Building a cheap HTPC.
- Thread starter doors666
- Start date
spirovious
Well-Known Member
first did you get the fix to your problem.
second - I meant if you back up your windows by partition data which do you use - like Norton or Acronis or somethign else. I never needed to do anything with my old computer but with my driver issues initially with the HTPC (mostly display drivers of NVIDIA GPU) I had to reinstall OS twice (blame me......i messed up the order of the install process.)
moserw
New Member
Norton Ghost is the best. Also, you can just back up all the s/w and the drivers. I have a DVD full of drivers that are not even available on the internet these day. Drivers for soundcards that are 5 years old but not available to run on Vista. Some Chinese site had the drivers to make them run on Vista. Have backed them all up. Backing up drivers and s/w is better in some cases than having an image backup.
spirovious
Well-Known Member
I didnt backup any time,what are advantage?To backup on different HD makes sense,
The problems are understood & Asus person told me that he will ask technical person & inform me.
hyeah:
I provided him link of CS DAC(DX) which are capable of handling192/24bit.
Lets see?
The problems are understood & Asus person told me that he will ask technical person & inform me.
hyeah:I provided him link of CS DAC(DX) which are capable of handling192/24bit.
Lets see?
I didnt backup any time,what are advantage?To backup on different HD makes sense,
The problems are understood & Asus person told me that he will ask technical person & inform me.
I provided him link of CS DAC(DX) which are capable of handling192/24bit.
Lets see?
yes one can use DVDs for backup - just like system restore and windows just like it was in an hours time.
Norton Ghost was good - but I had stopped using Norton many years back sicne they started releasing memory hogging, bloated sw
moserw
New Member
I still use Norton Ghost 2K3, the best version.
If you want to backup Windows Vista (Ultimate), it has a Complete Backup & Restore option which is quite good, as it only backs up all the files and not the whole partition. It stores all the details of the partition info, and when restoring it will give you the option of repartitioning the main OS drive also.
Its bad that only the Vista Ultimate has that option, the other versions don't have them.
With XP, you will have to use third party s/w such Norton Ghost, Acrunis, etc.
Its bad that only the Vista Ultimate has that option, the other versions don't have them.
With XP, you will have to use third party s/w such Norton Ghost, Acrunis, etc.
i was wondering
if someone wants to build a cheap HTPC ( and already has his old PC)
do you think the following makes sense
let me speak for myself as an example
consider i have an old PC
with an ancient asus MOB and say a P4 1.0-1.2 Ghz
i have a decent 250gb HDD and a 512MB ddr ram
the mob is ancient with only the basic ports for VGA,mouse,keyboard
and can take PCI cards
now what if we buy a 1200 buck SC or even an Asus DX/D2 to go into the PCI slot of the MOB
buy a PCI graphics card which has decent PQ and HDMI capability and port ( dunno how expensive these are or if there are such cards)
How diff would the above be from using the current standard 780 series gigabyte MOB or asus m3g... mobs
(using its on board sound and picture outs)
P.S maybe later when budget permits i can upgrade
if someone wants to build a cheap HTPC ( and already has his old PC)
do you think the following makes sense
let me speak for myself as an example
consider i have an old PC
with an ancient asus MOB and say a P4 1.0-1.2 Ghz
i have a decent 250gb HDD and a 512MB ddr ram
the mob is ancient with only the basic ports for VGA,mouse,keyboard
and can take PCI cards
now what if we buy a 1200 buck SC or even an Asus DX/D2 to go into the PCI slot of the MOB
buy a PCI graphics card which has decent PQ and HDMI capability and port ( dunno how expensive these are or if there are such cards)
How diff would the above be from using the current standard 780 series gigabyte MOB or asus m3g... mobs
(using its on board sound and picture outs)
P.S maybe later when budget permits i can upgrade
Same here. Now I use on Acronis True Image Home 11.0. It's so dependable and consistent! It also formats new HDDs in a jiffy!!!
anm
Well-Known Member
it should be more than decent for music. Can't say the same for the high def or blue ray playback - but I am sure it should be fine with dvds and rips too.
A straight forward route is to buy a decent card and stuff into it. Even if it doesn't work, you can reuse the card for your upgraded PC.
A straight forward route is to buy a decent card and stuff into it. Even if it doesn't work, you can reuse the card for your upgraded PC.
spirovious
Well-Known Member
HTPC without bray will be fine.But playing HD content ,you need either powerful processor(>C2D2.4 Ghz or P4 3Ghz) or GC (HD series)
Even with GC processor shld be atleast C2D 2.4Ghz(dont know abt AMD)
Even with GC processor shld be atleast C2D 2.4Ghz(dont know abt AMD)
hmmm
yep for HD content i knew i might fall short
but for only 2 channel music..umm im not sure why this wouldnt sound as good as using a brand new HTPC with asus/giga MOB as long as the same or similar SC is used.
yep for HD content i knew i might fall short
but for only 2 channel music..umm im not sure why this wouldnt sound as good as using a brand new HTPC with asus/giga MOB as long as the same or similar SC is used.
With a chipset like 780G, a 2.1 ghz dual core cpu will incur on 50% cpu playing HD. It all boils down to graphics support in h/w. The atom low power 1.6 ghz dual core 330 can play HD as well with nvidia ION
Cheers
moserw
New Member
It will work. Things to keep in mind. You will need an upgrade sometime. Costs involved will be...
Dual core processor - 3K
Mobo - 3-3.5K
RAM (2 GB) - Rs. 1200-1500.
SMPS - Rs. 400
So for like 7-8K you will have a brand new PC at least in terms of performance (forget the looks). The ports will be same except for AGP not being there but otherwise PCI and PCI-Express are there.
Apart from this you can use everything old like HDD, DVD/CD Writer/Reader, Soundcard, LAN card, monitor, mouse, keyboard and whatever else comes to mind. I bought a new quad core, but it being 64-bit and running Vista meant most of the s/w would not work or drivers were a headache to find. I had an old Pentium 4 2.4GHz and I just changed the parts mentioned above so for like 8K I had a brand new dual core PC while the quad core is lying mostly unused.
For now the old PC will work especially for playing stereo music. CPU usage will be higher especially for videos but that's ok.
Dual core processor - 3K
Mobo - 3-3.5K
RAM (2 GB) - Rs. 1200-1500.
SMPS - Rs. 400
So for like 7-8K you will have a brand new PC at least in terms of performance (forget the looks). The ports will be same except for AGP not being there but otherwise PCI and PCI-Express are there.
Apart from this you can use everything old like HDD, DVD/CD Writer/Reader, Soundcard, LAN card, monitor, mouse, keyboard and whatever else comes to mind. I bought a new quad core, but it being 64-bit and running Vista meant most of the s/w would not work or drivers were a headache to find. I had an old Pentium 4 2.4GHz and I just changed the parts mentioned above so for like 8K I had a brand new dual core PC while the quad core is lying mostly unused.
For now the old PC will work especially for playing stereo music. CPU usage will be higher especially for videos but that's ok.
spirovious
Well-Known Member
anm
Well-Known Member
moserw - wouldn't 32 bit os work on your 64 bit quad core?
regards
regards
moserw
New Member
Yes it will. It just was easier and less of a headache to upgrade the old Pentium 4 since that's what I primarily use for work, browsing, and playing music. At that time I thought of moving the quad core to be a media center PC to play music, movies, etc. in the living room (mainly for the parents, sister and wife), but even there the PS3 (with upgraded internal HDD) is doing a much better job. Everyone is even happy with the PQ/upscaling of the PS3 on the PV8 so left it at that. My mom finds it easier to use the PS3 than the Oppo as inserting a DVD is not involved (yeah she is tech challenged). I just have to keep changing the movies/songs once in a while in the PS3 or upgrading the internal HDD.
Will probably get around to fiddling with the quad core once I have some free time on my hands.
manish26264
Member
I have an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro display card which has HDMI output.
Is it necessary to use Windows Vista for audio pass through from HDMI, because I am getting only 2 channel stereo when i connect to my AVR. I have checked pass through in ffdshow audio decoder, ihave also checked digital output in the sound card properties, i am using windows XP prof.
Is it necessary to use Windows Vista for audio pass through from HDMI, because I am getting only 2 channel stereo when i connect to my AVR. I have checked pass through in ffdshow audio decoder, ihave also checked digital output in the sound card properties, i am using windows XP prof.
have you connected the spdif from the spundcard/onboard to the spdif of the ATI2600?
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