*Official* Asus P5N7A-VM uATX HTPC Motherboard Thread - Page 4

anyone using a SSD with this mobo?

I am looking at a 16gb SSD. I don't need storage space in the htpc; all of my storage is in a server already.

Something like this for a 100 bucks (can't post urls, but item N82E16820609330 at newegg)

I would just consider loading vista into a ram disk, but not sure how well that would work based on some articles I have read.

I would rip BD/DVDs over gigabit back to my server and not even store a local copy.

I like the idea of less parts (by using ram disk, if possible) or solid state at the least. I guess I only really need 1.5GB or so, or whatever vista takes up.

Will this board be able to take two 2.0 V Sticks of Ram? Timing is 4-4-4-12, 800 MHz. Is there an auto-adjust feature in the bios, or a manual setting to send out the proper settings?

My Vista install and playback apps take about 15-20GB I think.

Do you have hibernate disabled? If not it takes up hdd space equal to the amount of ram you have, in my case it was 8GB.

Hmm, 15-20GB is a lot more than I thought. I definitely need to research this more. I am hoping that is due to the hibernation space.

I could plan on a 32GB SSD for not too much more.

I am only looking at using 2GB of RAM (do I _really_ need more? I haven't used vista at all, admittedly) so with hibernation space taken into account, maybe I can use a 16GB drive.

From what I can tell, not having a spinning HD will definitely decrease noise, power, and subsequently heat.

An interesting thing to note is that the VelociRaptor is actually on the quiet side for a hard drive.

I used it in my system... cant hear it at all from ~10 feet.

Now the WHS box with 6 WD Caviar Black 1TB drives right behind my couch is another matter... haha

(not super loud, but I can certianly hear them grinding during some dialogue)

What can I say? Studio apartment.

So we're into the forth page now of this MB forum and I have the big question. Is the Asus ASUS P5N7A-VM a success? I really don't see a ton of discussion about the actual workings of the board. Lot's of other stuff though.

Is this the one to make the big decision on or should I wait for the Gigabyte or EVGA? Is everything working well? How is the video and audio etc? Newegg is stocked up again and I'm tired of waiting for the EVGA. Thanks in advance for any answers!

The way I see it, no news good news. Maybe little problem with performance memory timings but for the average joe that will use value sticks, no reports.

This is what I wondered. It seems like the forums are always full and continuous when there are problems but if things are working correctly and no one has anything to complain about then, well. Everyone watching movies!

I would just like to hear if there are qualities on this board that are above average for an HTPC board or does it work just like any other board to date? I did notice that 24fps works smoothly. I was wondering how good the video is out of this board? Also how do SD discs look? Does it upconvert well?

I would just like to hear if this board stands out or should I wait for the Gigabyte 9400 board?

The board works. It is a big improvement over the G45s in terms of 24p playback. After some initial issues I did a fresh install of Vista x64 and it has been smooth sailing. The board is very stable and starts and shuts down quickly.

I did notice a couple anomolies; First, I cannot get the test sounds out of Vista when configuring the sound setup. However, I get full LPCM over HDMI when playing Blu Rays. Second, my Windows Performance rating for memory went down to 5.2 from 5.9 with the G45 boards.

There has been some talk about high chipset temperatures but I have not had any issues. Playing Blu rays and encoding in the background (I have a Q9550 cpu) the highest mbo temp I have seen is 35.

You need to disable the vmc sounds to get dd/dts in vmc.

I probably wasn't clear. I am talking about the configuration sounds when testing output for 5.1 and 7.1. I never had to turn off VMC sounds on my 8200, G35 and G45 boards to here the test sounds. No doubt it is probably something I am doing wrong but I am not really concerned about it since the when I playback my media it is working as it should (sounds great!). Thanks.

SD discs look great on my Panasonic 32" LCD (720p). Do not have the hardware or software yet for BD but hope to get it by Christmas. The audio sounds great.

I've experienced some of the problems others have reported with the system not rebooting completely (or shutting down). It will appear as if the system is rebooting/shutting down but the power light is on and fans are still running. No video. Besides that everything is working fine so far.

Is anyone getting the 'comb tearing', where at every inch down the side it seems like the lines are arriving slower? (only on pans)(VLC, SageTV)

Is this a deinterlacing artifact? How to fix?

And how do you set up for dual screens? Right now I have a monitor on VGA (which I can't plug in or it takes over), and a projector on HDMI. Whenever I go into the nVidia setup for dual screens it always gives a test which indeed puts the display on both screens, but my projector is switched to 1024x768 (its default) rather than leaving it at 1280x720 where it belongs. My projector does not respond to EID, so I have to set its rez manually.

How do you set the two screens so they show different resolutions and different apps (or desktops)?

what do you use to rip BD?

AnyDVD HD.

Haven't used it myself though as I haven't built my system yet. Know others who have.

Cant get it to work with mine wireless usb keyboard...

What kind of settings do i need in windows/bios to be able to wake pc up from sleep?

Using Vista 64

I tried Vista (64 bit ultimate edition) and it woke from Standby and Hibernation via USB wireless keyboard without any problems. Now if they would fix the driver issue for XP....

I just completed my install of the board.

Initial impressions are very good IF you perform a clean install. I went from an EVGA 8800GT video card and X-Meridian sound card to the on board audio and graphics. My resolution is 1080p24 on a 128" 2.35:1 screen and 7.1 analog audio through a NAD Master series processor. In my opinion the graphics were equal, flawless 24p playback, and the audio was superior, a considerably wider sound stage.

I have not had a chance to play around with wake from hibernation but others have claimed success. I note that in the current bios there is no option for wake from USB. There is Asus software called AI Nap, which may achieve this but I have not tried it yet.

I have not experienced t over-heating issues experienced by others. My temps remain constant at CPU 31 celcius and MB at 34 celcius. I have four hard drives in a Monreal Mon Casa HTPC case. The size of the case probably explains the lack of heat issues.

Blu-ray performance is good and using hardware acceleration both CPUs (7300) range from 20% to 28% during playback.

The only issue I have is that one of my backup hard drives is not showing up in the bios. I suspect this is a hard drive and not motherboard issue.

So far I am quite pleased with the board.

Which XP driver issue you're talking about?

Thanks,

I've tried the latest chipset drivers (which should be the cause of the problem) and waking on hibernation with the Wireless USB keyboard is a no-go with XP, but not so with Vista.


Also, only using about 7% CPU load with blu-ray on the E8600 with hardware acceleration

Anyone else notice that the computer stops booting if you leave in a USB thumb drive plugged in and if you go into the bios with the thumb drive plugged in that the hard drive you have connected (ide) is not listed? Unplug the thumbdrive and it works fine. Weird

Wha? How'd you enable this? Special codecs? What player? I'm getting ~22% for 720p ts on an E8400. (3GHz)

BTW, on the heat issue, try touching the heatsink for the chipset. Yeah, real hot, at least if you're running passive. (I have a Silverstone GD02, so plenty of room) If you checked the GPU's temp it would be over 50C. For some reason Asus' power saver control center does not recognize its own GPU, and demands SmartDoc ('DumbDoc'?) for it, which also does not recognize the GPU! DOH!

Actually, I just tested it again and it was more like 3 to 4% cpu load. I am using the latest version of PowerDVD 8 Ultra and this is a 1080p Blu-Ray Rip of The Bank Job (my Laptop uses 7%, sorry my bad in confusing the two)

Jim

Anyone have any tearing issues with this board? I've just done another fresh install of Vista x64 + SP1, PowerDVD8, Mediaportal.

Blu-Rays seem to play fine. However normal DVD's have horrid tearing. I've enabled VSync in the video control panel, didn't help. Using EVR (Also tried VMR9 exclusive mode) for the video renderer, and cyberlink powerdvd8 codecs. Nothing I've tried seems to alleviate the tearing.

I switched to this board from the G45, and didn't have any tearing issues with the G45 (just a VERY annoying issue where if the HDMI connection was lost I wouldn't get video back. for example, I turn off the TV and receiver, but leave the htpc on... when turning everything back on I get no video).

thanks

Hi!

Anyone using linux and XBMC with this board? I've planned on doing so, but it would be nice if someone could comment on it.

Thanks!
//M

So I've finally completed my own build. But something very strange is happening. I have it connected via HDMI to my tv (Sharp 46D64U), but it the image keeps flashing in and out. It will be relatively stable for a while, and then just randomly cut to black, and then come back on. It can be consistently replicated by plugging in and unplugging USB devices. It doesn't happen in the bios, only when vista is running. Any ideas of what is going on?

Are you saying that when you plug in or remove a USB device the image on your Sharp TV cuts to black and/or comes back on? Or does this also happen at random times without plugging in/unplugging USB devices?

It happens in both instances. I can replicate it when i plug things in and out. But it also happens randomly. For example, it dropped the signal when I clicked "uninstall". I thought maybe it was a PSU issue (its only 275 Watts), but I tried unplugging the DVD drive, one of the RAM and one the one thing I have hooked into PCI, and it did not help. For now, I've switched to DVI, which will work fine- I don't have anything that requires HDCP... yet.

Finally got my board today (darn weekend made it take longer!)....and here are initial assessments:

First, I have 3 boards I am using for HTPC / Media Server duties including the Asus P5Q-EM (G45), M3N78-VM (nVidia 8200), and of course our Asus P5n7A-VM (nVidia 9300):



A look at the layout (and the actual nVidia MCP7A w/o heatsink on):



There's plenty of space for a nice big HSF (like my Ninja Rev. A), well laid out and placed DIMM slots (so it doesn't intrude on a big HSF), but the SATA connectors should of been right angled at edge of board and the IDE connector switched with the Floppy (most are used as CDROMs which are on the left side in a standard ATX placement), which itself should be eliminated altogether with advent of USB thumbstick drives (as well as a COM Port!!! Egads!). As other alluded to here, the MCP7A gets quite hot even if it is a 65nm part, so i took out the goop Asus used and placed on some Artic Silver AS7 on. For those that are wondering, yes my CPU (a Q9300) was lapped.

First and foremost, the AMI BIOS is annoyingly slow to boot, especially if you have a lot of SATA drives connected like me. Even if you disabled Express Gate and the bootup splash screen, it spends quite a few seconds querying the drives (unlike the G45 which is lightning quick). The Bios menus themselves aren't very detailed (i'm still confused how to underclock / overclock my CPU) and the choices very limited compared to my G45. I'll play with this later though once i get some stability into the system.

Second, half of my bootups appear to get stuck for whatever reason. It is really annoying and reminds me of the old days of the first Athlon 64 X2 boards from Asus / nVidia. I'm sure in time, this will be worked out via the BIOS but I spend half the time waiting to see if it boots or not and restarting again.

Third, the RAID configuration is a PITA to install with Vista 32. Unlike Intels ICH9/ICH10R, nVidia's RAID controller isn't included in Vista's core driver set thus requiring you to add it via Floppy (egads again!) or fortunately a USB thumbdrive. However, after Vista was installed, i ran through a few crashes during bootup. After yanking out my 5 Seagate 1.5TBs temporarily, things seemed to have calmed down with Vista letting me install SP1 and the appropriate drivers.
Next up....BD playback, undervolting, overclocking, vDroop measurements, RAID performance/configuration, and Speedfan configuration....

Not obvious what is going wrong for you. My systems (Vista 32 based) plays normal DVDs just fine. I am also using PowerDVD8.