HTPC 1st build

[chipper36]

Hi,
got myself a big telly (lcd1080p) and have just ordered the following:
1 x Samsung 500GB HD501LJ Spinpoint T, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Hard Disk Drive (HD501LJ) = £67.90
1 x AMD AM2 Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Dual Core 2.8GHz CPU - Retail (ADA5600CZBOX) = £113.04
1 x Antec 500W SP-500PGB SmartPower2.0 ATX12V V2.0 Powersupply (SP-500PGB) = £43.50
1 x Silverstone Case LC-17 Media Center Style Black (SST-LC17B) = £64.30
1 x 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive 1.44MB Black () = £3.75
1 x Abit AN-M2HD Socket AM2, Geforce 7050PV, Dual DDR2, PCI-E, SATA 2, 7.1 Audio,HDMI, mATX Motherboard (AN-M2HD) = £53.59
1 x Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400 2GB Kit DDR2-800 XMS2-6400 Xtreme Performance Memory (TWIN2X2048-6400) = £72.46
1 x Keysonic Wireless Notebook Style keyboard with built-in touchpad (mouse) function 2.4GHz V2 (KB-ACK-540RF) = £30.05

Took me 3 days to order that lot as i am unsure what would be a decent system to playback 1080P at a reasonable price.
Can someone if possible look over this lot and let me know if i have made any major mistakes in what i have chosen.
Chose the M/B over the Fatal1ty F-I90HD as i have seen a good few problem posts.
Any advise please as i may be able to change my order if i am quick.
Thanks

[ABIT Sean]

I don't think you will disapointed with the AN-M2HD it is a very good board. Most people over look AMD when building HTPC but I have found them to be great performers.

[gilgamesh]

Hi,
got myself a big telly (lcd1080p) and have just ordered the following:
1 x Samsung 500GB HD501LJ Spinpoint T, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Hard Disk Drive (HD501LJ) = £67.90
1 x AMD AM2 Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Dual Core 2.8GHz CPU - Retail (ADA5600CZBOX) = £113.04
1 x Antec 500W SP-500PGB SmartPower2.0 ATX12V V2.0 Powersupply (SP-500PGB) = £43.50
1 x Silverstone Case LC-17 Media Center Style Black (SST-LC17B) = £64.30
1 x 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive 1.44MB Black () = £3.75
1 x Abit AN-M2HD Socket AM2, Geforce 7050PV, Dual DDR2, PCI-E, SATA 2, 7.1 Audio,HDMI, mATX Motherboard (AN-M2HD) = £53.59
1 x Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400 2GB Kit DDR2-800 XMS2-6400 Xtreme Performance Memory (TWIN2X2048-6400) = £72.46
1 x Keysonic Wireless Notebook Style keyboard with built-in touchpad (mouse) function 2.4GHz V2 (KB-ACK-540RF) = £30.05

Took me 3 days to order that lot as i am unsure what would be a decent system to playback 1080P at a reasonable price.
Can someone if possible look over this lot and let me know if i have made any major mistakes in what i have chosen.
Chose the M/B over the Fatal1ty F-I90HD as i have seen a good few problem posts.
Any advise please as i may be able to change my order if i am quick.
Thanks

hmmmm mate i atually have this board at home to review and test............if only i can find a amd chip!


gilgamesh

[chipper36]

Well my new stuff arrived today, put it together soon enough and been on hours now trying to get some sound from the TV.
Windows xp no matter what sound drivers i installed i ended up with a Realtek high definition audio codec conflict.
Installed Vista and no conflicts this time but still no sound from the HDMI cable.
I know nothing about the audio side but i thought HDMI carried both Video and Audio.
Do i get both from just having the HDMI cable connected to the TV or am i supposed to use a 3.5m audio lead or otical cable from ther out port too?

To top it off in Vista i can only get 1600 res and i was pretty sure in XP i had it set to 1920x1080.
Anyone got any suggestion please?
Thanks

[ABIT Sean]

Have you got the HDMI audio driver installed. Check the device manager for the nVidia HD audio. Also make sure the defult device under sound properties is set to the HDMI audio.

The display resolution for HDMI is normally set by 720, 1080 etc. Is your TV a true 1080 HD?

[MSIC]

I know nothing about the audio side but i thought HDMI carried both Video and Audio.
Do i get both from just having the HDMI cable connected to the TV or am i supposed to use a 3.5m audio lead or otical cable from ther out port too?

Can i ask a possibly obvious question, but have you hooked up the audio (from the motherboard chipset) to the HDMI connector?
To be honest i don't know if you need to do this depending on how your motherboard works, but i know graphics cards with HDMI connectors need this.

[ABIT Sean]

If you are using the onboard HDMI for audio and video you only require the HDMI cable. No additional cables are needed or connections are needed.

[chipper36]

Hi Guys,
Well just woke up after a 4:30am finish and pleased to let you know its all sorted now and i am very impressed with this Abit AN-M2HD Socket AM2, Geforce 7050PV.
No real idea how its working now as all i did was mess around going from HDMI cable to VGA cable.
1 of the tests in the realtek software started working so removed the 3.5m jack and restarted and the sound was there with HDMI cable.
went to bed with display set to 1280x1080 and only having 1600x available (TVdoesn't support it - needs 1920x1080)
Tried again this morning and as if by magic 1920x was in the options, and works great.
CPU usage is around 50% when playing back 1080p files
Vista scores where 3 for 3D gaming and 3.8 for Desktop performance with windows aero.

So all in i find that pretty decent for a board that was just over £50
My TV is a Samsung M87 46inch 1080p BTW and yes you don't need any other audio connection from M/B to HDMI.
Regards

[MSIC]

Nice! Will keep this board in mind for myself. Cheers

[chipper36]

After all the good things i said about this MB i am now having a nightmare with the sound and would like to ask if anyone can help me out please.
Since buying it i have purchased a AV receiver amp and connected HDMI cables up.
I can get sound occasionally when i select realtek as the default audio device but sound cuts out occasionally and when i restart PC the sound vanishes.
So i select nvidia as the default and i have sound (still cuts out) and when i restart the sound is there all the time.
When using nvidia some music files play faster.
I have tried both Vista and now back to XP.
Connected TV speakers back up and its still the same so rules out the amp as the problem.

I have had it playing fine through the amp when using Vista a few times (without cut outs) but seems to last until i restart PC and then its gone again.
Tried 3 HDMI cables and lots of Realtek driver version and i am pretty convinced its a driver or hardware fault at the PC.
Anyone got any ideas as this is driving me mad.
Regards

[disturbed]

I'm having trouble with the sound too. It doesn't work at all. Tried installing the drivers and all but still no go. Do I need to flash the BIOS or enable something in the BIOS?

Going to poke around in the BIOS for a bit and post again with the results.

[chipper36]

Hi,
Mangaged to sort it all out again!
will post and let you know how i sorted it later as i am very busy now after spending almost 3 days sorting this cr@p out.