sapper
Prominent Member
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2000
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- Age
- 57
- Location
- Southgate, North London
A couple of years ago (maybe summer 2003?), I built a HTPC based on the following components:
A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard, AMD Athlon XP3000 and 1GB of Crucial DDR400 Memory
1 x Gigabyte GV-N66256DP 6600 256MB Silent pipe AGP Video Card (N-video graphic card 6600)
80GB Hard Drive, 250 GB Mirror array
Liteon 16x48 IDE DVD-ROM Drive
Nebula DigiTV Card
Black Gold DigiTV Card MCE
MCE 2005.
Lately I have been having problems with the system, inbeing unstable. crashing. Error messages are numerous but two common reoccurring theses are
A basic component fault i.e. RAM, CPU, Motherboard , power supply
Video graphic card, please down load the latest drives.
With support from the IT guys at work, we have ascertained that I had faulty memory Dimm and purchased some new memory. But the system is still unstable, unreliable.
SO I thought I would remove all the added on boards, reformat the hard drive and reinstall MCE and slowly add onto it to see if I could ascertain what the issue is.
So I have removed the TV-cards, and the SATA array, and just using one hard drive, I am trying to re-install MCE
But during the early stages of installation, the PC crashes with the driver _lessthen_or _equal_to error.
I am at a loss now what I should do.
First option I guess is to try and stick to this system and see if I can get it to work. If so has any one got any sensible ideas? Can any one recommend a memory test for me please so I can try that if this memory is faulty, then that might help explain it but it is brad new.
The second option is to replace my motherboard/CPU/RAM (which I have just bought new stuff), and to rebuild the HTPC with these new items, and see if that happens. Additionally I would consider replacing my 400 w power supply with something more juicy, the IT guys were concerned that I was running too much of it. However my other PC which has a similar system and is using the same case has no obvious power supply problems.
If so, what motherboard/CPU/memory combination should I consider? I would like to keep my existing case etc for the time being but my upgrade in the future. But I would like to maintain my existing facilities such as a mirror array, tv cards, etc.
One final request is software. What is the preferred software for MCE hese days as in regards to video codecs etc. If I am having to rebuild the PC I would like to ensure it is as future proof and stable as possible.
Any advice, comments, suggestions would be appreciated
Adrian
A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard, AMD Athlon XP3000 and 1GB of Crucial DDR400 Memory
1 x Gigabyte GV-N66256DP 6600 256MB Silent pipe AGP Video Card (N-video graphic card 6600)
80GB Hard Drive, 250 GB Mirror array
Liteon 16x48 IDE DVD-ROM Drive
Nebula DigiTV Card
Black Gold DigiTV Card MCE
MCE 2005.
Lately I have been having problems with the system, inbeing unstable. crashing. Error messages are numerous but two common reoccurring theses are
A basic component fault i.e. RAM, CPU, Motherboard , power supply
Video graphic card, please down load the latest drives.
With support from the IT guys at work, we have ascertained that I had faulty memory Dimm and purchased some new memory. But the system is still unstable, unreliable.
SO I thought I would remove all the added on boards, reformat the hard drive and reinstall MCE and slowly add onto it to see if I could ascertain what the issue is.
So I have removed the TV-cards, and the SATA array, and just using one hard drive, I am trying to re-install MCE
But during the early stages of installation, the PC crashes with the driver _lessthen_or _equal_to error.
I am at a loss now what I should do.
First option I guess is to try and stick to this system and see if I can get it to work. If so has any one got any sensible ideas? Can any one recommend a memory test for me please so I can try that if this memory is faulty, then that might help explain it but it is brad new.
The second option is to replace my motherboard/CPU/RAM (which I have just bought new stuff), and to rebuild the HTPC with these new items, and see if that happens. Additionally I would consider replacing my 400 w power supply with something more juicy, the IT guys were concerned that I was running too much of it. However my other PC which has a similar system and is using the same case has no obvious power supply problems.
If so, what motherboard/CPU/memory combination should I consider? I would like to keep my existing case etc for the time being but my upgrade in the future. But I would like to maintain my existing facilities such as a mirror array, tv cards, etc.
One final request is software. What is the preferred software for MCE hese days as in regards to video codecs etc. If I am having to rebuild the PC I would like to ensure it is as future proof and stable as possible.
Any advice, comments, suggestions would be appreciated
Adrian