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Assassin's Simple/Beginner HTPC Buying Guide - Page 109

post #3241 of 15486
4/14/11 at 1:37pm
Thread Starter 
Hey guys this would be a great build for those of you building today...

$446 - Newegg code for $25 off = $421

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post #3242 of 15486
4/14/11 at 1:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Augus View Post

time for some more new account
promo code NEWTAX25
code till 4/15 @ 11:59pm PDT

Yep just make a new account and your in business.
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post #3243 of 15486
4/14/11 at 1:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rwpritchett View Post

The default Pearl color scheme is white... and it is VERY white. If you go into the settings (click the little wrench icon in the upper right corner when you first open MB), there is a tab for each theme you have installed. Go to the Pearl theme options and select another Pearl color scheme. For the CoverArt plugin, it adds effects to your movie posters and thumbnails such as DVD/BD cases, reflections, 3D effects, etc.

Here is my setup with the Pearl theme, and you can see CoverArt doing it's thing with case covers around all of my movie posters:

Yeh that looks nice, although I am not totally sold on the coverart plugin, I think the posters look fine without cases around them. It looks like you store all your movies in iso format, do you think that is the best way to do it? I was using makemkv for the first few I have done. All I have for iso playback is pdvd8 and that probably isn't the best. Also I now have mediabrowser stuck in the movies folder and I can only pull up the folder menu, when I press the back button it goes back to the mediacenter home page.
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post #3244 of 15486
4/14/11 at 2:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeldomSeen31 View Post


I was FREAKING out when I did this 2 days ago. This and being ultra paranoid about static shock were the 2 biggest hurdles I had to jump through.

I kept saying, I can't have to push this hard, I can hear the plastic straining, I am going to have a $650 paper weight, AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!.

But, it did need to be firmly pushed in to place. My new HTPC is up and running.

Electrostatic discharge is a a very real concern a lot of people either don't know about or just ignore. When you can see the static shock from your fingers, that's around 6000 volts, when you feel it but cant see or hear it, its around 1500 volts. It takes 10 volts to damage electronic components. So pretty much all the time your passing along esd and you won't even know it. You really should use an anti static bracelet or mat. The components these days are pretty well made so the esd won't destroy them but it will damage them. It may or may not cause a visible problem but it will shorten the life of your components.
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post #3245 of 15486
4/14/11 at 2:41pm
Well I'm done. I dont have my power cord or I'd fire this thing up. I pretty much constantly touched my case when handling the mobo or cpu cause I was so paranoid about static. This thing was so easy to do (knock on wood since I havent fired it up yet), I cant believe I was so cautious about doing it. All I need to do is install windows and then connect my storage drive and I'll be finished and ready to start customizing.
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post #3246 of 15486
4/14/11 at 2:43pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ou-11 View Post

Well I'm done. I dont have my power cord or I'd fire this thing up. I pretty much constantly touched my case when handling the mobo or cpu cause I was so paranoid about static. This thing was so easy to do (knock on wood since I havent fired it up yet), I cant believe I was so cautious about doing it. All I need to do is install windows and then connect my storage drive and I'll be finished and ready to start customizing.

Great! Can't wait to see it!

Hope everyone reading this builds one!!!
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post #3247 of 15486
4/14/11 at 2:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by joeydrunk View Post

Electrostatic discharge is a a very real concern a lot of people either don't know about or just ignore. When you can see the static shock from your fingers, that's around 6000 volts, when you feel it but cant see or hear it, its around 1500 volts. It takes 10 volts to damage electronic components. So pretty much all the time your passing along esd and you won't even know it. You really should use an anti static bracelet or mat. The components these days are pretty well made so the esd won't destroy them but it will damage them. It may or may not cause a visible problem but it will shorten the life of your components.

I did not use a band, but compulsively touched the case before touching any component, while touching a component and then once releasing the component worried whether I had remembered to do so. Being my first build I am pleased that I was aware enough to do it and my inherent worrying and fear of the unknown probably saw me through.

I think next time I will buy a band so that I can "stop worrying and learn to love the [build]."
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post #3248 of 15486
4/14/11 at 3:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeldomSeen31 View Post

I did not use a band, but compulsively touched the case before touching any component, while touching a component and then once releasing the component worried whether I had remembered to do so. Being my first build I am pleased that I was aware enough to do it and my inherent worrying and fear of the unknown probably saw me through.

I think next time I will buy a band so that I can "stop worrying and learn to love the [build]."

I ground myself in the beginning and pretty much forget about it. Yes it can happen but it is highly exaggerated by plenty of folks.
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post #3249 of 15486
4/14/11 at 3:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeldomSeen31 View Post

I was FREAKING out when I did this 2 days ago. This and being ultra paranoid about static shock were the 2 biggest hurdles I had to jump through.

I kept saying, I can't have to push this hard, I can hear the plastic straining, I am going to have a $650 paper weight, AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!.

But, it did need to be firmly pushed in to place. My new HTPC is up and running.

While assembling my first PC and now the HTPC, I ran a wire from the cold water pipe in my house, to a static dissipating wrist strap. I wasn't taking any chances, lol.

And yes, the first time I installed a CPU having to apply what seemed like a lot of pressure to that lever latch mechanism, with the sort of crunching sound from underneath as the pins pressed up against the socket, I was quite concerned that something was getting mangled. But so far so good with both CPUs I have installed.
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post #3250 of 15486
4/14/11 at 3:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by indio22 View Post

While assembling my first PC and now the HTPC, I ran a wire from the cold water pipe in my house, to a static dissipating wrist strap. I wasn't taking any chances, lol.

And yes, the first time I installed a CPU having to apply what seemed like a lot of pressure to that lever latch mechanism, with the sort of crunching sound from underneath as the pins pressed up against the socket, I was quite concerned that something was getting mangled. But so far so good with both CPUs I have installed.

Yeah, that crunching sound was slightly disconcerting...
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post #3251 of 15486
4/14/11 at 3:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by whiteboy714 View Post


I ground myself in the beginning and pretty much forget about it. Yes it can happen but it is highly exaggerated by plenty of folks.

It's exaggerated because they don't see, hear, or feel the esd. So people say "oh, that esd is *********t. Out of sight out of mind. That dosnt mean its not there or can't hurt your equipment. I think its very under stated. I've been on these forums every single day for 6 months and this is the first time someone has brought it up. Like I said it takes 10 volts, to shorten the life of your components. It takes 2 sec. to put on a wrist band, and they have wirellessly ones now. I would rather be paranoid and have my equipment last, but that's just me.
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post #3252 of 15486
4/14/11 at 3:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeldomSeen31 View Post

I kept saying, I can't have to push this hard, I can hear the plastic straining, I am going to have a $650 paper weight, AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!.

But, it did need to be firmly pushed in to place. My new HTPC is up and running.

When I locked down my CPU, it sounded like a crunch. Paperweight ideas floated through my head as well.

I havent lifted the CPU gate, and dont particularly want too (crunch sounds against solid state electronics freak me out!)

Fortunately everything has worked fine.
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post #3253 of 15486
4/14/11 at 3:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hanly2 View Post

Yeh that looks nice, although I am not totally sold on the coverart plugin, I think the posters look fine without cases around them. It looks like you store all your movies in iso format, do you think that is the best way to do it? I was using makemkv for the first few I have done. All I have for iso playback is pdvd8 and that probably isn't the best. Also I now have mediabrowser stuck in the movies folder and I can only pull up the folder menu, when I press the back button it goes back to the mediacenter home page.

CoverArt does other things besides cases. You'll have to experiment with it to see all it can do. Oh, and don't let my pic fool you... my media is mostly mkv. For my blu-rays I just mux the untouched video and audio. CoverArt picks up my media as "blu-ray" instead of "matroska" because I manually set the media type to blu-ray using meta. I don't use iso's very often.
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post #3254 of 15486
4/14/11 at 4:16pm
Hi, any thoughts on this guy: AS ROCK P67 vs ASROCK H67M?

Thinking I might go this route (one of them) over the Asus board in your first post...
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post #3255 of 15486
4/14/11 at 4:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CarpeD1em500 View Post

Hi, any thoughts on this guy: AS ROCK P67 vs ASROCK H67M?

Thinking I might go this route (one of them) over the Asus board in your first post...

One is p67 and one is h67. If you want to use the CPU's graphics you need to get the H67.

If you want to get a "K" chip and overclock you need to get the P67.
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post #3256 of 15486
4/14/11 at 4:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by whiteboy714 View Post

One is p67 and one is h67. If you want to use the CPU's graphics you need to get the H67.

If you want to get a "K" chip and overclock you need to get the P67.

And back to the research I go...thanks
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post #3257 of 15486
4/14/11 at 4:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CarpeD1em500 View Post

And back to the research I go...thanks

Also one is ATX and one is Micro ATX.
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post #3258 of 15486
4/14/11 at 4:58pm
Heads up. I just figured out a BSOD issue I was having. Apparently the latest drivers for the HD 2000/3000 Intel chip is faulty. Appears that the older driver which came on the disk with the MB is fine. FYI. I have the Asus P8H67-M Evo. Working driver currently is 8.15.10.2219. However I cannot get the DisplayPort to work using a DisplayPort to HDMI cable, which is why I upgraded the driver in the first place. Oh well.

http://communities.intel.com/thread/20439
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post #3259 of 15486
4/14/11 at 5:00pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by CarpeD1em500 View Post

And back to the research I go...thanks

I have already done it for you. See the first page.

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post #3260 of 15486
4/14/11 at 6:04pm
Guys - this is a super noob request.

I just completed my build - BIOS good; Win 7 install good.

Ive connected my internet router to the LAN connection on the back of the HTPC (LAN cable - hard wire).

Win 7 is telling me to install a driver for the network adapter.

Why do I find this driver?

Thanks.
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post #3261 of 15486
4/14/11 at 6:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mondo Rock View Post

Guys - this is a super noob request.

I just completed my build - BIOS good; Win 7 install good.

Ive connected my internet router to the LAN connection on the back of the HTPC (LAN cable - hard wire).

Win 7 is telling me to install a driver for the network adapter.

Why do I find this driver?

Thanks.

Driver should come with your motherboard disc
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post #3262 of 15486
4/14/11 at 6:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dbone1026 View Post

Driver should come with your motherboard disc

Exactly. I ran into the same issue as I was building mine with no disk drive. Even loaded windows without one. Once this came about, I finally broke down and took a drive out of my son's PC. Seems crazy that Windows would not have a driver built in.
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post #3263 of 15486
4/14/11 at 6:14pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ball3r View Post

Exactly. I ran into the same issue as I was building mine with no disk drive. Even loaded windows without one. Once this came about, I finally broke down and took a drive out of my son's PC. Seems crazy that Windows would not have a driver built in.

You can download the driver from the motherboard's website onto a flash drive and then move it over to the new build.
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post #3264 of 15486
4/14/11 at 6:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

You can download the driver from the motherboard's website onto a flash drive and then move it over to the new build.

I know, but by that time I was already frustrated and just put the drive in. Anyway it motivated me to make the trip to Fry's and grab the Lite-On iHBS212, BluRay writer which will be $70 after rebate!
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post #3265 of 15486
4/14/11 at 6:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

You can download the driver from the motherboard's website onto a flash drive and then move it over to the new build.

Sweet! ... and DONE!
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post #3266 of 15486
4/14/11 at 6:50pm
Thread Starter 
Added a PSU power calculator that joeydrunk and I have been discussing to the FAQ.

I also reorganized the build examples to sort them by build type. The quicklinks are still active.

Keep sending your pictures and I will keep posting them!
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post #3267 of 15486
4/14/11 at 6:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CarpeD1em500 View Post

Hi, any thoughts on this guy: AS ROCK P67 vs ASROCK H67M?

Thinking I might go this route (one of them) over the Asus board in your first post...

I just ordered the ASRock H67M today. For less than $100, it's certainly a bargain if it works out. I'll let you know after I complete my build.
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post #3268 of 15486
4/14/11 at 7:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kgod View Post

I just ordered the ASRock H67M today. For less than $100, it's certainly a bargain if it works out. I'll let you know after I complete my build.

What graphics card did you choose?
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post #3269 of 15486
4/14/11 at 7:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by whiteboy714 View Post

What graphics card did you choose?

No graphics card - just going to use the HD2000 on the I3-2100.
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post #3270 of 15486
4/14/11 at 7:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ou-11 View Post

Well I'm done. I dont have my power cord or I'd fire this thing up. I pretty much constantly touched my case when handling the mobo or cpu cause I was so paranoid about static. This thing was so easy to do (knock on wood since I havent fired it up yet), I cant believe I was so cautious about doing it. All I need to do is install windows and then connect my storage drive and I'll be finished and ready to start customizing.

Personally, I construct all my systems while rubbing my elbows and knees on carpet, balloons, kittens, and dryer fresh laundry. I never have problems.
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