Assassin's Simple/Beginner HTPC Buying Guide - Page 384

I hate to be a "half empty glass" kinda guy .... but I prefer to call it reality rather than pessimism.

Does anyone really believe that a first round bios update is going to be 100% compatible with out bugging out something else on there system ?

I know for certain that Ivy has been confirmed working well in Asus GEN3 Z68 boards for couple months now from other forums including posts from people at both Asus and Intel so while I can speak about all boards and chipsets I do have significant faith it should drop into these specific Asus boards without much issue.

I would think Asrock z68 should also b compatible.

Dude!!

It makes me proud to have my cruddy looking pics in your examples!!! What an honor!

Thanks for including me man! I couldn't have done it all with you and your guides

I considered waiting for the Ivy, increase in performance etc, lower power consumption... However, when I decided to go quad core (i5) I felt there was no real reason to wait as even the Sandy appeared to be more than adequate for my needs.

Are people seriously considering swapping out i3/5 Sandy's for Ivy's?

Maybe not i3/5 but perhaps a G to a i3 ivy. Once ll the kinks have been worked of course

Using just a Media Center Remote (the one which came with the DMA 2200) how can you switch the Recorded TV UI from Thumbnails to List?

I can not right click. I know there is a way, as I have done it before I just can't recall.

Edit: I got it, highlight a thumbnail and press 'i' (the information button), option box pops up.

At some point I might... I like at least the option.

And so intuitively obvious.

Wishing HDD would come down to those price ratios . "Wish in one hand and crap in another and see which one fills up first "

Really nice find though !

I haven't been able to get the streaming working properly.

The things I have done was add extender formats as suggested in community.mediabrowser.tv and installed the Shark's Codec Pack.

I also checked a couple of media files using GraphStudio mentioned in Paid Guide 2.

What I see is for the Dark night the Video Input is "WMVideo Decoder DMO" and for Ratatouille it is "Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder". They all had "Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder" not the "LAV Audio Decoder" as showen in Guide 2.

Any suggestions appreciated.

I'm having the same problem. HDTV was working fine last night, now I get a blank / black screen as soon as Win7 transitions to desktop. Is this the HDMI bug? Should I load the drivers Assassin posted last year? I was able to boot in basic safe mode (not to the other safe modes) and re-loaded the MS graphic drivers from 1/12/12 without effect.

Thanks Assassin,

Yes, I checked the video driver and the option to roll back wasn't selectable. I directed it to the MS HD drivers I installed when I first installed my system, but the OS said that the drivers I had were the latest. I also restored from two days ago without effect. "The drivers you have listed"; are you referring to your guides? Should I check guide 2?

First build starting soon. The items I purchased so far:

i3-2100 (weekend sale on newegg for $109.99...couldn't beat that!)
GIGABYTE GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 z68
G.Skill 8gb (2 x 4GB) Ripjaws......I know, overkill
Antec Greenwatts 380 watt
NMedia 5000B
Corsair Force 60gb SSD



I still need to find a good deal on a 2tb internal drive and a blu-ray writer for the optical drive. Looking for feedback/opinons/suggestions on some.

Also, do most buy Win 7 OEM or the retail? Why would I buy the retail if I understand and can end user support Windows myself?

Going to try it now. Thanks.

IMO, good choice on the core components. If any quibbles it would be on the CPU as the 2105 has better on die grafics. If you don't expect to go 3D, may not be an issue. DO NOT FRET over that decision. (see posts on Ivy Bridge)
BTW, I have almost the same build- solid as a rock.

Ask yourself "Do I REALLY need a BR writer?" I just snagged a Asus BR reader for $50 shipped from the egg using the promo code. Most backups can be done either on an external hard drive or a netword device of some type (good use for an old computer).

As for the spinner, you're probably aware of the price spike since the flood. That said, WD or Sammy have been favorites in the 2T range. Some have pullled them out of external drive casings. You COULD just run an external drive using Esata, or look for a smaller SATA III drive for now, until prices become reasonable again.

I have used several Win 7 OEM. They are a good choice, with the only problem being that you can't move it to another build if you totally hose the one you're doing.

OK, installed the old Intel HD video adapter driver, but I'm still getting a black screen after the initial Win7 splash screen. How do I trouble shoot this?

One other slim possibility is that your board did an auto update and it reverted to using on board grafics. Since you can see the initial splash screen, go into BIOS and confirm that the first choice is the GPU card.

Yes it happened to me once upon a time.

Hmmmm.... I've always set the bios to onboard graphics. I'm using the integrated graphics on the Intel Sandybridge CPU. Is that incorrect?

Aaagghh! Why does Bill Gates hate me?

Hi Assassin,

I thought I'd just give you some feedback after recently putting together my latest HTPC.

Mobo: Intel DH61AG
CPU: I3-2100, using iGPU
Ram 8GB SODIMM (overkill I know but it's all that was available at the time)
HDD for O/S, programs etc: Patriot Pyro 60GB SSD
HDD for media files: 3.5" 2TB Seagate
Case: Silverstone SG05
Windows 7 64 bit
Power Supply 180W external power brick
XBMC 11 Eden RC2

I have to say, this thing is awesome! I previously had a Q6600 based system employing a HD5670 GPU over HDMI which I thought was good. But perhaps surprisingly, this plays movies even smoother than the discrete card system...I have no idea why. I experimented with every conceivable setting to get smooth play on the old one and it was pretty good. but this is better. It surprised me because everyone was saying the iGPU on Intel wasn't as good. Anyway, very happy there.

The system doesn't use Harware Acceleration and uses approx 40W playing HD files, 30W playing SD files. At idle it runs at 26W and when the HDD sleeps it drops to 20W. I tried using different power bricks (eg. 120W and 90W) but it made no measurable difference to power consumption. Either way it runs very cool and quiet (also much, much better than the old one which would send an annoying hum through my entertainment cabinet).
I tried hardware Acceleration and it works Ok most of the time but some movies it struggles with. Could be XBMC's implementation as much as Intels that causes the problems, but at 40W for HD I'm not worried.

I use my iphone as a remote control (using HippoRemote app and software), but i'm awaiting the Flirc remote to add a bit more WAF.

Using the external power brick allowed me to remove the 300W power supply that came with the SG05 frees up more room for extra HDD's but the DH61AG can only accept 2 internal SATA drives anyway. I could replace the patriot SSD with a mSATA SSD drive and add another large HDD if needed. Or I may eventually move to a server based system.

Anyway, hope this helps anyone thinking of building a similar system.

I too am waiting for HDDs to come down. Is there an issue with drives over 2TB? I noticed when installing board drivers there was one (ASRock Z68 mATX) that they had a driver or utility for >2TB...

The 500 drive I 'repurposed' (Seagate Baricuda @7200) is too loud, and I just hate that HDD 'write' scratch the blackboard like sound. Anyway, I was thinking, 'if I'm going to wait for prices to retreat (and, I have until football season), why not pop in a huge drive, like 4TB"... but 2TB are very popular on this forum.