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New to HTPC

247 Views 2 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  mrwizerd, 
M
I just purchased my computer parts, I have been a systems engineer for years prior to my becoming disabled. Now I am out of practice and out of touch it seems. I purchased an Ahanix D. Vine Series 4 case and I am becoming more and more disappointed with the unit. I am trying to pack serious power into it and I am being bogged down on several fronts. The most troubling is the parallel interface, I have searched this forum and found a comment or two about them but I wanted to see if there were better ways then buying a USB to parallel converter and hoping it works. Money is not a problem here, I will read off my statistics.


Abit AT8 32X Series Motherboard

2 - 1Gb Crucial DDR400

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Dual-Core Processor

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX (Waiting on second crossfire card)

ATI HDTV Wonder

3 75Gb Western Digital Drives (RAID 5)

Antec 550w Neo HE Power Supply

Lite ON Dual Layer DVD RW

8 in 1 Card Reader


This case is PACKED but it sort of fits everything which is good, I will need two 5.25 to 3.5 bay converters but it will do the trick. The biggest problem is the VFD I do not have a parallel port for it and am not sure if I just need to buy a different case or a better case or give up on the display or try to find a DB25 to USB converter that will function. Any advice that you can give would be great. Oh my home theater spec's are as follows if anyone wants them


Sanyo PLV-z4

Yamaha RX-V1400

Sunfire True EQ Signature

7 Klipsch Surround Speakers (7.1 with Sub)

Denon DVD-2200 (Being Replaced in a Month)

8 Port High Definition Digital Switch Box for Video Game Systems

Comcast 7Mbit Internet

Comcast High Definition DVR


and of course the aforementioned HTPC.


Thanks for the help in advance.


Michael
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I
If your problem is the lack of a parallel port, Is there a reason you don't want to just buy one of those cheap parallael PCI cards? I read through your parts list, and although your mobo only has 2 PCI slots, I didn't see them both being used.
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M
This motherboard was actually designed a little on the screwy end. The smaller PCIX slots are first and the larger second. Being as this is an ATI Crossfire ready board you would figure it would be the other way around as to not cover the first PCI slot with the VPU cooler. So it really isn't an option, and if I did have the second slot available I would be forced to put the ATI TV Tuner Pro card in so that I could have analog capabilities. Right now I am thinking I will have to wait for the X1900 All in Wonder so that I can have analog video capabilities. So I am chalking this one up to bad Mother board and case design seeing as they could have mounted the hard drives sideways and fit one more in. I may be able to make a new bracket though... Good idea actually. Anyways, thanks for the help and any further help will be much appreciated.
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