ASRock J3710-ITX - Any good? (1 Viewer)

charli181

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  • August 3, 2007
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    I am looking for new MP Client as my existing Client starting from way back with MP version 0.9 has finally powered off for the last time with a big green flash out the back of it.

    So, my main requirements are :
    * Cost (cheap as I can get of course)
    * Power consumption (the lower the better)
    * Live TV 1080i @ 50Hz
    * MKV's
    * small form factor

    I found this board ASRock J3710-ITX and it appears OK, but looking for someone else's opinion on whether this will be good enough. There was another post in forums talking about the Q1900 - ITX and they were saying it ran ok, here is a comparison between the 2 models. I cna pick up a J3710 for ($AU179) at the moment meaning I can build an etire solution for just over $AU400.

    http://www.asrock.com/mb/compare.asp?SelectedModel=J3710-ITX&SelectedModel=Q1900-ITX

    Any comments please?


    PS. found a good site to help build your PC's http://pcpartpicker.com

    Sean
     

    regeszter

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  • October 29, 2005
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    Hi,

    I have three Q1900-DC (two for MP1 clients, one for dedicated TV Server). All are perfect for MP. ;)

    I think J3710 is perfect too.

    I suggest to upgrade to MP 1.15 :p
     

    charli181

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    Finally getting around to write the review…


    Hardware purchased to a total price of $461.94 (Breakdown below)

    ASROCK J3710 – ITX Mini ITX Motherboard - $179
    Samsung 120GB 750 EVO SATA SSD - $69
    Antec ISK 110 VESA Case $105
    Corsair 8GB DDR3 1600SO-DIMM Laptop Memory $55
    Shipping/Other Costs $55.94

    Build Notes/Thoughts

    A nice looking case with no fan. External laptop style power supply included with case with a max of 90 W output. One thing was that it does not have provisions for is a DVD Rom drive – a mistake on my part but not really needed as I watch media from network drive anyways. Hard drives (up to 2 drives (2.5 inch) can be installed which reside underneath the motherboard allowing for full air flow over the CPU heat sink.

    BIOS allows for power led to be turned off to remove any distractions from the screen for those that fussy about what lights up. Another cool feature is that it allows Wake from USB/Remote from Sleep mode. Unfortunately this does not work from full shutdown mode though.

    Had to install Windows 10.1 and all related drivers from the MB disk supplied from USB stick since no DVD Rom. Needed another PC to complete these tasks which had a DVD Rom to work with.

    Build was quick and painless, and also configured windows for SSD drive turning off some services to stop indexing, Superfetching, and Windows Updates…

    Installed MP 1.15 (thanks regeszter for the tip ;)) and configured it all up as a Client Only and again painless enough. Running Titan Extended 2, with Moving Pictures, Fan Art handler, Logo Manager and TV Series Plugins. Turned off most of the Other Plugins like the games, RSS Feeds, weather.

    I am just using the LAV filters to do all my Video/Audio Decoding and after some playing with the Video settings within LAV, set the HW Decoding to DXVA2 Native. This seems to give me the best CPU/Picture quality. All the others push the CPU higher towards the 50% utilization or above.

    At 1080p, all is working well using the HDMI output direct to TV. Same with my Movie Library all encoded with Handbrake in High Profile Mode. CPU will sit at around 30% with the occasional flick to 100% every 5-10 seconds, but not a noticeable problem within the Video when this occurres. Unfortunately I do not have any BluRay content and would be rather sceptical if it could handle that kind of content.

    Unfortunately, I do not have an Amplifier at the moment so I can not comment on the capabilities of handling the different Audio Streams (DD/DTS,etc) but I get all the sound on my TV so it must be able to decode them.

    This Client is the main client and ran for 18 hours straight without any problems. Checking the CPU Temp was only showing about 42 degrees C with ambient air temp at around 26 degrees C. Channel changes were a bit slower than my old machine but we are talking a max of about 1.5 seconds before the TV guide pops up and about another 1 second to move to that channel once selected. These timings are the worst case with the average being a little bit quicker most of the time. I am using the dev option to get ts stream direct from UNC path. Still well within WAF,etc. Moving Pictures and TV Series Plugins works well and again very responsive. This is all done on a wired 1GB network.

    Power consumption is awesome… 2 watts when shutdown/off mode, and when powered up idle or running a 1080p TV stream, 15 watts is the measured usage. Have not tried sleep mode yet, As I do not use this feature in my setups.

    The only Issue I have at the moment, is that occasionally (every day or so), the video and audio go into slow motion and MP becomes very slow to respond. I think it might be a driver issue but still have not been able to narrow it down yet.

    Overall, I believe this is an awesome, cheap MP Client solution with low power usage. Another feature of the case is that it can be mounted to the back of the TV/Monitor if you those devices have VESA mountings on the back of them, thus allowing you to hide the case altogether.

    Sean
     

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