Crysis or anything crazy).

sicilianbambino

08-22-08, 11:27 PM

Any suggestions or comments would help very much on this HTPC system.

What I want out of my system is the following:

I want to be able to play ripped DVD's, Blue-Ray, AVI's x.264, .mkv, etc.. and pretty much any other type of video file's of my choosing.

Viewing will be over a 1 GB network or directly connected thru my TV from the PC and/or using an Apple TV in various parts of my home.

Listening to music & viewing my Photo library via streaming over the network, connecting from the outside, or directly connected to my Anthem Pre-Amp.

I will also be running either Cinemar's or CQC automation software to allow access to the entire library and other home automation.

Games are not a priority.

Is there anything that I can change to better the system listed below to save
money and not loose Video &/or sound quality or if need be spend a little extra for an improvement?

The components that I've chosen are the following:

HARDWARE:

CASE: NORCO RPC-4020 4U Rackmount Server Case
MB: ASUS P5Q-E LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
Video: VisionTek 900244 Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready
HBA: SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz SATA Controller Card
PSL: COOLMAX CUQ-1200B 1200W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor
RAM: Gig total OCZ Flex XLC 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1200 (PC2 9600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2FX12002GK -
Cooler: ZALMAN 9500A 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler

Possibly a TV Tuner/PVR TBD

SOFTWARE:

Windows Home Server and duplicating all of my Data across many 1 TB drives :)

Is an additional sound card really necessary if I have optical out on the motherboard, HDMI out on the video card if going into my Pre Amp? Any sound difference? The sound coming from the PC will not be an issue.

Thank you very much to all.

etcarroll

08-22-08, 11:39 PM

Any suggestions or comments would help very much on this HTPC system.

What I want out of my system is the following:

I want to be able to play ripped DVD's, Blue-Ray, AVI's x.264, .mkv, etc.. and pretty much any other type of video file's of my choosing.

SOFTWARE:

Windows Home Server and duplicating all of my Data across many 1 TB drives :)

Is an additional sound card really necessary if I have optical out on the motherboard, HDMI out on the video card if going into my Pre Amp? Any sound difference? The sound coming from the PC will not be an issue.

Thank you very much to all.

Ummmm - do you mean you'll use WHS as the OS of your htpc? I don't think that's wise. WHS isn't meant for this type of work, nor is any 'server'.

I have a WHS box built with older parts from eBay, and 4 1TB drives. This is fronted by a VISTA MCE box does does all of what you want in your stated desires. I have a 2.2GHz cpu in a P35 gigabyte mobo with 2 gig ram, and it plays BD flawlessly, so your hw list should be fine, just not under WHS. In fact I bought an e8400, its still sitting on a shelf after 2 months.

What will you use for a BD drive and player software?

My MCE and WHS boxes are connected by a GigE switch.

sicilianbambino

08-23-08, 12:08 AM

Ummmm - do you mean you'll use WHS as the OS of your htpc? I don't think that's wise. WHS isn't meant for this type of work, nor is any 'server'.

I have a WHS box built with older parts from eBay, and 4 1TB drives. This is fronted by a VISTA MCE box does does all of what you want in your stated desires. I have a 2.2GHz cpu in a P35 gigabyte mobo with 2 gig ram, and it plays BD flawlessly, so your hw list should be fine, just not under WHS. In fact I bought an e8400, its still sitting on a shelf after 2 months.

What will you use for a BD drive and player software?

My MCE and WHS boxes are connected by a GigE switch.

Either Arcsoft or PowerDVD for Blue still not sure and have tried as of yet.

Why could I not use WHS for this? What issues do you think that this might cause, even if using Server 2003 ?

ilovejedd

08-23-08, 12:32 AM

Remember - RAID = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. One of the points of RAID is to get a lot of fault-tolerant storage out of cheap disks. The other is that when there's a failure, it's quick to rebuild the disk. That means the smaller the better.
Learned something new. I always thought RAID = Redundant Array of Independent Disks.

Many office RAID arrays, which use high-speed disks, are in the 80-200GB per disk. Certainly not TB disks.
True, but those aren't inexpensive at all. I recall the company I used to work for bought 70+GB 15000RPM SCSI HDDs for triple what I paid for my Seagate 300GB PATA at that time. We had to get four of them for RAID 0+1 so yeouch.

fitret

08-23-08, 02:14 AM

dgshtav

08-23-08, 06:09 AM

Renethx,

First: Thanks for your time and efforts in putting together and maintaining this wonderful resource.

Then:
Am considering the following setup with some alternatives listed subsequently:

Setup A:
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Socket 775, $189.
CPU Cooler: Tuniq Tower, $49.
CPU Fan: None (Included in Tuniq Tower)
Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Deluxe, $187.14
Memory: OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 8GB (2x2GB) OCZ2N800SR4GK DDR2-800 Kit, $101.99.
Graphics Card: BFG Tech GeForce 9800GX2, $219
HDD: WD 1TB, $135.
PSU: OCZ GameXStream 700W OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI, $80.
Case: Antec Nine Hundred, $80.
Total Cost: $1041.13

Setup B:
Motherboard: EVGA 132-CK-NF78 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI, $209

Everything else same as above.

Total Cost: $1062.99

Setup C:
Motherboard: XFX MB-N780-ISH9 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI, $226.20

Everything else same as above.

Total Cost: $1080.19

==================

Intended Uses:

* I am not planning to add another Graphics card in near future. So definitely no multi PCI Slot SLI in the near future.
* HD Video playback.
* HD Audio playback (Important for me)
* Music server
* Video Editing
* Photo Editing
* Light gaming
* If the chosen config from above meets my needs mentioned here, I don't see myself upgrading anything for at least a couple of years.
* An yes - not exacxtly an intended use, but before I ask the questions below, I want to mention that if I can, I would like to overclock some if not to the extreme.

==================

Given the above - Questions:

1. Which option - A/B/C - and why?

2. I think quality decoding of the HD audio steams (It's ok if the computer does it, doesn't have to be Receiver) is very important to me. Am okay with using different Audio/Video outs from the comp to the receiver (Not desired but can do). How does that pan out with any of the above setups?

3. Since I am not planning to add another Graphics card in near future, I definitely won't have a multi PCI Slot SLI situation in the near future. BUT, I am very confused with what I read on forums and hear on videos (Compusa for the BFG model) - that SLI capabilities are needed on mobo as well to use multi GPUs on the same PCI slot. Could you please clarify?

4. I know the MSI P7N Diamond was the recommendation for an NVidea set - but it has many bad reviews across many sources on web. Why is this mobo a recommendation?

5. So you see, I am very undecided about which mobo - so I will throw in one more brand - How'z the Asus ASUS P5N-T Deluxe?

Pardon my undecisiveness about the mobo - I am really torn between Intel/Intel and Intel/NVidia because I don't know exactly what graphics/audio (more so the graphics) features on the 9800GX2 will I miss out on with an Intel/Intel setup. Also the P5Q DELUXE is crossfire ready - would this be nuetral to the 9800GX2 or would it actually hurt the setup. The P5Q Deluxe seems to be a great mobo that's cheaper than all others by a significant margin, but...

Looking forward to seeing some responses on my questions and hear your thoughts on which direction should I go.

I know you are on vacation. No rush, take your time on this (Actually NOT! I want an answer NOW! :D J/K)

Thanks again! :)

(For those of you who want to know, the prices are inclusive of shipping and are after rebates and MS live/fatwallet cashback. Vendors are Amazon.com, NewEgg, Compusa)

jim tressler

08-23-08, 07:49 AM

you mean reciever? the antec says it has a built in ir reciever - so it should be fine for a remote

Do I need to get an IR blaster?

etcarroll

08-23-08, 10:13 AM

Either Arcsoft or PowerDVD for Blue still not sure and have tried as of yet.

Why could I not use WHS for this? What issues do you think that this might cause, even if using Server 2003 ?

I thought you had said in original post you'd use MCE as front end, WHS doesn't support MCE, but now I see you never mention what front end you'd go with.

So, what will it be?

Then there are the general reasons why a server, any server, shouldn't be used as a day to day computer, but I'll let someone more versed than I chime in with that laundry list of reasons. I simply 'set it and forget it' when it came to my WHS install.

Try asking in the WHS forum for a more concise response,

http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/

AbMagFab

08-23-08, 10:48 AM

Learned something new. I always thought RAID = Redundant Array of Independent Disks.

True, but those aren't inexpensive at all. I recall the company I used to work for bought 70+GB 15000RPM SCSI HDDs for triple what I paid for my Seagate 300GB PATA at that time. We had to get four of them for RAID 0+1 so yeouch.

That's what people call it now, but that's not the original or intended name. The purpose of RAID was to use lots of inexpensive disks to get lots of fault tolerant storage, thus minimizing the expense and problems for any failure.

I think people call it Independent now, but that's not the real name.

In terms of cost, it's all relative, but 1TB enterprise-level disks either don't exist, or are a fortune. 70GB enterprise disks are relatively affordable (for those of you that have been in the industry as long as me, you'd know how cheap they are now).

You can't really compare enterprise disks to consumer disks in terms of cost. Although it does bug me every time I sign a PO for a 75GB disk that's more than a 1TB disk I can get on newegg...

sicilianbambino

08-23-08, 11:49 AM

I thought you had said in original post you'd use MCE as front end, WHS doesn't support MCE, but now I see you never mention what front end you'd go with.

So, what will it be?

Then there are the general reasons why a server, any server, shouldn't be used as a day to day computer, but I'll let someone more versed than I chime in with that laundry list of reasons. I simply 'set it and forget it' when it came to my WHS install.

Try asking in the WHS forum for a more concise response,

http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/

Front end will either be Cinemar or using another program called CQC. I will be building the front end myself as a custom interface similar to Crestron or AMX but on a lower scale most likely via a touch screen.

pc1984

08-23-08, 02:59 PM

chavoc

08-23-08, 04:08 PM

My mom has spontaniously decided to buy a LN52A550 (actually she saw the 530, but the 550 comes with a $525 home theater system for $300 more (samsung 5.1 and upscaling dvd player)

Anyways, my plan was to give them a HTPC instead, but it looks like it is a rush, and with no warning, i dont want to just slap together some hardware... so the question is...

will i be able to make use of the speakers when I move them to a htpc in the future?

---- BTW, this site is bookmarked as "the bible" and I have been lurking here for TV info for years

slanemyr

08-23-08, 05:13 PM

Please help me decide what parts my HTPC should consist of.

What I want to do with it?

Watch movies and tv-show in all sort of formats (1080p, mkv, x262 and other)
Watch blueray discs
Show photos on tv
Enjoy dolby digital and DTS surround sound

Spec:

CPU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850e 2,5GHz

Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H

Memory
Corsair XMS2 Xtreme TwinX PC6400 2x2GB

HDD
Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640 GB

Case
Antec NSK1380

What do you think? What´s good and what´s not?

The reason I choose the NSK1380-case is because my TV furniture is only 38 centimeters (15 inches) deep.

Perhaps there are better cases out there... if so, please tell me! :)

I know that with my current configuration I won´t be able to watch blueray discs... is there any good blueray-players for PCs?

tsteves

08-23-08, 05:34 PM

AbMagFab
my RAID-5 array at home is 10 x 1TB disks
Wow!!!! I HATE you, man.... Seriously!!! ;)

etcarroll

08-23-08, 07:05 PM

Front end will either be Cinemar or using another program called CQC. I will be building the front end myself as a custom interface similar to Crestron or AMX but on a lower scale most likely via a touch screen.

Is Mainlobby the Cinemar product, I think you'll find a thread where a guy with a HP Mediaserver discusses Mainlobby.

'fraid I know nothing on CQC.

HappyFunBoater

08-23-08, 07:07 PM

That all being said, my RAID-5 array at home is 10 x 1TB disks.

So what the heck do you back up to?

Lostclusters

08-24-08, 02:38 AM

So what the heck do you back up to?

The raid is the backup. The only thing that can kill it is if two disks go bad at the same time. Otherwise there is no danger of losing any data due to a hardware failure. Even if the controller goes bad. I run one myself.

HappyFunBoater

08-24-08, 09:33 AM

The raid is the backup. The only thing that can kill it is if two disks go bad at the same time. Otherwise there is no danger of losing any data due to a hardware failure. Even if the controller goes bad. I run one myself.

Whoa. That is SO wrong. RAID allows 24/7 access in case of drive failure. However it does not eliminate the need for backup. As you pointed out, multiple drive failure will results in loss of ALL the data. If a drive fals due to environmental reaons (heat, vibration, etc.) then is it very likely that another drive will fail. But the biggest reason for backup is user or OS failure, such as virus, data corruption, etc. Or something as simple as accidently typing DEL *.*. RAID should never, ever be used in place of backup. If you have to choose one, you have to choose backup. The data may be offline during the restore, and you may loose anything created since the last backup, but you will get your data back. Most folks don't need the 24/7 access that RAID provides. RAID is very important for companies that loose business if their data is unavailable, like Ebay's database, a hotel's video server, etc. Performance is another advantage of RAID, but that's secondary.

jarrod1937

08-24-08, 12:10 PM

Whoa. That is SO wrong. RAID allows 24/7 access in case of drive failure. However it does not eliminate the need for backup. As you pointed out, multiple drive failure will results in loss of ALL the data. If a drive fals due to environmental reaons (heat, vibration, etc.) then is it very likely that another drive will fail. But the biggest reason for backup is user or OS failure, such as virus, data corruption, etc. Or something as simple as accidently typing DEL *.*. RAID should never, ever be used in place of backup. If you have to choose one, you have to choose backup. The data may be offline during the restore, and you may loose anything created since the last backup, but you will get your data back. Most folks don't need the 24/7 access that RAID provides. RAID is very important for companies that loose business if their data is unavailable, like Ebay's database, a hotel's video server, etc. Performance is another advantage of RAID, but that's secondary.
I agree completely!
Though you missed the main reason to not use raid 1 as a "backup," raid controller failure. If the raid controller fails, what do you think will happen? Junk data will be written to both drives. Raid controller failure is a slow and at times unnoticeable process, the end result is massive, micro, corruption of all your data.
I have a raid 1 and a raid 10, and i still use Acronis. A plus of Acronis is that it supports running off of the backup while it is restoring. I use it all the time at work, makes for a fairly low downtime event in the even of a raid failure.
Eitherway depending on just the raid is a mistake.

P.s. who would accidentally type del in cmd with dual wildcards? ;)

HappyFunBoater

08-24-08, 12:26 PM

I agree completely!
Though you missed the main reason to not use raid 1 as a "backup," raid controller failure. If the raid controller fails, what do you think will happen? Junk data will be written to both drives. Raid controller failure is a slow and at times unnoticeable process, the end result is massive, micro, corruption of all your data.
I have a raid 1 and a raid 10, and i still use Acronis. A plus of Acronis is that it supports running off of the backup while it is restoring. I use it all the time at work, makes for a fairly low downtime event in the even of a raid failure.
Eitherway depending on just the raid is a mistake.

P.s. who would accidentally type del in cmd with dual wildcards? ;)

Yeah, I'd certainly agree that RAID card failure (hardware or software) is another way to lose all your data - without knowing about it. But since I developed RAID cards for 20+ years I try not to think about that. :) I spent WAY too much time geting beat senseless by customers because of RAID bugs. Do you know how hard it is to reproduce, isolate and fix those bugs? You've just caused all my nightmares to return. Damn you, Jarrod1937! ;)

Lostclusters

08-24-08, 05:13 PM

Whoa. That is SO wrong. RAID allows 24/7 access in case of drive failure. However it does not eliminate the need for backup. As you pointed out, multiple drive failure will results in loss of ALL the data. If a drive fals due to environmental reaons (heat, vibration, etc.) then is it very likely that another drive will fail. But the biggest reason for backup is user or OS failure, such as virus, data corruption, etc. Or something as simple as accidently typing DEL *.*. RAID should never, ever be used in place of backup. If you have to choose one, you have to choose backup. The data may be offline during the restore, and you may loose anything created since the last backup, but you will get your data back. Most folks don't need the 24/7 access that RAID provides. RAID is very important for companies that loose business if their data is unavailable, like Ebay's database, a hotel's video server, etc. Performance is another advantage of RAID, but that's secondary.

Yeah, I'd certainly agree that RAID card failure (hardware or software) is another way to lose all your data - without knowing about it. But since I developed RAID cards for 20+ years I try not to think about that. :) I spent WAY too much time geting beat senseless by customers because of RAID bugs. Do you know how hard it is to reproduce, isolate and fix those bugs? You've just caused all my nightmares to return. Damn you, Jarrod1937! ;)

In my twenty-three of experience with hard drives I have never seen two drives go bad at the same time, although I am sure the chances of it happening are not zero. I doubt raid controllers have been around as long as HappyFunBoater says he has developed them for. From memory, I believe the PC came into existence in 1983, and in 1985 I was one of the first to buy a 10MB bottomless pit for $1500 for my PC clone luggable (Compaq).

The manufacturer of the raid card I use (3ware) assured me that if my controller failed, replacing it would not yield data loss. I asked this question specifically to asses the vulnerabilities of my raid. Raid6 covers two disks failing at once, for mission critical data. I considered it too much overhead for just movies and feel raid5 adequate for loss less data. But if that does not feel secure enough, you can always back up to another raid and keep it only for restore purposes IF the need even arose.

jarrod1937

08-24-08, 05:42 PM

The manufacturer of the raid card I use (3ware) assured me that if my controller failed, replacing it would not yield data loss. I asked this question specifically to asses the vulnerabilities of my raid. Raid6 covers two disks failing at once, for mission critical data. I considered it too much overhead for just movies and feel raid5 adequate for loss less data.
They're correct if all of a sudden the card becomes non-functional. You can then simply replace the card, the raid meta data will be read from the primary drive, and your raid is back up and running. The problem comes in with the fact that, more often than not, raid controllers don't just suddenly die. And if you have a controller that is half functional, it is a likely possibility that it is corrupting data as it processes it. And since this is a failure of the controller itself, it does not matter how many drives you had for redundancy because the data is being corrupted at the source. Just a possibility to be aware of.

myoda

08-24-08, 05:46 PM

Duff - Thanks for the well thought out response. I agree that AGP is dead and that was one of the reasons I figured I might be able to find a high-end card with AGP pretty darn cheap (The 512MB ATI 2600 that was (and still is) $150 at most places is available on clearance for $70).

I have already scoped out a replacement Motherboard/CPU/Memory combo (if necessary) for $180 that I can use if I decide to replace the MB and would most likely use of the mid-level $100 graphics boards (I can't find any with the rebates others mention) for a total of $300 or so. However, being an engineer, I am still interested in KNOWING if the $70 card can actually off load all the processing as indicated by both the original creator of this thread as well as the vendor site I quoted above.

Hi. Completed the upgrade of my P4 3.2Ghz system with an Asus AH3650 AGP card - $70 after a $20 rebate from Asus. This card has 512 mb of DDR2 memory. Very smooth playback with both blu-ray and HD DVD. Cpu load is very low during playback. No issues at all. Hope this helps. See attached.

HappyFunBoater

08-24-08, 09:22 PM

In my twenty-three of experience with hard drives I have never seen two drives go bad at the same time, although I am sure the chances of it happening are not zero.

Sure, I doubt you have seen two drive failures in your 23 years. I didn't say you had, or even that it was likely that you had. But it's common for people skilled in the art of such predictions to assume that the MTBF of a second drive failure is 1/10 that of a first drive failure. Refer to the Berkeley papers for more detail. This is purely a statistical prediction, and I'm sure 1/10 is somewhat of a wild ass guess.

I doubt raid controllers have been around as long as HappyFunBoater says he has developed them for. From memory, I believe the PC came into existence in 1983, and in 1985 I was one of the first to buy a 10MB bottomless pit for $1500 for my PC clone luggable (Compaq).

I don't know why you would doubt this. The original Berkeley paper describing RAID-5 (and other levels) was written in 1989. And mirroring was common long before that. I implemented mirroring long before RAID-5. Do you really dispute this? Are you taking my comments personally? That's odd.

The manufacturer of the raid card I use (3ware) assured me that if my controller failed, replacing it would not yield data loss. I asked this question specifically to asses the vulnerabilities of my raid. Raid6 covers two disks failing at once, for mission critical data. I considered it too much overhead for just movies and feel raid5 adequate for loss less data. But if that does not feel secure enough, you can always back up to another raid and keep it only for restore purposes IF the need even arose.

And replacing your 3ware RAID card shouldn't cause data loss. Did I imply otherwise?

So just to wrap this up, thinking that RAID is a replacement for backup is pure foolishness. I'm not personally attacking you for thinking that. I'm just saying you're wrong.

Lostclusters

08-24-08, 09:41 PM

WOW, looks like someone trying to pick a fight.

HappyFunBoater

08-24-08, 09:56 PM

WOW, looks like someone trying to pick a fight.

:) Heck no. I've got nothing at all against you. I just want to make sure no one believes what you're saying regarding RAID and backup. I'm sure you're a great guy/woman, great father/mother, great husband/wife, etc. You're completely wrong, but I'd still go fishing with you. :)

etcarroll

08-24-08, 10:38 PM

At present I have the following in a tower case;

E2200 cpu
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L - open box @ $64
SAPPHIRE 100218L Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 at $115
Crucial ram recommended for the high level ATX build - $45 after rebate
Cooler Master TC05 Centurion case - $15 on eBay new
320gig SATA hd. - had it already
Vista Home premium OEM - $101

It's run for 6 months, played a handfull of BDs just fine.

Time to move it into my Silverstone LC-03 case, and swap the E2200 for the E8400 I bought 2 months ago.

Since I have it open, any other parts I should upgrade?

Build is for VMC and BD playback, plus OTA HDTV - no games.

Seems the 2 big gains with a P45, more RAM and more SATA, do me no good, as I have a 4TB WHS box, and 2gig RAM seem to work fine.

Is there anything I should upgrade while the mobo is between cases?

Its in the tower as the mobo was open box, I had 7 days to test or RMA, so I grabbed the tower for a prelim/test build.
Then the Summer hit, and just never got around to moving it into the LC03 which houses my XP MCE build today.

jarrod1937

08-24-08, 11:00 PM

WOW, looks like someone trying to pick a fight.
To be honest, your original post was a bit aggressive, like you were fishing for a "response", whether or not you intended it that way.

AbMagFab

08-25-08, 01:24 AM

So what the heck do you back up to?

For unique data (which is only about 1TB), I have multiple backups:
1) Windows shadow backups (or whatever it's called, where Windows keeps a history of everything every night - primarily for deleted or screwed up files)
2) Backup to a local external drive
3) Backup to an external drive on a remote PC on the same network
4) Backup every 6 months to BD-R disks
5) Backup to on-line storage (I use Mozy, but there are lots of options)

All other data is either disposable (e.g. patch downloads) or reproducable (like my DVD's, CD's, TTG HD movies, etc.), and they take up the bulk of the storage space.

As for safety in the RAID array, it's true that replacing the controller is nearly 100% safe, and I have a spare controller just in case.

It's also true that with a hot spare, I can handle three drive failures in a 6-hour period (the time it takes to rebuild a drive).

However, Windows can still blow it all away. It only happened to me once, but Windows corrupted the GPT (it might have been NTFS at the time) partition table. The RAID array was just fine, but with a corrupted partition table the data was useless. I spend a couple days trying to recover stuff, then just decided to start over, restore stuff from backup and rebuild the other stuff.

And you always can delete or corrupt files, which the RAID array doesn't help with at all.

The best RAID array can be destroyed by the OS or careless users. Backups (or non-reproducable data) are always necessary.

jarrod1937

08-25-08, 07:59 AM

You know there are programs to simply rebuild the partition table, right?

SebMKd

08-25-08, 09:06 AM

the 780G recommadaion needs a little tweak
if you pair a 780G/GX with a phenom it will enable more postprosessing of HD video

what decoder do you use?
try Totalmedia theatre or powerdvd
those have hardware supported decoding that the motherboard you have supports

Hi Guys,
Same issue: 2.4GHz and 780G with FFDSHOW and stuttering while playing Canon HF100 .mts files!

I'm using MCE XP, and with this codec so far, after registry fix, I can play my mts files directly with WMP. I even have thumbnails.

However, the stuttering is horrible. CPU @ 100%.

Should I try AVCcore? Or TMT or PowerDVD are the only one that are really going to make a change with this board?

Should I overclock CPU?

Thanks!

AbMagFab

08-25-08, 10:11 AM

You know there are programs to simply rebuild the partition table, right?

Of course. But it depends on how corrupt it gets. An OS can really screw things up.

amicusterrae

08-25-08, 10:50 AM

Okay I have read many pages of this thread but still confussed. I am ready to buy, up to $1000.
What I want:
CPU - low heat and powerfull
Mainboard - Must have SPDIF (don't care about true HD audio) ATX is fine.
Video Card - HDMI for Blu Ray and must play standard DVD's well
Software - Will be using Vista media center.

A 45W AMD X2 processor with an AMD/ATI 780G mainboard will fit the bill. The Gigabyte board listed in the recommended microATX systems has both HDMI and SPDIF outputs. You can set it so that you get the picture through HDMI to your HDTV and surround sound over SPDIF to your receiver. Asus makes a 780G board that also has SPDIF output, though it does not have DTS connect or Dolby HT.

jarrod1937

08-25-08, 12:17 PM

Of course. But it depends on how corrupt it gets. An OS can really screw things up.
I meant rebuilding the partition table, not recovering. There is software that will completly delete the old one, and rebuild a new one by scanning the drive. That way it doesn't matter how corrupted it gets.

rkgriffin

08-25-08, 02:14 PM

Anyone know if the new ATI 4650/4670 that is coming out next month will support HD HDMI audio like the ATI 4850?

AbMagFab

08-25-08, 02:27 PM

I meant rebuilding the partition table, not recovering. There is software that will completly delete the old one, and rebuild a new one by scanning the drive. That way it doesn't matter how corrupted it gets.

Have you tried that on an 8TB partition? When I ran one of those tools, it was going to take something like 16 days to complete. It was quicker to restore from backup and rebuild the rest.

jarrod1937

08-25-08, 02:59 PM

Have you tried that on an 8TB partition? When I ran one of those tools, it was going to take something like 16 days to complete. It was quicker to restore from backup and rebuild the rest.
Well, i assumed that since you were trying to recover the data for a few days, that it contained data you didn't have in your backup. But if you had all data in your backup, i would have just went straight for the backup data and not worried about any recovery. And if you backup didn't contain all the data you had, i think it would be worth it to spend the extra time to rebuild the partition.
I guess its just different preferences. Anyways, just thought i'd let you know that such a tool exist if you didn't know already, no biggie.

etcarroll

08-25-08, 03:56 PM

Well, may have come up with something myself, HDMI.

I'm upgrading my AVR to Pio 1018 for HD codecs, need an HDMI connection from htpc to AVR.

Seems the ATI 4850 would work, but I hate to put the 2600xt on shelf as for video it works fine.

So, what if I grabbed a new sound card, say the Xonar, and run it to AVR, while vid card goes to my HDTV? Plus, I read the Xonar is PAP compliant, while the 4850 may or may not be, (the different threads seem to contradict each other :confused:).

At present I have the following in a tower case;

E2200 cpu
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L - open box @ $64
SAPPHIRE 100218L Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 at $115
Crucial ram recommended for the high level ATX build - $45 after rebate
Cooler Master TC05 Centurion case - $15 on eBay new
320gig SATA hd. - had it already
Vista Home premium OEM - $101

It's run for 6 months, played a handfull of BDs just fine.

Time to move it into my Silverstone LC-03 case, and swap the E2200 for the E8400 I bought 2 months ago.

Since I have it open, any other parts I should upgrade?

Build is for VMC and BD playback, plus OTA HDTV - no games.

Seems the 2 big gains with a P45, more RAM and more SATA, do me no good, as I have a 4TB WHS box, and 2gig RAM seem to work fine.

Is there anything I should upgrade while the mobo is between cases?

Its in the tower as the mobo was open box, I had 7 days to test or RMA, so I grabbed the tower for a prelim/test build.
Then the Summer hit, and just never got around to moving it into the LC03 which houses my XP MCE build today.

itismanu

08-25-08, 06:28 PM

HappyFunBoater

08-25-08, 08:11 PM

Pls can you let know the best TV and Video card that that I should use for the following HTPC combo, I am not huge on games mostly for entertainment.
1. Mobo - Gigabyte- GA73PVM-S2H Matx LG
2. CPU - Core 2 Duo E7200, Intel
3. Mem - 4GB - OCZTECH DDR2
4. Case - Ultra Micro Fly BX6 Black Micro-ATX - with 600W PSU
5. 320GB HDD - Maxtor PATA

I would like to know your opinion on the following
1. My configuration - anything I can do to improve it
2. Suggestion on Video Card
3. Suggestion on TV card

Future will be Blu Ray drive but not before I see 6months, I do currently have a WINTV 950 USB device. I have a external DVD burner hence I do not plan to buy a new one just for the system. I plan to use Operating system - UBUNTU.

The AVerMedia M780 supports both ATSC and QAM, and works great under Vista x64 with 4GB of RAM. I never could get the Hauppauge to work.

The AMI HD2600XT supported 1080p great, until lightning killed it. I switched to a 3450 which still works with 1080p, but it's a lot slower for games. If you're not playing games then you can't beat the $40 price. I'm moving to a 3850 that will be better for games. The key point is that all of these cards are fanless.

What's your OS? Given that you're using 4GB of RAM, and assuming that it's Windows, you'll need to use the 64-bit version, otherwise the video, etc., will steal from the 4GB max address space and you'll end up with around 3GB of addressable memory.

myoda

08-26-08, 02:33 AM

[QUOTE=etcarroll;14519885]Well, may have come up with something myself, HDMI.

I'm upgrading my AVR to Pio 1018 for HD codecs, need an HDMI connection from htpc to AVR.

Seems the ATI 4850 would work, but I hate to put the 2600xt on shelf as for video it works fine.

So, what if I grabbed a new sound card, say the Xonar, and run it to AVR, while vid card goes to my HDTV? Plus, I read the Xonar is PAP compliant, while the 4850 may or may not be, (the different threads seem to contradict each other :confused:).[/QUOTE

If I had the choice, I would opt for less wires and find an HDMI solution to route audio and video from your pc to the a/v receiver. Will be experimenting with the hdmi audio out of the asus ah3650 card after I upgrade to an hdmi capable receiver. That Xonar card is a kick ass unit...Keep us posted.

itismanu

08-26-08, 07:10 PM

Thanks HappyFunBoater for the suggestion I will look it up.
I plan to use Linux - UBUNTU as the operating system.

HappyFunBoater

08-26-08, 07:46 PM

Thanks HappyFunBoater for the suggestion I will look it up.
I plan to use Linux - UBUNTU as the operating system.

Ah. I'm not sure if any of that hardware works under Ubuntu. It may; I just don't know. Personally, I'd never consider Linux for an HTPC.

[duck]

FunkSkunk

08-26-08, 10:51 PM

What a great thread. Mad props to renethx and the others that helped provide this thread full of great information for people like myself that are new to the HTPC world. This is really an awesome starting point and great place for answers.

I have selected a set of components and have a bunch of questions about HTPCs and some of the interworkings. Since there are quite a few things I would like to know about, instead of hijacking the thread I would just like to direct some of you HTPC scholars over to a thread I started about my HTPC in hopes to get my components checked over and some questions answered.

Check it out!
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1059370

Thanks

David O

08-27-08, 06:19 AM

WOW, looks like someone trying to pick a fight.
Well, I'm not trying to pick a fight :) - but I have TWICE lost two drives simultaneously - once in a RAID 5 and once in a RAID 0 setup. This was an air-conditioned UPSed 8 drive array, never went above 41 degrees C. Never had a clue what caused it but have since moved to mirrored RAID0 arrays (RAID0/1) and never looked back.

dgshtav

08-27-08, 01:14 PM

renethx

08-27-08, 02:12 PM

Still waiting for help with this post. :)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14505477#post14505477

Thuogh it was originally addressed to Renethx, other's please feel free to chime in.

Got to decide on a Mobo real fast.
"Light gaming" is a bit confusing. GeForce 9800 GX2 is a great gaming card, but do you really need that power? GeForce 9800 GT, GTX 260 or GTX 280 is perhaps a better choice for most users (consumes about 60W less power at idle). The NVIDIA cards lack HDMI audio controller. So you will have to add an HDMI sound card (ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 or Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1) if HD audio (beyond S/PDIF) is your concern. If you are not interested in SLI, then perhaps P5Q Deluxe is a better choice (consumes less power than nForce 780i chipset and is in general more stable). If SLI matters to you, then eVGA, XFX, ASUS or MSI is your choice. I don't see much difference between them.

If you have no preference of NVIDIA over ATI, Radeon HD 4850/4870 is another good choice. These cards have HDMI audio controller supporting multichannel LPCM (up to 16bit/48kHz) so you don't need a discrete sound card. Then you can choose a P45 (CrossFire x8) or X48 (CrossFire x16) mb which I prefer over an nForce 780i SLI chipset mb.

dgshtav

08-27-08, 02:32 PM

I don't care about SLI at this point - at least not from a multi PCI slot graphcis standpoint (hence the consideration for the P5Q Deluxe). But was wondering what else would I be missing by using an SLI capable graphics card on a Crossfire ready mobo? Worse still...would I be limiting the SLI ready graphcis card in any way by using it on a crossfire ready mobo?

I am also okay with using separate audio/video outs from the computer to the receiver. But the audio out has to be capable of Hi-Def Audio on HD sources with HDMI or a decoded 7.1 out

If a separate audio card does the audio duties:
1. How does the GTX 260 compare to 9800GX2 (Am getting a GTX 260 for $140 delivered and allows me to start lower than the GX2 and add SLI with a mobo swap later)

2. How does the GTX 260 compare to HD4850 on two fronts - a) HD Video Encoding/Decoding/Playback b) Gaming

3. Back to the audio, does HD4850 have a 7.1 out or a 5.1 audio out?

Thanks a ton for your help with this. Appreciate it.

P.S. If I may ask, what is it exactly that you like about the MSI Diamond mobo over the other 780i products? Is the the audio riser card or is there more? I ask because this mobo has received mixed feedback.

SeattleHTGuy

08-27-08, 02:39 PM

OK, a couple of questions for the Master.

I am getting ready to buy and build the Premium Intel system you recommend but first if you could advise, I'd appreciate it.

1) G-Skill memory. Should I stick with your recommendation for G-Skill 8000 or buy the latest 8500? Marginal price difference.

2). Every place seems back ordered on the Thermalright HR-01 PLUS. Any other suggestions (It's OK if it's slightly more expenseve.

3). The ASUS 4870 card appears N/A at newegg or Frys. Is this your only recommendation in 4870's? Does it matter which brand all that much?

4). I would like to do a DAS system as well but would prefer an Audio Equipment style or Rack Mountable style enclosure. Any recommendations as to card and box? Too noisy a box won't work well as the rack is in the media room albeit somewhat sound proofed.

I am placing this in a sound insulated rack in my media room that has dual climate controlled 16 inch intake fans. I have room for the big Silverstone Box, all my audio equipment and around 3 vertical feet of extra rack space for storage. I guess I'm asking what would you do for storage and this box.

I intend on using the HDHomerun for QAM and the HTPC feeds to my Tivo and WHS.

Finally the Gigabyte card you like so much seems to get rave reviews, any changes in opinion before I buy?

I really appreciate this string as I am more an audiophile guy than a PC person but have been dissapointed in the packaged systems that seem to not be considering all the changes in sound formats.

I will be powering this system with very good Nautilus Speakers and B&K amplification. Projector is a Sony Ruby VW100.

renethx

08-27-08, 02:43 PM

I don't care about SLI at this point - at least not from a multi PCI slot graphcis standpoint (hence the consideration for the P5Q Deluxe). But was wondering what else would I be missing by using an SLI capable graphics card on a Crossfire ready mobo? Worse still...would I be limiting the SLI ready graphcis card in any way by using it on a crossfire ready mobo?

I am also okay with using separate audio/video outs from the computer to the receiver. But the audio out has to be capable of Hi-Def Audio on HD sources with HDMI or a decoded 7.1 out

If a separate audio card does the audio duties:
1. How does the GTX 260 compare to 9800GX2 (Am getting a GTX 260 for $140 delivered and allows me to start lower than the GX2 and add SLI with a mobo swap later)

2. How does the GTX 260 compare to HD4850 on two fronts - a) HD Video Encoding/Decoding/Playback b) Gaming

3. Back to the audio, does HD4850 have a 7.1 out or a 5.1 audio out?

Thanks a ton for your help with this. Appreciate it.
You can use a single NVIDIA card with a CrossFire-ready mb with no problem.

- 9800 GX2 is better than GTX 260 in 3D performance, but consumes much more power (+60W). They are identical in video playback.
- GTX 260 is better than HD 4850 in 3D performance. They are more or less identical in video playback.
- HD 4850 supports both 5.1 and 7.1 LPCM. This card is the best for casual gaming and video playback (no need of a separate sound card).

Battlefan

08-27-08, 02:55 PM

Welcome back from vacation Renethx. Hope it was enjoyable for you? I am picking components from your guide for a HTPC and was wondering if you thought the power supply would be big enough.

Silverstone LC17 Case
Corsair CMPSU-450VX 450W
Asus P5Q Pro
Asus Radeon 4850
Intel Duo E8400
A-DATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
AVerMedia AVerTV Combo PCIe
Vbox Cat's eye 150 (Already own)
LG Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM GGC-H20L
ZEROtherm BTF90
3 500gb HD's (Already own)

Using with Vista media center for OTA HDTV, Blu-ray Movies & Games.
Any advice on components appreciated.
Thanks

dgshtav

08-27-08, 02:55 PM

You can use a single NVIDIA card with a CrossFire-ready mb with no problem.

- 9800 GX2 is better than GTX 260 in 3D performance, but consumes much more power (+60W). They are identical in video playback.
- GTX 260 is better than HD 4850 in 3D performance. They are more or less identical in video playback.
- HD 4850 supports both 5.1 and 7.1 LPCM. This card is the best for casual gaming and video playback (no need of a separate sound card).

Thank you!

I think I will just go with GTX 260 then at this point.

Leaves me some money to get a good audio card later with the money saved over the GX2.

Thanks again! :)

BigGeek

08-27-08, 03:14 PM

Well, I've spent too much time reading and not enough time doing...so here goes. I'm wanting to put together an HTPC build for my home use. I currently use a Dish Network ViP622 DVR for my HD TV viewing and recording, so mainly I want the HTPC to be used for other types of media playback. I'll want to run it through my AVR for music playback, and also to my 58" 1080p TV so we can view DVD's stored on the hard disk.

In short, I want to use the HTPC as a media server, but it will also serve as the front-end. I currently have plenty of keyboards, mice, etc. and a Logitech Harmony 880 remote, so no needs for either of those.

My main interest is for you guys to pick apart my core components and let me know if I could be in trouble on any of my selections. I'm a little concerned about the Zalman CPU cooler fitting into the case, so if you have any experience with this or another cooler I'm certainly open to suggestions.

As far as OS, I honestly haven't made a final decision just yet. I made sure to go with an nVidia video card to make life easier should I go the Linux route with MythTV or XBMC. But I also included the LG Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive, which I know isn't well supported in the Linux world just yet. I already have a copy of Vista Ultimate, so I'm keeping my OS options open for now.

Here's a link to my parts list at NewEgg:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=10399008&WishListTitle=BigGeek

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.
~Chris

renethx

08-27-08, 03:16 PM

skato

08-27-08, 03:47 PM

Hello. I would like some info on my set up. Is the power supply over kill?

I’d like to build a htpc and gaming rig (not extreme).

Here is my list. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

-SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (x2)
-Thermaltake Black Aluminum / SECC Steel DH101 VF7001BNS ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
-ASUS P5K DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
-XFX PVT98UZHF9 GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB
-Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHZ
-Thermaltake Toughpower W0133RU 1200W ATX12V
-ASUS Silent Square EVO 92mm Vapo Bearing CPU Cooler
-AeroCool XtremeTurbine-Black 120mm Case Fan - Retail (x2)
-Western Digital Caviar GP WD5000AACS 500G***
-AMS DS-2350S Aluminum Black eSATA 5 bay SATA Enclosure
-Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (5)
-ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 (when will this be out?!??)

*** If you ask why only one drive, id have to remove the hd tray for the video card to fit. Don’t know how to situate the 2 other drives as I don’t have the items sitting in front of me.

Thanks in advance!!

renethx

08-27-08, 03:59 PM

I am getting ready to buy and build the Premium Intel system you recommend but first if you could advise, I'd appreciate it.

1) G-Skill memory. Should I stick with your recommendation for G-Skill 8000 or buy the latest 8500? Marginal price difference.

2). Every place seems back ordered on the Thermalright HR-01 PLUS. Any other suggestions (It's OK if it's slightly more expenseve.

3). The ASUS 4870 card appears N/A at newegg or Frys. Is this your only recommendation in 4870's? Does it matter which brand all that much?

4). I would like to do a DAS system as well but would prefer an Audio Equipment style or Rack Mountable style enclosure. Any recommendations as to card and box? Too noisy a box won't work well as the rack is in the media room albeit somewhat sound proofed.

I am placing this in a sound insulated rack in my media room that has dual climate controlled 16 inch intake fans. I have room for the big Silverstone Box, all my audio equipment and around 3 vertical feet of extra rack space for storage. I guess I'm asking what would you do for storage and this box.

I intend on using the HDHomerun for QAM and the HTPC feeds to my Tivo and WHS.

Finally the Gigabyte card you like so much seems to get rave reviews, any changes in opinion before I buy?

I really appreciate this string as I am more an audiophile guy than a PC person but have been dissapointed in the packaged systems that seem to not be considering all the changes in sound formats.

I will be powering this system with very good Nautilus Speakers and B&K amplification. Projector is a Sony Ruby VW100.
1) Either one is OK.
2) Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme.
3) Brand does not matter. ASUS cards are very cheap until August 31st (mail-in rebate).
4) SilverStone DS351 (http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_contents.php?pno=ds351&area=usa) (the same Silicon Image chips as my recommendation), ~$500 (!). Addonics released 4U Storage Rack (http://www.addonics.com/products/raid_system/rack_overview.asp). You can choose an interface.

GIGABYTE X48 is still very good.

renethx

08-27-08, 04:12 PM

Hello. I would like some info on my set up. Is the power supply over kill?

I’d like to build a htpc and gaming rig (not extreme).

Here is my list. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

-SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (x2)
-Thermaltake Black Aluminum / SECC Steel DH101 VF7001BNS ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
-ASUS P5K DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
-XFX PVT98UZHF9 GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB
-Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHZ
-Thermaltake Toughpower W0133RU 1200W ATX12V
-ASUS Silent Square EVO 92mm Vapo Bearing CPU Cooler
-AeroCool XtremeTurbine-Black 120mm Case Fan - Retail (x2)
-Western Digital Caviar GP WD5000AACS 500G***
-AMS DS-2350S Aluminum Black eSATA 5 bay SATA Enclosure
-Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (5)
-ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 (when will this be out?!??)
A few comments:

- ASUS P5K DELUXE consumes 30W more power than the other P35 mbs.
- GeForce 9800 GX2 is perhaps overkill for non-extreme gaming (and consumes lots of power even at idle). GTX 260 or GTX 280 or even 9800 GT may be a better choice.
- W0133RU 1200W is overkill. 500W-700W is enough with 9800 GX2/GTX 260/GTX 280.
- ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 in September?

slanemyr

08-27-08, 04:41 PM

renethx: Can you please take a look at my post I did a couple of days ago...

postcount=2944 from 08-23-08, 03:13 PM (apparantly I can´t post the link to show you...)

R1Budha

08-27-08, 05:12 PM

A few comments:

- ASUS P5K DELUXE consumes 30W more power than the other P35 mbs.
- GeForce 9800 GX2 is perhaps overkill for non-extreme gaming (and consumes lots of power even at idle). GTX 260 or GTX 280 or even 9800 GT may be a better choice.
- W0133RU 1200W is overkill. 500W-700W is enough with 9800 GX2/GTX 260/GTX 280.
- ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 in September?

id use the ATI 4870 over any of those cards listed.

it has advantages for the HTPC side, and is perfectly good for the gaming side (and probably less power draw and cheaper)

etcarroll

08-27-08, 05:33 PM

Anyone know how much power these Xonar sounds cards use? More or less than an ATI 48xx?

I have a 750 watt Thermaltake, so assume I'm good no matter what.

--snip --

Well, may have come up with something myself, HDMI.

I'm upgrading my AVR to Pio 1018 for HD codecs, need an HDMI connection from htpc to AVR.

Seems the ATI 4850 would work, but I hate to put the 2600xt on shelf as for video it works fine.

So, what if I grabbed a new sound card, say the Xonar, and run it to AVR, while vid card goes to my HDTV? Plus, I read the Xonar is PAP compliant, while the 4850 may or may not be, (the different threads seem to contradict each other ).

Quote:
Originally Posted by etcarroll
At present I have the following in a tower case;

E2200 cpu
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L - open box @ $64
SAPPHIRE 100218L Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 at $115
Crucial ram recommended for the high level ATX build - $45 after rebate
Cooler Master TC05 Centurion case - $15 on eBay new
320gig SATA hd. - had it already
Vista Home premium OEM - $101

It's run for 6 months, played a handfull of BDs just fine.

Time to move it into my Silverstone LC-03 case, and swap the E2200 for the E8400 I bought 2 months ago.

Since I have it open, any other parts I should upgrade?

Build is for VMC and BD playback, plus OTA HDTV - no games.

Seems the 2 big gains with a P45, more RAM and more SATA, do me no good, as I have a 4TB WHS box, and 2gig RAM seem to work fine.

Is there anything I should upgrade while the mobo is between cases?

Its in the tower as the mobo was open box, I had 7 days to test or RMA, so I grabbed the tower for a prelim/test build.
Then the Summer hit, and just never got around to moving it into the LC03 which houses my XP MCE build today.

Xuivo

08-27-08, 08:18 PM

Hi, i'm bumping this please. I'm waiting to know if I should go with mATX or ATX for my needs. What would be your recommandation based on my needs. Also, I don't think I have access to all CPU coolers (i'm in canada), so are they other ones you can suggest? Thanks

Hi all,

I've been reading this thread for a while. I'm looking to build an HTPC to replace my old Xbox. I was about to go with the recommended system from this thread, but I would like your input on the build.

CPU: Core 2 Duo E8400
Memory: DDR2-800 2 x 2GB Kit
Graphics Card: RADEON HD 4850/HTDI/512M
HDD: SEAGATE 320 GB SATA 2 (Already have one, not sure model number, I'm planning to stream anyway from a NAS, so no big need for a large hardrive in it)
PSU : OCZ Game XStream 600W (Already have, will use it if compatible)

Here's what I need input from you : ATX or mATX. From what I've looked, it would either be :

Motherboard: ASUS P5K-VM Intel G33 chipset microATX
CPU Cooler: Scythe NINJA MINI SCMNJ-1000
or
Motherboard: ASUS P5Q PRO Intel P45 chipset ATX
CPU Cooler: ZEROtherm BTF90

My needs are :

- Play HD and SD files (I will backup my DVD collection, I got some blu-ray and I want to be able to play the HD content found on the net (mkv, x264, etc.) with quality and stability.
- I connect to a Pionner Elite VSX-82 Receiver (7.1 setup) via HDMI to a Pionner Elite 5010 Plasma (1080p). The receiver does not decode directly the new HD audio codec neither is it HDMI 1.3, but I would want something futureproof on this side since I planned to upgrade it.
- Play audio (mp3, wav, FLAC, OGG, etc.)
- Rip and encode Blu-Ray disk (backup)
- Use it as a HD-PVR connected to a Bell Xpressvu (similar to direct TV)
- Play emulators (which is not a problem, I'm sure)
- Occasionnal gaming
- Be able to use a PS3 controller on it to control if possible (blutooth?) and/or harmony 880.

Can you give me your input on the build... I've let the case section empty for your suggestion, with the CPU cooler if possible? Do I need an audio card with this?

What would be a good frontend (simple)? I know XBMC is coming to windows, but in the mean time?

Lot of question, I know... But thanks for helping!

amheck

08-27-08, 08:28 PM

Hey guys,

I know my question is kinda opposite of what this thread is about (HD HTPC) but I know there's a lot of good info here, I'm hoping I can get some opinions.

I'm curious what the BEST setup is for watching DVD's via MyMovies. I'm going to use a PS3 for all Blue-Ray content. Basically, right now, I have a HP slimline and I've got a HIS 3450 card, but I think I have one with a bad TV-out port. On top of that, I've also been following the thread where people are not so happy with the DVD-playback quality of the 3450 cards.

So I'm tossing around the idea of building something with DVD watching as the primary purpose (streamed from a media server). Gaming would be nice, but medium settings would be fine.

What chipset/GPU/IGP is the best for my situation, either available now or in the near future?

Thanks much,
Aaron

Edit to add - I need something that works with component for now. But having DVI/HDMI for the future would be nice.

Lostclusters

08-27-08, 08:35 PM

Renethx:

Welcome back, we missed you. How was the vacation? Did you go some where or stay at home?

sicilianbambino

08-27-08, 08:55 PM

Renethx,

may I please obtain your suggestions or comments on this HTPC system.

What I want out of my system is the following:

I want to be able to play ripped DVD's, Blue-Ray, AVI's x.264, .mkv, etc.. and pretty much any other type of video file's of my choosing. Visual and Sound quality are very important.

Viewing will be over a 1 GB network or directly connected thru my TV from the PC and/or using an Apple TV in various parts of my home.

Listening to music & viewing my Photo library via streaming over the network, connecting from the outside, or directly connected to my Anthem Pre-Amp.

I will also be running either Cinemar's or CQC automation software to allow access to the entire library and other home automation.

Games are not a priority.

Is there anything that I can change to better the system listed below to save
money and not loose Video &/or sound quality or if need be spend a little extra for an improvement?

The components that I've chosen are the following:

HARDWARE:

CASE: NORCO RPC-4020 4U Rackmount Server Case
MB: ASUS P5Q-E LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
Video: VisionTek 900244 Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready
HBA: SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz SATA Controller Card
PSL: COOLMAX CUQ-1200B 1200W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor
RAM: Gig total OCZ Flex XLC 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1200 (PC2 9600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2FX12002GK -
Cooler: ZALMAN 9500A 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler

Possibly a TV Tuner/PVR TBD

SOFTWARE:

Windows Home Server and duplicating all of my Data across many 1 TB drives

Is an additional sound card really necessary if I have optical out on the motherboard, HDMI out on the video card (4870) if going into my Pre Amp? Any sound difference?

Thank you very much.

renethx

08-27-08, 09:39 PM

renethx: Can you please take a look at my post I did a couple of days ago...

postcount=2944 from 08-23-08, 03:13 PM (apparantly I can´t post the link to show you...)
A good selection. Choose Phenom X3 8450, $104, for better deinterlacing. APEVIA X-QPack is a very popular SFF case. NSK1380 comes with a 80 PLUS 350W custom PSU, while APEVIA 420W ATX PSU is not so good ...

renethx

08-27-08, 09:59 PM

I'm upgrading my AVR to Pio 1018 for HD codecs, need an HDMI connection from htpc to AVR.

Seems the ATI 4850 would work, but I hate to put the 2600xt on shelf as for video it works fine.

So, what if I grabbed a new sound card, say the Xonar, and run it to AVR, while vid card goes to my HDTV?
Xonar has HDMI in (from the video card) and HDMI out (to AVR). But someone says it is also capable of sending audio only. I think it is not confirmed yet. Edited: Confirmed (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14540028#post14540028) (?).

If your P35 mb runs fine, I don't see a reason for upgrading it to P45.

renethx

08-27-08, 10:17 PM

Hi, i'm bumping this please. I'm waiting to know if I should go with mATX or ATX for my needs. What would be your recommandation based on my needs. Also, I don't think I have access to all CPU coolers (i'm in canada), so are they other ones you can suggest? Thanks
It depends on the number of expansion cards (4 in mATX vs. 7 in ATX) and the number of HDDs inside the case (usually 2-3 HDDs in a mATX case, while 4-6 HDDs in an ATX case) you plan to use. There is not much performance difference between G33 and P45.

E8400 runs very cool and perhaps you don't need to use a retail cooler. A side-flow cooler (e.g. BTF90) helps to improve case ventilation, though.

Xuivo

08-27-08, 10:57 PM

It depends on the number of expansion cards (4 in mATX vs. 7 in ATX) and the number of HDDs inside the case (usually 2-3 HDDs in a mATX case, while 4-6 HDDs in an ATX case) you plan to use. There is not much performance difference between G33 and P45.

E8400 runs very cool and perhaps you don't need to use a retail cooler. A side-flow cooler (e.g. BTF90) helps to improve case ventilation, though.

Thanks renethx. Some more question though, as for the expension cards, is there a possibility I need more than four in the future? I plan to have a decent video card for occasionnal gaming, something to record TV, what else can I put in it?

Also, have you heard about controlling the HTPC with a Playstation 3 or X-box 360 remotes? In one case, i would need bluetooth, while on the other, RF... Is it feasable? Since I plan to run emulator, it would be great.

Finally, do you suggest to put vista 32 or xp 32 in a HTPC these day? And using the 32 bits limits me to 3.2 GB of ram right?

Oh, and finally... Concerning the sound, I'm I ok with the 7.1 from the video card (HD4850?). Like I've said, my receiver does not internally decode the new format. My PS3 pass those as PCM, so I guess the PS3 is decoding them. Will this card do the same thing? And if I want to use my HTPC as a HDPVR, do I need a sound card then?

Thanks for all your help in this forums!

renethx

08-27-08, 11:14 PM

Games are not a priority.

Is there anything that I can change to better the system listed below to save
money and not loose Video &/or sound quality or if need be spend a little extra for an improvement?

The components that I've chosen are the following:

HARDWARE:

CASE: NORCO RPC-4020 4U Rackmount Server Case
MB: ASUS P5Q-E LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
Video: VisionTek 900244 Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready
HBA: SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz SATA Controller Card
PSL: COOLMAX CUQ-1200B 1200W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor
RAM: Gig total OCZ Flex XLC 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1200 (PC2 9600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2FX12002GK -
Cooler: ZALMAN 9500A 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler

Possibly a TV Tuner/PVR TBD

SOFTWARE:

Windows Home Server and duplicating all of my Data across many 1 TB drives

Is an additional sound card really necessary if I have optical out on the motherboard, HDMI out on the video card (4870) if going into my Pre Amp? Any sound difference?
- Choose HD 4850 instead of HD 4870 (or even HD 4650 in September). HD 4870 is the same as HD 4850 with higher core/memory clock that is useful only for gaming.

- Check also CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX.

- DDR2-800 is enough for your purpose.

- HD 4870/4850 supports multichannel LPCM (16bit/48kHz) over HDMI. So basically you don't need a sound card. HD 4650 should support it too, but it is not confirmed yet.