Planning new htpc (1 Viewer)

[Peter2]

I used that 320/40GB for a desktop pc, of course with a second conventional disc and for OS + programs, I think that should be big enough - of course moved profile + swapfile and some other tweaks.

A few days ago, I saw that there is a firmware issue with those as well..

 

[Peter2]

Update on the SSD buyers guide: Best SSDs For The Money: July 2011 : July Updates

 

[mbuzina]

So, this evening I will kick of the order for my parts, found two online dealers providing the best prices in combination. Here it is:

First ist from Avitos.de, second part from mindfactory.de

Any last comments before I kick of the order? I was happy I could upp the SSD to the 120 GB corsair force 3, which hast 30 GB more than my previous planned 90 GB OCZ Agility 2 and is quicker in read & write.

 

[mbuzina]

Sooo, everything has arrived, the PC is built and it is set to record its first TV this night. Since it is still copying some data across I will leave it on for the night and have disabled standby, that is for later testing.

What is working:
a) The htpc, fans are nice and quite, PC keeps quite cool (CPU was below 30°). The boxed CPU fan does produce a high pitched noise when working harder, but that is a next step.
b) LCD! Thanks to the new iMon versions and the ever active community my Display shows what my htpc is doing. Great!
b.1) LCD is off when htpc is off or sleeping. So that is a relieve (see post on the antec case)
c) Boot up in almost no time. Full boot takes less than 25 seconds, resume from Sleep just 2-3 seconds.
d) My nice keyboard, connection to TV (HDMI-DVI adapter) and the special sound requirements (same stereo sound to TV via chinch and to the amp (no surround)) The great realtek audio allows remapping all outputs as soon as you plug in a cable. You can map 2 outputs to the same mixer line, so that is great.
e) My home built LAN connection (took a while but the cabling is OK)
f) Power LED is not to bright, I might unplug the HDD led, it is too noisy.
g) Custom resolution setting for overscan reduction (unfortunatly using 1080i as a base) - the best I can get out of my old (7 years) Philips 37" LCD. A new TV needs a bit more persuasion to get WAF
h) iPiMP with streaming to iPhone, CouchPotato remote control
i) Plugins, basically all of them ;-)

What is still not 100%:
- Both remotes (iMon PAD and MCE) work, even at the same time as I have a seperate IR receiver. I can wake up the system using the iMon stuff, but I don't like the limited control I have over the usage of the keys. I might use the iMon PAD even, but it does not allow me to reassign the keys as I like them to be (I hope for the API).
- Resume on LAN

Untested
- Wakeup for recordings
- ComSkip

Just a little teaser, I will come up with some pictures later.

 

[mbuzina]

Nothing like waking in the morning with a BSOD. Especially when you try to reboot and see the dreaded "No operating system found" message.

But at least was an easy fix: I had my SSD mounted on top of the BlueRay and the SSD SATA connection does not clip on. So the optical drive vibrations shook loose the SATA cable & windows BSODs when its system drive is yanked from under its behind. Now mounted the SSD on the floor of the case (I had not seen that possibility before). Makes it hard to put the cables in right and you can not take out the drive cage while it is wired anymore, but now the SSD is fixed pretty well.

New Info: WOL does work, it seemed it needed a good reboot (with BSOD).