Building the HTPC part deux

[toecheese]

Okay,all the components are here, and I'm now to the point of installing software. I've got much of the decisions on my blog as to what and why I've chosen.

• Case: Antec NSK2400- great purpose built HTPC case. Cheap at $90. Comes with power supply
• Processor: AMD X2 3800 Energy Efficient. Dual cores are mainstream now and the only reason I went AMD is because of the motherboard. The AMD is also the lowest-watt processor, so the case can be quiet. $135.
• Hard Drive: tossup between Seagate and WD, but Seagate was on sale locally. SATA is a joy (and pain because install wasn't easy on Windows). $40
• DDR2: 1 Gig stick of Crucial 667. Crucial has a good name and 1G sticks are going to be around for a while (better than 2x512) $85.
• Motherboard: Asus N2MPV-VM. This motherboard has it all- SPDIF, Component-out, DVI-out, RAID, SATA. Usually onboard video (see other threads) is a no-no, but the video is provided by Nvidia and can run HD output at 1080i.
• ATI HDTV Wonder. $80. Comes with a remote- but junky software.
• A Pioneer slot-loading DVD drive. It's not a writer, but the slot loading is great.

Oh- one aside about the Motherboard- even though it support SPDIF on the mobo, it doesn't come with a bracket and output. You can find specs on how to build one on the 'net (it's easy), or I think you can find them for like $10. Luckily I already had one from an older motherboard.

For software, I'm choosing:

• OS: Windows XP. Vista is a no-no. Linux is ... not there yet.
• PVR: GBPVR. Better than the ATI junk.

Since I got a relatively small hard drive (seems odd that 160 G is small!), I plan on doing a NAS server and throwing it in a closet somewhere down the road to store my movie images instead.

Thanks for all the help with the component choices.

[brucek]

Processor: AMD X2 3800

In addition to the AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor Driver for Windows XP, don't forget the Dual-Core X2 Optimizer driver from AMD and also the Microsoft Windows HotFix #KB896256 if you're using processor power management (Cool & Quiet).

brucek

[toecheese]

Very good- I know very little about the dual core processors, so I'll take a look. Thanks.

[Steve Williamson]

You may find that the dual core AMD chips prefer dual ram as they can execute more instructions (or something) rather than one row.

[toecheese]

Yes, there's a lot of info about dual-channel- and this motherboard will take up to 8Gig. I have to admit, this thing is fast- and quiet. And the task manager having two windows is cool.

In practical terms, I'm having some issues with the video output.

The motherboard has component output. I was able to get it to a high resolution- but the entire screen was blue-tinted. I googled and found this seems to be a fairly common problem. Upgrading the nvidia drivers solved that.

But the picture is very fuzzy. My Sanyo PLV060HT displays natively at 1366x768, but I can't set the resolution to that. It may be a projector problem because I can't use the 'auto PC' mode- it is grayed out. Something about it won't allow that adjustment when it is running at 1080i. My guess is that I'll have to run it through the VGA interface instead of component- which kind of negated the push for this particular mobo since it had component-out.

More testing tonight.

[Otto]

I ran into a problem with my Mits 52725 taking different inputs. I have been running from my HTPC to the TV with VGA for some time, and with good results.

I now want to move my all my equipment away from my TV, so I want to switch video through my preamp so that I only have a single cable being run: one HDMI cable from the preamp to the TV. I never could get the DVI out of my PC (even forget about preamp video switching at this point) to look anywhere close to the picture quality of the VGA. I really struggled with this for a couple days, and was pretty agitated about it. Installing new ATI drivers only caused my maching to blue screen at power on EVERY TIME!!! Talk about frustrating.

Researching Mits 52xxx threads at AVS got me to realize that everyone else had the same problem. VGA always looked better than DVI, and that's just the way it is. I don't know why, really, but it kind of stinks, and I wish it wasn't that way. It may be because many of us use tools to avoid the overscan inherent in the Mits TV, and we are then not using a 1:1 pixel mapping required for the DVI signal. I think this means that the TV is doing a mediocre job of rescaling the picture coming from the TV. I'm not expert in video stuff, so I could be way off.

Anyway, just wanted to note that sometimes there's just nothing you can do about that PQ. Good luck!

[toecheese]

Well if VGA works (and it does), then that's the way I'll go. Two cables to the projector- one from PC (vga) and one switched from receiver (component). Bummer.

I've been researching the overscan/underscan thing- I'm wondering if that is it. Since the mobo can do dual-output, I'll put a monitor on the DVI and leave the component output to the projector for testing.

I guess there's a basic question- what is component output? I know that both it and VGA are analog signals- but I'm guessing the timing is very different. VGA has no problem doing different outputs (since the advent of multisync)- I just don't know squat about 'regular' signals. My projector definitely thinks the component output is some variation of 1080i coming from the PC.

[toecheese]

Okay- update. Yes, the nivida tools give me a check box for 'overscan'. Not sure what it does, but moving it down suddenly makes the oversaturated picture quite viewable.

I still want to set it to my projector's resolution of 1366x768. Right now it is actually some *very* high resolution (19xx) that the projector must be scaling down. When I duplicated it to my 19" monitor, it has to shift the image back and forth.

I'm pretty impressed with this onboard video on this motherboard!

[toecheese]

The latest nvidia drivers let me set the resolution to 1360x768 which is almost what my projector does natively (1366x768). This way, there should be no scaling involved. I had to reinstall windows from scratch to fix a sound issue. On my blog I basically recommend a different board if you don't need the component output. Abit makes a board with optical-in and out on the motherboard (less slots needed) and uses a RealTek driver instead of the really bad Soundmax stuff.

[toecheese]

Stay away from ATI. I've heard it; known it; lived it. Since almost having superbowl ruined (ended up having to borrow an external tuner), that was the last straw.