Small, quiet media PC?

[crazyfool]

the psu is the one which came with my antec micro fusion case... tbht the overheating problem was probably due to the fact that the 4550 was getting a bit toasty in there and in turn heating up the other components, I mean i've been using my htpc since i think last september and its never happened before so I'm guessing it was that... the drivers are the latest as well but I doubt I could rma a motherboard from last september on account of it wont play 24p in sync... gonna install vista tomorrow and see what happens...

[Lourdes]

Is this indicative of a chipset problem or poor implementations on the motherboards you are both using??

It's the chipset, it's just rather on the crap side.

crazyfool, with nVidia stuff you can expand levels in the control panel. Always been possible to fix, though I suggest RGB32 output or a different renderer where it isn't a problem.

[format]

Possibly considering getting a 9300 board instead now... damn you Lourdes

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It's the chipset, it's just rather on the crap side.

crazyfool, with nVidia stuff you can expand levels in the control panel. Always been possible to fix, though I suggest RGB32 output or a different renderer where it isn't a problem.

I dunno there are people who use the 780 series motherboards without the issues you have. In many cases it is just a poor implementation or in most cases just a faulty motherboard. People also have had issues with certain Nvidia 8200/8300 and 9300 series motherboards too so you cannot make blanket statements like that about chipsets unless you have owned at least a few different motherboards using it and from different manufacturers. I have had issues with one Intel chipset based motherboard too(a 975X) but it was to do with how the company who made the motherboard implemented it NOT Intel. This did not mean automatically the 975X was a poor chipset as others had no issues with them at the same time I had mine. In many cases BIOS updates can solve many of the issues too.

The same thing with graphics cards too. I have had a 6800LE and 8800GTS 512mb both have major issues(the latter went kaput) but this does not mean that Nvidia designs crappy graphics processors does it?? It was basically down to companies who designed and manufactured the particular cards in question not the GPUs. On the other hand my ATI cards have never had issues at all but this does not mean they design more reliable GPUs does it??


Like I said my HD3870 and HD4830 have the UVD and UVD2 engines which are found in the HD3200 and HD4550 and people(like me) never had any issues with HD media playback.

If the designs were so terrible everyone would start just buying Nvidia or Intel nased chipsets and no one would be using an ATI chipset motherboard for an HTPC. However on these forums(and many others) this is certainly not the case.

[Lourdes]

I dunno there are people who use the 780 series motherboards without the issues you have. In many cases it is just a poor implementation or in most cases just a faulty motherboard. People also have had issues with certain Nvidia 8200/8300 and 9300 series motherboards too so you cannot make blanket statements like that about chipsets unless you have owned at least a few different motherboards using it and from different manufacturers. I have had issues with one Intel chipset based motherboard too(a 975X) but it was to do with how the company who made the motherboard implemented it NOT Intel. This did not mean automatically the 975X was a poor chipset as others had no issues with them at the same time I had mine. In many cases BIOS updates can solve many of the issues too.

The same thing with graphics cards too. I have had a 6800LE and 8800GTS 512mb both have major issues(the latter went kaput) but this does not mean that Nvidia designs crappy graphics processors does it?? It was basically down to companies who designed and manufactured the particular cards in question not the GPUs. On the other hand my ATI cards have never had issues at all but this does not mean they design more reliable GPUs does it??


Like I said my HD3870 and HD4830 have the UVD and UVD2 engines which are found in the HD3200 and HD4550 and people(like me) never had any issues with HD media playback.

If the designs were so terrible everyone would start just buying Nvidia or Intel nased chipsets and no one would be using an ATI chipset motherboard for an HTPC. However on these forums(and many others) this is certainly not the case.

Blah, blah, blah.

Makes no difference even if 780G didn't have fundamental issues it's still outdated and lacking compared to the newer and much better nVidia offerings. It was good for a few months until nVidia trumped it.

[format]

Okay Lourdes I'm starting to pick up a distint whiff of fanboyism here

[aidanjt]

Makes no difference even if 780G didn't have fundamental issues it's still outdated and lacking compared to the newer and much better nVidia offerings. It was good for a few months until nVidia trumped it.

Good grief man, get a grip, it's an IGP, nobody is going to be playing crysis on it no matter which chipset vendor your choose.

[Lourdes]

Okay Lourdes I'm starting to pick up a distint whiff of fanboyism here

I owned two 780G setups, built half a dozen for others and recommended it as a decent HTPC platform (was the only choice for a time) until a proper alternative came out... So no.

[format]

BTW Lourdes - IYO did the 780GX improve much over the 780G?

Looking at this board specifically

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Biost...SATA-RAID-uATX

[batfastad]

Hi everyone
Thought I'd just chip in here, just built meself a nice little box for similar use.

A Zotac ION Mini ITX board (http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=53) with dual core Atom. Working great so far. Only a single fan, on the heatsink. Apparently the thing draws only 30W when under max load, so I added a slimline optical drive and 2.5" HDD to keep the power requirements way down.
Generates hardly any heat. Idling at the moment and Speedfan says 28-32 degrees across the board and sat in a pokey TV cabinet. All good!

[format]

Hi everyone
Thought I'd just chip in here, just built meself a nice little box for similar use.

A Zotac ION Mini ITX board (http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=53) with dual core Atom. Working great so far. Only a single fan, on the heatsink. Apparently the thing draws only 30W when under max load, so I added a slimline optical drive and 2.5" HDD to keep the power requirements way down.
Generates hardly any heat. Idling at the moment and Speedfan says 28-32 degrees across the board and sat in a pokey TV cabinet. All good!

What case did you use?
Have you found any problems playing any 1080p content etc?
Got any pics

Thanks.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

BTW Lourdes - IYO did the 780GX improve much over the 780G?

Looking at this board specifically

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Biost...SATA-RAID-uATX

Media playback reviews for the 790GX:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.c...id=2343&page=3

http://hothardware.com/Articles/AMD-...Launch/?page=8

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...x,1988-10.html

[Cistron]

Btw, I forgot to mention that the Atom on the Zotac ION board can be overclocked. Apparently, the system becomes a lot snappiert at ~2GHz.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Another media review from SPCR:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article919-page6.html

It seems for 1920x1200 Blu-Ray playback 128mb of system RAM had to be allocated.

[format]

So, I managed to pick up a Nexus Psile case from the eBay for £85 which seems a very good price indeed.



I'm going to put one of the Zotac boards in it, with an e5200 or e6300, 4GB RAM, and a 1TB 5400rpm drive- powered by a 150w PicoPSU.

Looking forward to building this now

[batfastad]

If you're planning on getting a Zotac ION board then be aware that this uses an external power supply brick so you don't need internal. I was happy about that as it takes one of the main heat sources from the box and places it outside the case