[1gkar]

Hi,

Now I've got a bit of time I can make others aware of a major problem that wasted over fifty hours of my life, plus a number of car trips across my city.

I decided to upgrade my HTPC to FreeviewHD (digital TV) compatibility. As a fan of AMD ( have/had been for about a decade) I decided to go with the following components:

AMD 4800+ CPU
Gigabyte GA-M56S-S3 mobo (nForce 560 chipset)
Asus EN8500GT 512mb Silent Magic graphics card
the rest of the HTPC stays status quo See Signature

After my first hardware install, OS & device setup, I found everytime I resumed from any form of standby I would have NO video signal ON ANY PORT. I had to pull the ASUS video card from its PCI-E slot & reinsert it, then reboot. I did not realise this initially & plugged my old MSI NX6600LE card in. I found that it did not matter what card I used, the same issue ocurred every time from resume. Hibernate would work but that was no good as the Silverstone LC14 HTPC case won't deliver the 5w necessary for bootup from a USB keyboard/remote.

My first step was to try another PSU, as posters thought it could be related to a faulty unit.

As the video card was the first purchase, I had that replaced: no change. I wasn't initially aware the problem ocurred with both my cards.

Next was the motherboard as I thought it may be chipset-related. I had tried more than two versions of the chipset drivers: both default & modified. Again, no change.

Finally, I thought it had to be the CPU, as I had put my AMD Sempron 3000+ from my client machine into the HTPC & all worked perfectly!

After fitting my replaced CPU & reinstalled the OS, as I thought to prevent any possibilities of the problem recurring, I would start afresh: same bloody issue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At this stage, I'd had a total gutsful & credited back the CPU & mobo & upgraded to Intel.

After purchasing an Intel E4600 & Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3 mobo, I reinstalled Windows again, but had to prove to M%%$#&*soft Iwasn't a crim because I had used my allotment of activations (don't get me started!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Now, my system operated perfectly. Thank God for Ghost.

The moral of the story: be damned careful what pairing you make when deciding on you're hardware. Hope you're experiences are better than my last effort.