After what seems like days of research on this site my HTPC is up & running after a fashion.
At the minute it's cobbled together in an old PC case with an aging 100Gb 2.5" Sata drive.
Here's what I went for:
Asus M3N78-VM Geforce 8 Series Dual VGA HDMI (Skt AM2+)
AMD Athlon II X2 250 (Skt AM3) Retail Kit (Including Heat Sink+Fan)
Kingston 2GB DDR2 PC2-6400 (800 MHz)
Pinnacle 3010IX PCTV Dual Hybrid Pro
2 x Compro VideoMate S350 DVB-S Tuner PCI Card(Scan had no stock)
That's it so far, I wanted to get up & running at the weekend & the rest of the bits I need to order online this week (Web Systems linked above have a shop near me).
Threw the board into my huge disused tower case, with an old 100Gb SATA laptop drive & proceeded to install Windows 7. I had a problem with install just stopping at the early GUI based stage. A quick google of the problem revealed that Win 7 is waiting for a floppy drive. Floppy was promptly disabled in the BIOS & the install went to plan.
The cards were then installed 1 at a time with no problems, W7 got updated drivers off the net.
Had a bit of a problem with the tuners, it kept coming up a blank on some tuners, I eventually pinned down a problem with one of the Sat cards not getting a signal, this was removed & has just been RMAed, so I'm a tuner down at present.
Once the rogue tuner was out all was well. It's a bit slow switching channels due to the crappy HDD. I tested it to the max last night & recorded Doctor Who in HD & 2 random programmes on the DVB-T tuners at the same time, the drive didn't half make a racket, but Doctor Who played back flawlessly, albeit on a 19" TFT monitor via DVI. My CRT will be upgraded to a 37" LCD this week.
So with it working well & having missus approval I'll now get the rest of the bits, I'd appreciate any comments on my shopping list below, especially the case.
Shiny Piano Black/Silver Super Slim Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - With 200W PSU 20+4pin 1x SATA
2 x Western digital WD 1TB CAVIAR GREEN AV SATA-II HDD
Cyberlink remote should have arrived today.
And one other item I'll pick up on Wednesday
TOSHIBA 37RV635D 37" 1080p LCD TV
CD
Youreds!
At the minute it's cobbled together in an old PC case with an aging 100Gb 2.5" Sata drive.
Here's what I went for:
Asus M3N78-VM Geforce 8 Series Dual VGA HDMI (Skt AM2+)
AMD Athlon II X2 250 (Skt AM3) Retail Kit (Including Heat Sink+Fan)
Kingston 2GB DDR2 PC2-6400 (800 MHz)
Pinnacle 3010IX PCTV Dual Hybrid Pro
2 x Compro VideoMate S350 DVB-S Tuner PCI Card(Scan had no stock)
That's it so far, I wanted to get up & running at the weekend & the rest of the bits I need to order online this week (Web Systems linked above have a shop near me).
Threw the board into my huge disused tower case, with an old 100Gb SATA laptop drive & proceeded to install Windows 7. I had a problem with install just stopping at the early GUI based stage. A quick google of the problem revealed that Win 7 is waiting for a floppy drive. Floppy was promptly disabled in the BIOS & the install went to plan.
The cards were then installed 1 at a time with no problems, W7 got updated drivers off the net.
Had a bit of a problem with the tuners, it kept coming up a blank on some tuners, I eventually pinned down a problem with one of the Sat cards not getting a signal, this was removed & has just been RMAed, so I'm a tuner down at present.
Once the rogue tuner was out all was well. It's a bit slow switching channels due to the crappy HDD. I tested it to the max last night & recorded Doctor Who in HD & 2 random programmes on the DVB-T tuners at the same time, the drive didn't half make a racket, but Doctor Who played back flawlessly, albeit on a 19" TFT monitor via DVI. My CRT will be upgraded to a 37" LCD this week.
So with it working well & having missus approval I'll now get the rest of the bits, I'd appreciate any comments on my shopping list below, especially the case.
Shiny Piano Black/Silver Super Slim Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - With 200W PSU 20+4pin 1x SATA
2 x Western digital WD 1TB CAVIAR GREEN AV SATA-II HDD
Cyberlink remote should have arrived today.
And one other item I'll pick up on Wednesday
TOSHIBA 37RV635D 37" 1080p LCD TV
CD
Youreds!
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