Official Dell Zino 410 HTPC - Page 16

Thanks. Turns out Dell actually states that on the lid pack page, I just didn't bother to read it.

I ordered my Zino 410 this morning, after debating for a few days, I went with the quad-core Blu-ray model, and remembered to include the iR sensor/remote. Despite the original "estimated ship date" on the build page, my order status says it will be here just before Christmas.

I just received my Zino HD 410 from Dell (P340 and 4250).

I'm really pleased with it, as it seems to be able to handle any video I can throw at it without issue.

My only problem, though, is that whenever I have audio playing through the HDMI, it becomes distorted every few minutes for about 10 seconds or so.

I've tried switching to the Realtek audio drivers, and played around with power management settings, but without success.

Has anyone else had this issue, and if so, did you manage to fix it?

Thanks!

laylaholic, can you post the power consumption of your model please ? Thanks

NX3, according to Dell, it has a 65W base load. From Joulemeter software, I could see that the CPU idles around 0.5-1.5W, and jumps to around 20W under heavy load.

Unfortunately, I don't have a watt meter handy, so I can't give you an accurate wall reading.

I'm having the same issue, I installed the board but still no response and no way to see if its working. Did you ever get this working?

Hello

Re: I keep my Zino 400 (with dual core and video card) 37C - 45C cool. I set it on top of a notebook cooler that has a single 7" (200mm) fan and it runs cool & quiet. Cooler is an Ultra that blows UP as the Zino sucks air from the bottom.

It is about a 10c hotter if I unplug the cooler fan.

I just got a Zino 410 with the Quad, 6 gigs, wireless and video Card, I have not yet put in on the cooler and it is running ~75C, core temp, be interesting to see what difference the cooler will make.

I will update after I switch the 410 to the cooling pad and then I will sell the 400, which works perfect, bought it in April 2010. It has 4 gigs, Crucial or Kingston? Whatever, I always buy quality matched sticks with a lifetime warranty.

Hi ALL,

Well, I'm still playing around with my 410 and so far so good! I've got Media Center running with a USB HDTV tuner and except for a slightly soft picture its working quite well with no stuttering nor crashes. I also have my Harmony remote programed to almost everything the Dell remote can do.

Which brings me to the Power button on the Dell remote. When the PC is up and running when I push that button it seems to power down, but when I hit the main on/off button on the 410 itself, it says "Windows Resuming." So I assume hitting the Dell remote's Power button puts the PC into Sleep mode. The question I have is should hitting the Power button on the remote when the PC is in sleep mode awaken it? If so that is not happening for me. Is there some other setting I need to adjust so that the Dell remote can wake up the PC.

Related question. Last night I set up Media Center to record a couple of shows and it seems when it was finished with the last show to record it put the PC into Sleep mode, as if the Dell remote's Power button was pushed, but it wasn't. The only way I could wake up the PC was to hit the on/off button on the 410 itself. Again, shouldn't there be some way to wake up the PC from the remote. But the other question is why did MC go into sleep after it was done recording? I can see where that would be desirable but in this case I would have prefered to have it stay awake. I looked in MC's settings but couldn't find any place to tell it whether or not to sleep after the recordings are done.

Thanks,
Gerry

Hi Mountainwizard,

Could you please let us know exactly what model you are using and where you bought it. I ran the 410 continuously for about 3 or 4 hours recording a couple of shows and watching one, and I saw no signs of over temp problems. I also felt the exhaust and while warm it didn't strike me as too hot. But it may still be worthwhile to get the cooler if its quiet.

Thanks,
Gerry

P. S. Also, what program do you use to monitor the CPU's temp?

Anyone here bought the current Zino HD 410 config available from the MSFT Store?

On the Dell site you can only get Blu-ray with the highest model which is $750 (and a lot of that stuff is overkill for a HTPC). I found out that MSFT also carries the Zino HD 410 but in a slightly modified configuration that INCLUDES the Blu-ray Player but not in such a souped up config for $599.

Comparing with the Wireless $499 version, cause you could get that version + a USB Blu-ray and be pretty similar.

Any thoughts on this?

Doing research between the ATI 5450 vs ATI 4250, seems 4250 is fine for 1080p playback, and 5450 is really only needed for HD audio and if you wanted to play games and possibly do 3D (which I don't intend to do). The slower CPU is a minus, but seems to be only a slight difference. The other concern is I can't add the remote which is needed to get the IR receiver, but I guess I can just get a USB remote to solve that (you do have 4 USB ports ).

Primary focus is using this as the main PVR server (HD OTA via HDHR tuners) but also as a playback HTPC on the main TV (42"). Do want to be able to do Youtube HD and Netflix HD which I heard the players do not take advantage of the HW acceleration so the CPU might get max out so appreciate any feedback on this issue for anyone that has the Standard config: P340 / 4250 and streaming Netflix HD, Youtube HD and Hulu.

All things more or less the same it seems if I don't care about HD audio, then for $100 more I can get double the HDD + an integrated Blu-ray player.

A nice plus is MSFT Store is doing free 2-day shipping so as long as it's in stock can get it before x-mas .

TIA!

Notable differences between Msft config vs Dell Wireless Config:

The processor is a little slower:
AMD Athlon II X2 P320 / 2.10 GHz, L2 cache 1 MB
vs.
AMD Athlon II X2 P340 / 2.2GHz / 1MB cache

It has the integrated GPU:
ATI HD4250 Mobility
vs.
ATI HD5450 Mobility (discrete, mainly needed for HD audio (which don't need) and not planning any 3D needs)

BUT has:
More HDD: 1TB vs 500GB (always nice to have more space)
Plus Blu-ray Player (don't have one so thought this would be a real plus)

Specs:
$599 / MSFT
AMD Athlon II X2 P320 / 2.10 GHz, L2 cache 1 MB
Windows 7 HP
NO MONITOR
4GB DDR3 RAM
1TB hard drive
ATI HD4250 Mobility
Wireless N
Blu-ray Player / DVD Burner Combo

I found that by going through Google Shopping, you can get a mostly fully loaded 410 Phenom II X4 with BR for the same price:

**Can't post links yet, but just search "zino phenom" in google shopping and pick the $599 X4 with 6GB RAM and 750GB HDD.

Software & Services
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
AMD Phenom™ II X4 P940 Quad Core Processor, 1.7GHz, 2MB
No Monitor
6GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz- 2 DIMMs
750GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Dell USB Entry Keyboard
Dell USB Optical Mouse
Personalize
1 Year Basic Service Plan, DMLP
Microsoft® Office Starter 2010
McAfee SecurityCenter, 30-Day Trial
DataSafe 2.0 Online Backup 2GB for 1 year
My Accessories
Also Includes
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450 MXM Discrete Graphics Card
THX® TruStudio PC™
Dell 1520 802.11 b/g/n wireless card
Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo Drive (BD-ROM, DVD/CD Burner)

Shipping date is 12/30 though, so no-go before x-mas.

Awesome, this is a great tip! Thanks!

Man what gives? Going to dell.com direct with the exact same config shows up as $749... (a $150 difference!) What's with these secret config pages?

Guess it pays to do a "search" .... Thanks a bunch!

With 10% cashback with Discover seems like a pretty good deal for a pre-built decently powered HTPC with Blu-ray Player ($540 including cash back).

Suxs that it's after x-mas though.... maybe an IOU will just have to do to myself on this one .

Wondering if Dell.com will do any after x-mas deals, or just go ahead and place the order now.

Since it won't ship till 12/30, anyone know if you place an order now, you're able to cancel up to the ship date if there's another special that comes up?

Thanks!

Gerryex

I am having the same problem. I think it has something to do with putting the computer in S3 sleep mode. Apparently this is done through the BIOS. I took a quick look at the power settings in the bios last weekend but couldn't see that option. Perhaps someone else has managed it?


Well, I'm still playing around with my 410 and so far so good! I've got Media Center running with a USB HDTV tuner and except for a slightly soft picture its working quite well with no stuttering nor crashes. I also have my Harmony remote programed to almost everything the Dell remote can do.

Which brings me to the Power button on the Dell remote. When the PC is up and running when I push that button it seems to power down, but when I hit the main on/off button on the 410 itself, it says "Windows Resuming." So I assume hitting the Dell remote's Power button puts the PC into Sleep mode. The question I have is should hitting the Power button on the remote when the PC is in sleep mode awaken it? If so that is not happening for me. Is there some other setting I need to adjust so that the Dell remote can wake up the PC.

Related question. Last night I set up Media Center to record a couple of shows and it seems when it was finished with the last show to record it put the PC into Sleep mode, as if the Dell remote's Power button was pushed, but it wasn't. The only way I could wake up the PC was to hit the on/off button on the 410 itself. Again, shouldn't there be some way to wake up the PC from the remote. But the other question is why did MC go into sleep after it was done recording? I can see where that would be desirable but in this case I would have prefered to have it stay awake. I looked in MC's settings but couldn't find any place to tell it whether or not to sleep after the recordings are done.

Thanks,
Gerry[/quote]

Hi 3lions,

Yes, I've gone through the BIOS several times now and I have not seen any option that seems to help. One option says "Auto Power On" and was disabled. I enabled it but then it asked for a Date and Time, so I turned it off again. The other option says "Remote Wake Up" and while I'm not sure what this was it is enabled but the PC still won't wake up from a remote command.

This is not critical to me as I have some X10 AC switching modules coming in along with an IR receiver to control it. In theory I should be able to get my Harmony remote to send a command to the X10 IR receiver which then commands an X10 Appliance Module (internal relay for AC on or off) to control power to the 410. The one setting in the 410's BIOS that I'm certain of is "AC Recovery" which is set to "Power On." This means that when the AC is turned back on to the 410 it will turn itself on. I know this works as I have been unplugging and plugging in the 410's AC power cord and when plugged in the 410 boots up!

But it would still be nice to be able to wake it up with a IR remote command so if anyone else knows how to do this please let us know!

Gerry

go to google shopping. just type in dell zino hd and you will see a whole bunch of configurations by dell at much better discounts than if you went to dell website. just picked up loaded zino (quad core proc, 6gb ram, 750 gb hd, 5450 discrete grpahics, blu ray player, media remote (and therefore comes with ir sensor) for $150 less than current config on dell site. its def worth it.

I just got one of these, Phenom II P940 Radeon HD 5450....screaming fast....BUT

...I had to use the Internet to figure out how to use the stupid Catalyst drivers to fix the underscanning issue on my Mitsubishi LT-46149 but it seems to be ghosting the text really bad. Does anyone know how to remove that? I had ZERO problems with the nVidia based HTPC I replaced it with so I know its not the TV.

I am using my notebook to send a WOL (Wakeup On LAN) magic packet to my HD 410.

It works really well for me. I don't have to walk over to the HD 410 to press the power button to wake it up.

I have the wireless keyboard option and no MCE remote. So even though the front of the box looks like there might be a IR sensor, I can't really tell for sure. I also can't find any installed device drivers that look like they might be for IR support. So I'm not able to play with any IR features.

I had a similar problem when trying to play downloaded Amazon videos with Windows Media Player.

Even though the video is HD with 5.1 channel sound, the Windows Media Player would only playback 2 Channel PCM through my HDMI cable.

So I went to the audio playback settings (from the audio icon on the toolbar) and looked at the properties for the ATI HDMI Audio Driver. I found a speaker setup utility there. It was set to 2 speakers by default. So I changed it to 5.1 speakers (it also has an option for 7.1 speakers). It played back a test tone on each of my speakers and woofer.

After doing that I replayed the video with Windows Media Player and I'm now getting 5.1 channel PCM playback.

Hope that helps your situation. I don't use the SPIDF audio out, so I don't know if the Reltech audio driver has a similar option or not for that output.

This is the one I own and use. I'm very happy with it. I have TimeWarner cable, not Charter. So I can't vouch for that part of it.

http://hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1950.html

Edit to Moderator: What's up with the TimeWarner hotlink?? I did not add that link, nor do I endorse TimeWarner.

Hi ALL,

First a summary of my system and how its working. It has the P940 quad core processor, 6 GB of RAM, the ATI 5450 MXM Discrete Graphics card, and a plain old DVD/CD reader/burner. So far it is working quite nicely. I'm not really doing anything fancy but just want to play streamed HD files and some casual living room internet browsing. A few days after I got it I decided to hook up a Hauppauge 950Q USB TV tuner so that I can record OTA HD channels. That was working but the picture seemed a little softer than the HDTV's built-in tuner, but I just found some adjustments in the ATI control panel and now the picture looks very nice. So all in all its doing all I am asking of it.

The only thing missing was how to turn it on using my Harmony One remote (so I don't have to get up from the couch - I am very much the quintessential couch potatoe!!!) . I did get the Dell Media Remote and I was able to get the Harmony to produce all of its commands, but I couldn't wake it up. To make a long story short I bought two X10 automation modules and I can now power on the 410 with an IR command.

First you need to get this IR receiver (IR543):

http://cgi.ebay.com/X10-INFRARED-MIN...item1c1713f997

This will receive an IR command and translate it to a power line X10 command to turn X10 modules on and off.


Then you need this appliance module:

http://cgi.ebay.com/X10-15A-GROUNDED...item483a73dbc2

This will switch the power to the 410 on or off. IMPORTANT: Do NOT get the "Lamp" module as it is meant to dim lamps and does not pass the full AC to its output and could damage the 410's power brick.

If you have any Harmony remote then you add a "device" and the IR543 is in their data base and worked perfectly with the IR receiver. If you have some other universal remote then you have to see if an "X10" device is in their pre-programmed codes and if so that should work.

If you don't have a Harmony or your universal remote doesn't have an X10 device then you'll need to get the X10 remote:

http://cgi.ebay.com/X10-5-1-UNIVERSA...item48379611fc

With this remote you can control the IR receiver or if you have a learning remote you can use this remote to teach your current remote.

I was never crazy about the various "sleep" modes of a PC, but with this setup once the PC has been shut down and it has turned itself off, the X10 module is turned off and removes power from the 410. When you want to turn it on, you send the on command to the X10 IR receiver and it turns on power to the 410. IMPORTANT: You need to set a BIOS option called AC Recovery to Power On. This way when the X10 restores power to the 410 it will boot up.

With a Harmony remote all of this is taken care of with their "activities." I now have an activity called simply HTPC. When I enter that activity the Harmony sends the commands to the X10 IR receiver to turn the 410 on. When I leave that activity, the Harmony sends the commands to turn it off!!

Have fun,
Gerry

P. S. The prices for this eBay seller are VERY good, with free shipping and they are brand new items.

Awesome! Thanks.

I went totally overkill on my Zino (maxed out everything, my intent is to use a multi-tuner cable card setup when they are available) and the first thing I noticed is that it wasn't full screen.

Excited to try this when I get home - since I got the thing I haven't had any time to get it setup (been too busy with other stuff...)

Am I blind or is this deal expired? The only one I can find for $599 does not include BR.

Thanks for continuing updating us with your review.

If you have time can you try to play any current TV episode from Hulu with your zino on your 1080p display? It doesn't have to be a 720/1080p clip, just any current 480p episode on the Hulu front page. Please let me know if the video plays as fluidly/smoothly on fullscreen mode as in normal windowed mode. My ION2 system cannot play Hulu clips well in fullscreen mode, which is why I am looking for a new system. Example: http://www.hulu.com/watch/201170/human-target-dead-head
(also try turning on subtitles and see if the performance is affected)

Also, if you can try playing a 720/1080p Youtube clip/trailer in fullscreen, and let me know if the clip plays as smoothly when you mouse over the video bringing up the overlaying player control interface. My ION2 also cannot handle any overlaying flash content when streaming a flash video, causing the clip to go from smooth to immediately choppy. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sQhTVz5IjQ

Thanks, hope that's not asking for too much.

Update from my previous post.

I played with it some more and found that I was able to wake up the Zino from the same wireless keyboard. So now it's very easy to manually put the Zino to sleep and wake it up from my couch using the wireless keyboard.

To put it to sleep I press the FN + F1 button on the keyboard and then, after it's asleep, when I move the mouse or press any key on the keyboard it wakes up again.

The other advantage, is that it causes the HDMI to perform a handshake again and causes the TV re-establish a connection with the Zino and refreshes the screen. Previously the only way I get my Samsung TV to do this was to reboot the Zino. Now I can get the Samsung to handshake with the Zino "very quickly".

Am I blind or is this deal expired? The only one I can find for $599 does not include BR.

Try Google Shopping search:
zino phenom bd
Sort by price low to high
Should be the first one listed

Another way to search for the $599 system is to go to dell.com and search for the E-Value code of dddofz4.

Hi ipaqxman,

Yes, I can play Hulu at full screen and it plays as smooth as when windowed. However once in a while a video may stutter a little, which concerned me but when I played that same video on my desktop which is a full Core i7 920 with a reasonably powered Nvidia card it does the same thing so I attribute that stuttering to the source. I had an Acer Revo 3610 with the Ion and it had a lot of trouble playing Hulu full screen.

Another thing to watch out for stuttering. One time I went to NBC.com to play a video and it had a fair amount of stuttering. Watchable but not desirable, and again I was worried that the Zino couldn't handle it. But once again I tried the same video on my desktop and it did the same thing! Lastly, if you play around with the Win Media Center and you have a TV Tuner installed when you bring up the program grid they also show a bunch of internet TV (none in HD!) you can watch. I tried an original Star Trek episode and it played nicely. Later on I tried a Star Trek - Enterprise episode and it had a fair amount of stuttering. Again I was worried, but again I tried it on my desktop and it stuttered exactly the same.

As far as 1080p videos on YouTube they run very nicely full screen and when you mouse over to bring up the player controls it does NOT do anything bad. My Revo could NOT do that!!! One video to try is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSGBVzeBUbk

Its "Big Buck Bunny" and is in full 1080p and looks very nice at full screen. I use this as a test to make sure playback of 1080p full screen works. Again, my Revo would NOT do this full screen.

Last lastly, if you get a TV tuner and the picture looks not quite as good as the built-in tuner of the HDTV, then go into the ATI Control Center and one of the tabs is Video. There you'll find a bunch of adjustments and I was able to make the tuner's picture just about as good as the TV's tuner.

Have fun,
Gerry

You can find the board under device manager, under Human Interface Devices. It shows up as a USB Input Device since it attaches to an internal USB. Just open the details of the USB input and scroll down the property tabs until, I believe "Physical Device Object name".

My old WMC remote will not work, but I got my Harmony 650 to work by the "Medion EPC II" workaround, thanks steph_22.

I have the BD 410 with the SiliconDust HDHomerun tuner hooked up. With Netflix, Hulu desktop, and OTA antenna I turned my cable box in yesterday. So far lovin my Zino.

It's here! My Zino 410 (quad-core with Blu-ray) arrived today. It's currently doing an upgrade (aka format/re-install) to Win7 Pro 64-bit, partly to get Pro, and partly to de-crapify all the junk Dell installs (McAffee and Roxio, I'm looking at you!)

I'm happy to see that the Zino is the perfect size to stack on top of my 1st Gen AppleTV. Now I'm off to reprogram my Harmony remote, and see if MyMovies and ArcSoft TMT 5 play nice together yet.

I had to get rid of McAffee to remove it's firewall that was blocking my access with Remote Desktop. Why would anyone want a McAffee firewall when Windows comes with a perfectly good one? I use CA Security for my anti-virus. I've used it for years with no complaints.

I tossed the PowerDvd and am using TMT 5 for playing my BluRay disks and rips. It works way better. PowerDvd won't let you play ripped movies. IMO PowerDvd is a POC!!