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[marko]

Seriously. I used to love keeping abreast of these things, but in recent years, real life™ has been more demanding and I feel I really don't have much of clue at all.

So, this Dell Optiplex that I'm using as an htpc atm really has to go. It was never designed to be used in this way anyway, and was just a stop-gap for me as it kind of, well, fell off the back of a lorry!!

It's too noisy and can't quite handle 1080p video playback, though it makes a valiant effort, a little bit jerky, CPU fan screaming its head off...

So what to buy? Where to buy from? My "self-build" days are behind me now. I no longer have the desire to research all the bits and pieces, ensuring there are no conflicts, recognised design faults etc. etc.

I'm prepared to spend between £500 - £1000, but would rather keep it at 3 figures than four.

I found this, but am not sure what to think about it... http://www.mediapc4u.co.uk/mpc4030-home-entertainment-pc-media-pc-htpc.html

I want the TV card, but don't understand the options.
Graphically, it needs to cope with anything I might throw at it. Fx, the Optiplex cannot run the Aeon offering from Soundspectrum, and I don't know if this will. (Aeon requires at least Direct3D pixel shader model 3)
It must be quiet. I don't know if this is. I do understand the battle between power and cooling, but still, quiet is do-able right?
I don't think I need blu-ray reading/writing (do I? I don't own any blu-ray discs) but would like DVD playback/writing and audio disc writing.
I don't see a need for an LED display panel on the front. Distracting and unreadable from the couch, surely?

Please encourage my laziness and tell me what to buy!! Or at least set me on the right route. I don't have a clue as to whether the thing I've linked to above is reasonably priced. Hopeless, I know, but...

-marko

[Scolex]

Seems pretty high to me better prices here.
http://www.mediacenter-tv.co.uk/products.asp?cat=77
edit: well maybe not just noticed 1 includes vat and 1 doesn't.

[MrHaugen]

I gave up the self building HTPC rigg my self. There was some problems attached to doing this suff your self.

I do think that the AsRock 3D Vision box gives you more for the money that the one you posted Marko. Quad Core, 4GB RAM, Bluray/DVD/CD combo, 3D Capable (HDMI 1.4a) and Small form factor. As I mentioned before, it's not totally silent. But an environment with some sources of noise, or distance of a few meters, would make it mostly unnoticeable. I have a hard time believing you'll ever notice it while your watching a movie or playing music though.

I do not however, know if the onboard GPU is good enough for your needs. I do not know that Aeon Soundspectrum is.

Here's some details (http://www.testfreaks.com/graphics-cards/nvidia-geforce-gt425m/):

NVIDIA GeForce GT425M
The NVIDIA GeForce GT425M is a graphics card that supports 96 CUDA Cores and clocks at 1120 MHz. It has a Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) of 19.7, supports 800 MHz memory clock, GDDR3 Standard Memory Configuration, 128-bit Memory Interface Width, 60 GB per seconds memory bandwidth, is NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready, supports NVIDIA Optimus Technology, has Hardware Video Decode Acceleration, and is NVIDIA PhysX™-ready. The NVIDIA GeForce GT425M also supports NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology and Microsoft DirectX 11.

[marko]

I have a hard time believing you'll never notice it while your watching a movie or playing music though.

Did you mean "never" or "ever"?

[MrHaugen]

Ever Post edited

[marko]

Thanks for the tip MrHaugen.

I got the ASRock machine and a DiNovo Mini. WOW!

So small, so quiet, so powerful. Option in the BIOS to turn off the blue power LED is a neat touch too.

The only issue I'm having at the moment is with Amazon, who, in their infinite wisdom, have sent me a box destined for the European market, meaning that the power supply has a two pin plug instead of the three pin affair we use here in the UK. They offered me a fiver to go out and buy my own plug!! I pointed out that that would mean having to cut the existing moulded plug from the cable and wire my own on the end, and asked if I did that, then had to return the unit for any reason, would they honour the return...

I'm still waiting for their reply. In the meantime, I'm using the cable from the wife's laptop which is not going down too well

-marko

[MrHaugen]

That's a good combo. Using it my self. Together with a Logitech Harmony 900. I'm considering switching the HDD with an SSD. That would really make this a super HTPC.

Can you please tell me if you have any problem with the machine waking up from sleep, or shutdown Marko? I'm having problems with the machine waking up within 1-60 minutes EVERY time I put it in sleep, hibernation or shutdown via Windows UI or the remote. If i power it down by holding in the power button for 5 seconds, it never wakes up. Could not find any obvious suspects in Bios either. I suspect that the AsRock instant boot software is involved. I'll try to remove that one later on.

Good luck with the cable!

[marko]

There is something going on, but I'm not 100% certain what at the moment.

I put it to sleep using the power button on the MCE remote control and went to bed. Some time later, I heard it making those noises it makes when you insert/remove a USB device...

I expected it to be awake when I got up, but, no, it was sleeping like a baby. I have this yet to be investigated theory that the default windows seven power scheme allows the system to power down the USB ports. Aside from the fact that I'm not even certain that could still happen while the system is sleeping, I plan to find those settings and set them to "never" and see if that makes a difference.

What do you think, sound plausible?

[MrHaugen]

I don't think it will matter. I've entered the advanced Power Settings and set all relevant sleep options to "Never". But it's still waking up very fast after powering down. I have disabled the Instant Boot app now, and I'll see if it wakes me up tonight

[MrHaugen]

So, I got to test some more this night. Disabling the Insta Boot app did not help. I powered down the HTPC with the remote, and 10 minutes later it started up. I'm starting to wonder if that Remote Power button always puts the HTPC in its own sleep mode, no matter what you force the Shut down power button to do in Windows settings.
After that I chose Shut Down from within windows, and I pulled out ALL the USB devices, including the Dinovo Edge and keyboard etc. This time it did not restart for 8 hours! I've set the computer to Shutdown state before, and it's been woken up. So it HAS to be a USB device that triggers it. I'll investigate further which if the devices that is causing the problems. It's either the DiNovo or Gyration remote USB plugs.
I'll also check further if there is any way to stabilize the USB ports, or prevent them from powering up or down.

[marko]

I put mine to sleep before bed last night, and when I woke this morning, I could hear it repeatedly making "device connect" and "device disconnect" sounds. By the time I was scrubbed and dressed, it had settled down and gone back to sleep. It woke up as normal when I pressed the space bar on the dinovo.

I checked the event logs to find there's hundreds of Event Id 219 entries:

"The driver \Driver\monitor failed to load for the device DISPLAY\SNYDB01\5&1e0190a6&0&UID1048832"

I'm not sure where to go from there. The "monitor" is a Sony Bravia 40ex503, which is shown as "Sony TV" in the nvidia control panel, but as "Generic PnP device" in device manager.
The latest 266.58 425m drivers won't install claiming no supported hardware found. nvidia state that the driver is not compatible with systems supporting Hybrid Power technology with Intel chipsets, which I'm guessing is us.

Even so, why it's trying to load a monitor driver when it's supposed to be sleeping is beyond me!!

[MrHaugen]

My hope is that there is ways to disable this Hybrid sleep function. Seems to be doing more harm than good.

[marko]

Hi MrHaugen, how you getting on with yours?

On the properties panel for the network card (double click on it in Device Manager) the right-most tab is called Power Management. In there, I turned off the setting that allows the card to wake the system from sleep.

So far, this appears to have sorted issues out at my end. Had you already changed yours?

Regards,
-marko

[MrHaugen]

Ok. I have not checked the details of individual components yet. So far I've just tested what device is causing this wakeups. I've unplugged it all now, except from the power cord, and inserting each device one at a time. At this time I have narrowed it down to being either the DiNovo or Gyration remote USB plugs. Testing for a few hours with the DiNovo plug now, and I hope it's not waking up. If it's the Gyration, it's all good. Don't use it much anyway

I'll check the properties on all the devices if this still remains a problem.

[JimH]

Ok. I have not checked the details of individual components yet. So far I've just tested what device is causing this wakeups. I've unplugged it all now, except from the power cord, and inserting each device one at a time. At this time I have narrowed it down to being either the DiNovo or Gyration remote USB plugs. Testing for a few hours with the DiNovo plug now, and I hope it's not waking up. If it's the Gyration, it's all good. Don't use it much anyway

I'll check the properties on all the devices if this still remains a problem.

There is a utility call powercfg that you can run from the command line.  It lets you enable and disable devices that can wake the PC.

At the CMD prompt, type powercfg /? to see the switches.  DeviceEnableWake and DeviceDisableWake may help.

[MrHaugen]

Thanks Jim. I'll try that.

My previous elimination methods was faulty. It looks like it's the LAN card that is waking up the system, so I'll have to find a way to turn this off. I did disable ALL wake up settings in BIOS except for the CIR option, which I think is the IR receivers remote startup for complete shutdown or sleep/hibernate mode. Let's hope the Adapter settings in windows can prevent this annoyance. I'll test it during this weekend.

[MrHaugen]

It's the Network adapter for sure. It's been sleeping like a baby for 1,5 day now after I disabled the wake from sleep on the adapter properties. finally I can get a good nights sleep. I'm super happy with this new HTPC! I doubt that there is smaller, more versatile and more powerful boxes out there today.

[marko]

Figured that would sort you out too

To wrap up, Amazon have sent me a schuko to UK adaptor free of charge. I've shopped with Amazon for years and their customer service has always been excellent for me, but can't help feeling they dropped the ball with this one.

When I say "Amazon have sent me", what actually happened was, they placed a £5 discount flag on my account, then told me to go buy my own adaptor. Before all of this, I had no idea that these things came in different flavours, and it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be to find a decent quality adaptor with the all important earthing contacts. Still, I have it here now, just a bit ticked off that after such a substantial purchase, I had to do the legwork myself.

You're right too, in operation, the Vision 3D is completely silent. It may make some noise, but we never hear it and we're well happy. It's so much more responsive than that Dell Optiplex too, quite funny really that we put up with it for as long as we did!!

-marko

[hammerhead]

Hey guys, just been reading your post and joined up so i could post,

I bought the boxee box in dec10, spent all christmas trying to get it to work, had nothing but problems and ending up getting the asrock vision 3d
i've had it up and running for a few days now, i plan on adding an ssd but wanted it to be a treat so im going to get used to the unit as is, then add the ssd so i appreciate the difference,

anyway, i'll try your points about the sleep mode tonight

my question is have you done anything with the remote or are you using a separate remote?  mine has to be very close to work, like i cant sit on my sofa.  i have to be within 2 m of the unit, this can't be right surely?

I updated all drivers with the cd that came in the box

[MrHaugen]

The remote seems to be a bit intolerant of the angles and range. Especially the angles it seems. I've not focused much on it, as I'll be using my Logitec 900 with all my equipment. Only thing stopping from using it full time is that the responses between keypresses is way to slow on the 900. It have to be something wrong with my programming though. The IR blaster is good enough to cover all the equipment, and is sitting right under my table. So the angle and range limitations does not concern me much.

Until I get that 900 up and running, I'm using my Logitech Dinivo

[hammerhead]

thatnks for your input, i've been using team viwer on my laptop but its a pain because when i sign out sometimes a "thank you goodbye" box comes up on the tv, so i have to sign back in again and ok that to get rid of it !

I just wanted to check if there was something i hadn't done to enable to remote properly, seems like poor functionality for such a high end unit, shame

other than that i'm v pleased with the speed so far

[MrHaugen]

If you're using your laptop to control the HTPC, why not use the Theater View Treemote function? You'll be able to use the arrow keys and enter on the laptop to control the Theater View on the HTPC. I think it's pretty cool, though I have not had the opportunity to test it my self yet. It might beat Teamviewer anyway though! You'll just have to set up the HTPC MC client as a Tremote server and connect the laptop MC client to the HTPC I think. It's worth a shot at least.

[marko]

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[rpalmer68]

So a question for those with an Asrock Vision 3d...

How is it going?  Is it handling HD content/Bu-ray with Red October HQ for example?

The ones avaiable here all seem to be the i3 models at the moment, what did you get, i3/i5/i7?

I'm seriously thinking of getting one to replace an aging Dell Optiplex Gx280 (which can't go near HD content!), but am wondeing if I might be better off with a Shuttle or the like that I can replace the GPU in if/when needed.  I just like the size of the Asrock.

Cheers
Richard

[MrHaugen]

I think I have the I5 model. I have not had any problems with 1080P x264 playback what so ever, but that is not with any recent RO settings though (old setup with CoreAVC). Using an older MC16 build at home right now. I'll report back when I've tested the RO setting. Hopefully in a few days.

[marko]

Mine runs an i3, M370 @ 2.4GHz plus 4Gb RAM

It runs everything I've thrown at it thus far, including ROHQ

I cannot comment re. Blu-Ray as I do not have any such discs, but it copes just fine with 1080p H264 files, if that's any indication.
Really, really quiet too... I never hear it from the couch, at all.
Power is fed into it via a laptop mains adaptor.

If you get one, I honestly don't think you will be disappointed.

I used to run the HT on an Optiplex 745... It was hilarious the amount of noise it used to put out!! My daughter now uses this for its intended browse/email/spreadsheet purposes.
-marko

[Mr ChriZ]

Where did you buy yours from in the end Marko?
I'm thinking about one of these too...
Cheers
Chris

[marko]

Bought mine from Amazon, where, at under £600, I still think is a bargain. Just be prepared for them sending you one from Europe with a schucko plug on it. I kicked up a bit of a fuss, expecting Amazon to send me an adaptor with a UK plug on it, but instead, they sent me one of these free of charge.

They do these things in quite a few flavours, such as a core i3 with Blu-Ray combo drive for £630, or a core i5 for £737, to name two.

Personally, I don't need Blu-Ray, the i3 has proved itself more than capable for me, making the £548 number the way to go. Your needs may be different, so be sure to check them all out, and let us know which way you jump.

Another thing to note is that these do NOT come with an OS, which may, or may not be an issue for you.
I cannot recommend the DiNovo Mini highly enough. It just works, without any logitech software, and is great for those times that theatre view, erm, cough, plays up!! This is something that doesn't happen very often, so the battery lasts forever!

-marko.

[Mr ChriZ]

Thanks!  I'll post back when I make my purchase

It seems to becoming more of a problem things shipping without a BS Plug even though they are supposed to - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BS_1363

[FastKayak]

Like a couple of others I am considering the ASRock Vision 3d (same hardware as Marko).  Now that you have had the box for a while what is your overall opinion?

Items of interest to me are -

any issues crop up in the few months you've owned it?

did you stay with the hard drive or switch to a SSD?  (which one?)

is the Harmony 900 working out okay, I have one too, specifically to turn it on & off?

other comments or suggestions?


Thanks  FastKayak / Larry

[MrHaugen]

I've not had any problems, except for the network power on from sleep. The biggest problem I am having is the 900 remote. The input response is just unacceptable when using ir and rf. Browsing is just to slow in theater view. The rf was a big factor when being this remote, and now I'm often just dropping it all together, and using the remote that comes with the HTPC. The 900 remote can however control the HTPC 100%. Including power on.

[tls62dk]

I've had the Vision 3D for a couple of months now. It is the i5 version with 4Gb ram running Windows 7 64bit.

I must say it works like a dream. I have the Harmony One remote and have no issues what so ever.

It plays everything I throw at it, including 1080p Blu-ray ripped to my NAS. I use RO HQ in exclussive mode.

I think somebody already said this, but it's silent and you can turn power on and off with the remote. That is a really cool feature.

TLS

[FastKayak]

I took the leap and ordered the i3 model.  It arrives Monday.  I'm really looking forward to having a quiet HTPC. 

This is actually my second order as the first went AWOL somewhere between Newegg and the UPS sorting facility.  I've never had that happen before but Newegg quickly agreed it was someones problem, but not mine.  ....then I had to wait for them to come back in stock. 

Now the question is whether my Harmony 900 works well or not....

-- FastKayak / Larry

[MrHaugen]

Now the question is whether my Harmony 900 works well or not....

I think you'll be disappointed if you want to use it with the RF extender. I've tested it and done everything possible in setup (I think). But the response is way to slow in Theater View. RF was the reason why I purchased it. So, now I'm stuck with a 500$ remote that collects dust

Please tell me if you do not have this problem. I find it strange that such a device can't register more than a couple clicks each second.

[marko]

$500? For a remote?   

Does it also make coffee and do the household chores?

[Sandy B Ridge]

I think you'll be disappointed if you want to use it with the RF extender. I've tested it and done everything possible in setup (I think). But the response is way to slow in Theater View. RF was the reason why I purchased it. So, now I'm stuck with a 500$ remote that collects dust

Please tell me if you do not have this problem. I find it strange that such a device can't register more than a couple clicks each second.

harmony 900 works a treat for me.....

Very responsive. Never been a problem. 

SBR

[MrHaugen]

$500? For a remote?   

In Norway, yes. We have expensive stuff, but we don't complain because of all the oil

harmony 900 works a treat for me.....

Very responsive. Never been a problem. 

And you use the RF extender?? I'm wondering if there is something wrong with mine, or if I have to update the firmware or something.

[Sandy B Ridge]

And you use the RF extender?? I'm wondering if there is something wrong with mine, or if I have to update the firmware or something.

Yes, my receiver and HTPC are in a cupboard. I haven't changed anything from the original settings. My case is different though - Moneual, so different IR receiver.

Do you get problems with the remote via IR or just RF?

SBR

[MrHaugen]

The response from the IR signals alone is as expected. You have good reaction time, and Theater View browsing is a good experience. Once you add the RF extender to the chain, the reaction time is quadrupled. It's not longer possible to use it in theater view without going mad. I'll have to contact Logitec support again and be more demanding I think.

[FastKayak]

Fellow Vision 3D owners - I'm having a problem playing DVD's that I've ripped on my 3D Vision.  See this thread for details http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=67810.0  Note that PowerDVD can play the rips but MC fails.  That would seem to indicate the rips are not the issue...it is either my MC configuration or something else about my system.

EDIT:  I have isolated this to my WD USB 3 drive.  Cyberlink can play them but MC via MS DVD navigator fails.  If I copy the rips to the C drive MC succeeds. 

None the less, I thought I would ask 3D owners if anyone else has or had issues.  There is so little that would seem to be a potential issue as the system is almost new and stock everything.  Eg clean Windows 7 64bit install, had MC 16 installed briefly before I upgraded all my systems to MC 17.  It is configured to RO standard, etc., etc.  Besides sending Matt a series of dumps that have not revealed much, I have removed MC16 and Cyberlink PowerDVD.  To no avail.  I'm running out of options.  One more detail, ripped Blu-Rays play just fine.  It is only DVD's that won't play.    ?

Thanks for any advice,  FastKayak / Larry