Guide to Building a HTPC, Workstation and Server - Page 58

Hi,

I posted this in the Gigabyte thread. I don't know if that beraks any rules. I just got the setup below and I am having problems installing Vista. I currently have the Controller set to IDE.

GA-MA78GM - S2H
AMD 5000 BE
2 Crucial 2GB-DDR2 PC2-6400 CL6
WD 500 GIG SATAII IN SATA 0
LG GGC-H20L Optical IN SATA 4

1. I can't get the MOBO to recognize a FAT32 usb flash drive in order to flash bios.
2. The system won't boot from a Vista DVD. Tried 2 sets of media.
3. How do I identify the current bios revision?

The board is Rev 1.0


XP install disk boots and is currently formatting the drive.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Jeff

quick question regarding my cpu fan - I just finished my HTPC build using a gigabyte P35 DS4 mbo and Zerotherm BTF90 heatsink and fan. The fan is connected to the 4 pin cpu fan header on the mbo and when I turn the system on the fan trys to turn, but just kind of rocks back and forth trying too turn sometimes after a couple of minutes it will start to turn but other times it just rocks back in forth. So i connected the fan to the SYS_FAN2 4 pin header on the mbo and it works fine. Is there any problems with using the SYS_FAN2 header for the cpu fan?

So it seems clear that your CPU_FAN header is malfunctional. This may or may not be worth your time/effort to RMA. The only problem I can see with using the SYS_FAN2 header is that it probably does not support speed control via the bios and/or Speedfan. If your fan spins at max speed and is not too noisy then you are probably fine. If it IS too loud, then I would suggest buying a ZALMAN FANMATE 2.They are very small inline speed fan adjusters. I believe the unit itself only costs about $3 and can but put anywhere inside or outside of your case. I am using 3 of them in one of my computers to adjust fan speeds as opposed to Speedfan and I'm very satisfied. I hope these ramblings answered your question.

Thanks for the help - I just built this HTPC and don't really want to go to the trouble to RMA it even though I just bought it from ***egg. The fan on the ZEROtherm BTF90 is virtually silent and it appears to be running at max. I have silenX case fans and the corsair psu fan which are also very quiet, but unfortunately the EVGA 9600GT video card fan is extremely loud. Not sure what to do about it, but I am pretty sure it is going to drive me crazy.

Does anyone know if the 64-bit version of vista will have compatibility problems with any necessary HTPC software (for video/audio, etc.)? Thanks!

So, I've finally got all my parts and I put it together on Friday night.

Antec Fusion 430 V2 case
Gigabyte GA-MA78MG-S2H motherboard
AMD Athlon X2 5000- Black Edition
Scythe Mini Ninja
2x1gb Corsair PC6400 800 mhz cl5 ram
Samsung 500gb spinpoint
old DVD burner IDE I had laying around

Ive installed xp home on it with mediaportal and its allready up and running

Fantastic Four 1080p x264 running smooth with less than 50% cpu load with coreavc, ac3filter and haali matroska splitter + directvobsub

The case fans run on LOW and I use the scythe without the included fan.

Idle temp on CPU is usually around 40 degrees celcius I dont know if its too high? Havent tested with cpu on full load yet

Now the issue

I output 1920x1080 at 24 hz through HDMI to my Pioneer plasma and I need some help getting rid of the overscan. The setting for this in catalyst is reachable on 1280x720 but gets disabled when using 1920x1080.

How can I fix the overscan propblem? 1920x1080 gives clearly the best image quality even though the native resolution of my screen is 1366x768

Also, is there any way of getting any audio at all (2 channel stereo is fine) through the hDMI output?

Answer probably depends on which software you want to use, but I am using Vista 64x with HDHomerun tuners, and everything works fine with the built in software.

Ben

i know i asked this question before and renethx is updating guide soon but i been editing two setups and was thinking which setup would be great to have,the antec case setup looks cool but will that asus board be fine with my setup or i'm i choosing a board that i'm not gonna be using its features,reason i added the gigabyte setup is becuase those boards have good reviews on the newegg page heh,i wanna know if i'll be fine with setup#1 or if setup#2 will be much better,i'm about to head out and purchase that q6600 processor at microcenter and i'll just order the rest of the parts later tonight of which setup is recommended,also i need is s/dif for the msi video card to connect since i'm gonna be using hdmi for audio+video


setup #1
1.Cpu cooler - Scythe Ninja Mini
2.Motherboard - ASUS P5E-VM HDMI
3.Case - antec NSK2480
4.PSU - Antec EarthWatt ea500
5.Ram - CORSAIR XMS2 2GB
6.dvd drive -
7.Processor - q6600
8.Hard drive - seagate 250 sata
9.video card - msi 8600gts(hdmi out)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

setup #2
GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3R Intel P35 or
GIGABYTE GA-EP35C-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX

2.case - SilverStone LC17B
3.q6600
4.ram-same as above
5.video card-same as above
6.hard drive-same as above

7.Antec EarthWatts EA-430 430W Power Supply=$63

8.CPU Cooler: ZEROtherm BTF90-108 x 81 x 128mm-or Tuniq Tower 120

I've been having an issue after attempting to add a HD-DVD/Blu-ray internal to my HTPC. Video plays fine but the audio cuts in and out. This is my hardware list:

Asus P5N-E SLI Motherboard
Core2 2.4ghz E6600
2GB DDR2 PC800 Ram
120GB SATA HD
LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray/HD DVD Internal
Asus EN9600GT Silent
Chaintech AV-710 Sound Card
Sony STR-DE985 Receiver

Someone mentioned that SPDIF connections can't handle the bandwidth of Dolby True HD and DTS HD signals. If this is true, then do I need to upgrade my sound card? I was looking at some of the suggestions in the beginning of this thread but I'm confused on how I would connect them to my system. They both still have SPDIF connections so wouldn't the bandwidth still be limited?

Sorry for the newbish question, but I haven't looked into HTPCs for a number of years since originally buliding my system about 4 years ago. I never had any issues playing DVDs with my current system so I never looked into upgrading anything changing anything out since it was working just fine.

If any additional info is needed, let me know and I appreciate any help that can be given.

Well there's no way to get the HD audio out of your computer with an add-on HDMI soundcard yet. Hopefully soon. I don't think this is your problem as you're hearing the Non-HD audio and it should play fine. Your CPU looks like it shouldn't be having any problem, what's the usage like? Codecs? What are you using for playback?

thanks alot for the answer renethx

I'm not sure I'll have to look into it...

Then, how do I correct overscan? I output 1920x1080 at 24 hz (as recommended for my Pioneer plasma PDP-507XA 1366x768) and the 1080p comes up on the plasma as It should and the ADV settings for HDMI comes up aswell. Picture is great!! But I suffer overscan.

There is a "slider" in the scaling setup in catalyst drivers, but Its not highlighted in 1920x1080 for me (inactivated)... I can onyl use it on 1280x720 but I want to use it on 1920x1080 ofcourse...

or is there a guide somwhere how to correct overscan in service menu on the TV? I don't want it to affect other sources connected to the screen, Nintendo wii and satellite hd- settop box for example..

Have you finished setting up you new HTPC? How does it work? I am planning to go the same route as yours.

That would explain why the audio cuts in and out then. This raises a couple of new questions.

Until I upgrade the receiver and sound card, how would I go about connecting my current card via analog?

http://icrontic.com/draco/images/art...connectors.jpg

Line out - Front L/R
Surround - Rear L/R
Center/Bass - Center Channel and Subwoofer?

Do I just use a minijack to RCA cable?

Next, I was looking at standalone Blu-Ray players and they have SPDIF connections. If SPDIF doesn't have enough bandwidth, why would they be on a standalone player? Are they simply there for regular DVDs that use DD or DTS?

renethx

After following your interesting posts for over a year,
I placed my order today, and I'm still doubtful.

I was going to wait for an Intel Geforce 8200 or G45,
but knowing my personality I would spend to much time looking,
for the perfect motherboard, perfect price, perfect timing and so on.

So when a friend running a computer store offered me this I said yes.
But still I have time to change my mind, so your opinion would be great.

I know that both the CPU, Motherboard and Memory is a bit overkill,
but it was to take the whole package for 800$ or not,
and then evrything is installed and ready...


CPU: Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R
Memory: Value Select DDR2 PC5300/667MHz CL5 2x512MB and 2x1GB
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GeForce 8800GT Dual-DVI 512MB
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music
HDD: Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD753LJ 32MB 750GB
Case: Antec SK4480
Windows Vista Premium 32-bit


Perhaps it is a bit expensive,
but it will for sure save me a lot of time.

The only thing I could change, if I understood him right,
was chaning the memory to 2gb 800Mhz instead of 3gb 667MHz.
But as I'm not planning to overclock I don't know if it is better or not...

Thanks again

I was also testing my setup with my only HD-DVD, Transformers. From what I was reading about the disc, it only uses Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 (1.5mbps) which should be able to be sent over SPDIF yet this disc audio also skips.

I realize it's relatively moot since HD-DVD is dead but I'm curious as to why this "skips" as well.

Based on this FAQ: http://www.dolby.com/assets/pdf/tech...DDPlus_FAQ.pdf
It looks like you need a DVD player that provides a compatible regular DD stream, if sending to an AVR that does not decode DD+ then that might explain the skipping.

I'm no expert but I observed similar behavior trying to play uncompressed blue-ray audio on my pc. I demuxed (separated/extracted) the files from the .m2ts file. Then I used eac3to to extract the ac3 (Dolby Digital 5.1) track from the uncompressed English audio track. Then I remuxed (combined) the English DD and movie video track (into a new .m2ts file) and it worked perfectly. Yeah, I know, a PIA, but it worked.

In your case with HD-DVD, you would do the same with the biggest .evo file (main movie file) on the AnyDVD ripped files.

Use 3 mini male Y to 2 RCA male cables for 5.1 sound. I use 4 of the monster icable for ipod cables for 7.1 sound.

Most Audio/Video equipment will come with SPDIF I/O because this is just one method many people want to use get sound to there system, just as there is usually two RCA I/O and now HDMI.

I agree with the RAM statement. Not noticeable.

Want to upgrade my graphics card. Current specs:

Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)
AMD Phenom 9500 quad-core processor - 2.2GHz
2GB DDR2-667MHz dual channel SDRAM (2x1024)
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400, DVI-I, VGA adapter,HDMI

I am thinking about either the ATI 3870 or the nVidia 9600gt. I do not plan on gaming for the most part. I use this pc on a 50 inch LCD Panasonic television.

Looking for advice for a graphics card. Willing to spend up to around $160.

renethx,

I was unable to get my first GA-MA78 motherboard to work.

I borrowed a GA-MA69GM-S2H and Vista installed without a hitch with all of the original parts installed.

I have two questions:

If I only need this machine to play HD video and Bluray, what am I losing by slapping a 3450 in the 690 board besides a few extra watts of power?

Where cam I get the "latest version of the GA78 MOBO if I want to try again? Mine came with 00 BIOS.

Thanks for all the great information.

How would this card fair in an HTPC for Blu-ray and HD support? I'm currently using an 7600GS, but may add an LG combo-drive. Would the 3870 be any better than my 7600? Why?

BTW, it would not be used for any serious gaming.