HTPC for new Home theater

[vaibhavyagnik]

Congrats for the remote (I am typing this on my Lenovo N5901 )

Also, I have a genuine doubt. How do you compare performance of RAM ? I mean if you buy a 1600 Mhz DDR3 stick from Corsair, Kingston or Transcend, how much of a difference do you expect ? All are well known brands - if you buy from a genuine retailer, very little chance of them turning out DoA. Performance-wise, is there such a huge gap in top brands ?

You will have to look deeper than the 1600MHz speed here. Look at the timings of the RAM. The more tight the timings, the faster your system will be. As far as real world is concerned you wont even be able to tell a 1333 Mhz RAM from a 1600 Mhz RAM. However if your gaming with a fusion processor, you will see a jump in frame rates with a faster RAM as the on board GPU processor shares the Motherboard RAM. But for real world work like micorsoft office, browsing etc, nope it doesnt

 

[reignofchaos]

^^These days the difference in performance by tightening timings from 10-10-10 to 7-7-7 @1600MHz is less than 0.5% with the intel 1155 CPUs. Doesn't make much sense to buy anything more than 1600 9-9-9 @1.5V ram. Anything better is way more expensive for questionable gain and anything slower is not significantly cheaper to warrant the reduction in speeds.

 

[John]

Hi guys,

Update from my end. I have configured a new HTPC for myself using:

Asus F2A85 M
OCZ 60 GB SSD
AMD A10 5800K
Corsair Dominator 4 GB
Silverstone Grandia GD05 USB 3.0

Now, all fine and I will post some installation pictures soon. However, I am facing a problem with the display.

IN HDMI mode, As soon as I install the graphics drivers (AMD drivers that came with the motherboard and also downloaded from the Asus site), the display does not fill the whole of the screen, but there is a black bar on all 4 sides - it just mars the movie experience. I tried it with my HD monitor (Benq), LG HDTV, even with the Optoma HD 65 - every time the same thing happens.

It is a graphics driver issue, I think, but I am unable to pinpoint it. OS is Windows 7 64 bit. Is it due to the 64 bit driver? It will be a pain to reinstall Windows 32 bit and I am not sure it is the solution.

I tried to bypass installing the graphics driver and tried using the native Windows 7 driver, but I am unable to start XBMC without installing the graphics driver. I am very confused. Please help.

 

[ausyz]

Hi John,
Hope you got it fixed. If not this might help you..

Its not the 64bit or 32bit windows problem. Its related to the display driver alone and seems like a 'scaling' problem.

You should try different 720p / 1080p signals, mostly the native pixel resolutions of the display devices.

try with resolution 1280 x 720 on Optoma 65, it should work perfect. If not, you should check the AMD catalyst/vision center for options like underscan/overscan/zoom etc. I don't have a AMD machine right now, so i can't guide u the exact way. If you could find those settings, and they are grayed out (cannot be changed) then you should try older version of catalyst driver

The following threads might help you..

Black bars on 1080p, tv as monitor, brand new Radeon 6850 - Graphics-Cards - Graphic-Displays

[Solved] Black bars top, bottom, and sides - ATI - Graphic-Displays


The problem with HDMI signals is that, as it is designed as a standard for various devices it's HD signals are locked as 720p/i or 1080p/i. But PCs all with those fancy resolutions in between, should some how upscaled/downscaled to HDMI standard signals and this is not an easy task.
So any PC resolution with pixel height greater than 720 (or pixel length greater than 1280) is passed through HDMI as a 1080p signal by the display driver.
eg: 1366 x 768 (is a common resolution of laptops and displays, which we call as HD Ready or 720p resolution) when passed through HDMI, the signal is infact a 1080p with scaled pixel resolution.

Regards,
Ausy.

 

[John]

Hi John,
Hope you got it fixed. If not this might help you..

Its not the 64bit or 32bit windows problem. Its related to the display driver alone and seems like a 'scaling' problem.

You should try different 720p / 1080p signals, mostly the native pixel resolutions of the display devices.

try with resolution 1280 x 720 on Optoma 65, it should work perfect. If not, you should check the AMD catalyst/vision center for options like underscan/overscan/zoom etc. I don't have a AMD machine right now, so i can't guide u the exact way. If you could find those settings, and they are grayed out (cannot be changed) then you should try older version of catalyst driver

The following threads might help you..

Black bars on 1080p, tv as monitor, brand new Radeon 6850 - Graphics-Cards - Graphic-Displays

[Solved] Black bars top, bottom, and sides - ATI - Graphic-Displays


The problem with HDMI signals is that, as it is designed as a standard for various devices it's HD signals are locked as 720p/i or 1080p/i. But PCs all with those fancy resolutions in between, should some how upscaled/downscaled to HDMI standard signals and this is not an easy task.
So any PC resolution with pixel height greater than 720 (or pixel length greater than 1280) is passed through HDMI as a 1080p signal by the display driver.
eg: 1366 x 768 (is a common resolution of laptops and displays, which we call as HD Ready or 720p resolution) when passed through HDMI, the signal is infact a 1080p with scaled pixel resolution.

Regards,
Ausy.

Hi Ausy,

Thanks a lot for your response. Yes, actually I was able to fix it after I posted this after changing underscan (which appeared by default).

Your post is going to be most useful for others who are reading this thread as well. Thanks a lot!!

Is there a way to minimize the horizontal bars in the videos? I tried some settings (black bars) on XBMC, but it does not seem to make any difference.:sad:

 

[baijuxavior]

Keep the black bars as such. They can be removed by stretching the video but it will always look ugly.

 

[avishekcrj]

i want a 5.1 Dolby HT with Digital coaxial input. Any idea?

 

[Santy]

I think the black border is due to overscan setting. Go to Nvidia control panel and look for overscan compensation. It should be set to 0%. It is not same as stretching according to me. Its the wrong overscan setting which actually compresses the picture than the native resolution and that looks distorted. Once it is corrected, the picture becomes crisp. I had the same issue with my Radeon. Overscan feature is also seen in some monitors, so disable that first, restart your computer and then apply the settings in GPU.

 

[Santy]

Hi Ausy,

Thanks a lot for your response. Yes, actually I was able to fix it after I posted this after changing underscan (which appeared by default).

Your post is going to be most useful for others who are reading this thread as well. Thanks a lot!!

Is there a way to minimize the horizontal bars in the videos? I tried some settings (black bars) on XBMC, but it does not seem to make any difference.:sad:

Sorry I didn't see this post before
I replied.


Sent from my GT-I9001 using Tapatalk 2

 

[avink]

Hi guys,

Update from my end. I have configured a new HTPC for myself using:

Asus F2A85 M
OCZ 60 GB SSD
AMD A10 5800K
Corsair Dominator 4 GB
Silverstone Grandia GD05 USB 3.0

Now, all fine and I will post some installation pictures soon. However, I am facing a problem with the display.

IN HDMI mode, As soon as I install the graphics drivers (AMD drivers that came with the motherboard and also downloaded from the Asus site), the display does not fill the whole of the screen, but there is a black bar on all 4 sides - it just mars the movie experience. I tried it with my HD monitor (Benq), LG HDTV, even with the Optoma HD 65 - every time the same thing happens.

It is a graphics driver issue, I think, but I am unable to pinpoint it. OS is Windows 7 64 bit. Is it due to the 64 bit driver? It will be a pain to reinstall Windows 32 bit and I am not sure it is the solution.

I tried to bypass installing the graphics driver and tried using the native Windows 7 driver, but I am unable to start XBMC without installing the graphics driver. I am very confused. Please help.

Hi John - I am about to buy stuff for my HTPC and have almost similar config in mind. I will be visiting US next week and was planning to purchase the components there and bring them back. How much did it cost you here.

 

[John]

Hi John - I am about to buy stuff for my HTPC and have almost similar config in mind. I will be visiting US next week and was planning to purchase the components there and bring them back. How much did it cost you here.

Hi buddy,

I added an APC UPS (around 2.5K), so it cost me 26K for the all components (bought locally) except the SSD which cost another 4K (Flipkart) and Silverstone Grandia 05 for another 9k. Then I added a wireless Keyboard (Lenovo N5901) for 1.9K so total 40.9k, all inclusive.

Cheers!

 

[avink]

What about the power supply. Which one did you pick.

 

[John]

What about the power supply. Which one did you pick.

Corsair CX430, mate.

 

[John]

Re: HDMI not working on new HTPC

Guys,

Please refer to my post on the other thread.

I was having issues with my LG TV. The service guy and myself went about trying to troubleshoot the issue and it turns out that my HDMI port in the HTPC has stopped working, no output. I tried changing cables, tried it on the TV, monitor, and projector with no luck.

I am not even getting a display with the BIOS information.

DVI-D and VGA are working fine.

Any leads guys?

 

[baijuxavior]

Did the hdmi port work before you had this problem with your TV?

In my asus motherboard I had this problem where hdmi was not outputting any signal when I first started the pc. After changing the display settings in bios it worked. For this I accessed the bios through vga cable.

 

[haisaikat]

If John is getting output via DVI then I presume his bios reconfiguration may not help, but yes worth trying. At best if nothing works either go for a seperate HDMI based GPU or even cheaper get a DVI to HDMI converter adpater and start using DVI port. The later comes pretty cheap on ebay.

 

[baijuxavior]

Also, are you connecting both dvi and hdmi cable at the same time? Only one will work as per the instructions in my motherboard manual. If you need hdmi-dvi adapter pm me. I have an unused one in mint condtion.

 

[John]

Did the hdmi port work before you had this problem with your TV?

In my asus motherboard I had this problem where hdmi was not outputting any signal when I first started the pc. After changing the display settings in bios it worked. For this I accessed the bios through vga cable.

Thanks Baiju, I will look if there is a setting in the BIOS. No, the problem was not there earlier. I was wondering if a defective HDMI cable, in turn, could damage a HDMI port on the PC.

If John is getting output via DVI then I presume his bios reconfiguration may not help, but yes worth trying. At best if nothing works either go for a seperate HDMI based GPU or even cheaper get a DVI to HDMI converter adpater and start using DVI port. The later comes pretty cheap on ebay.

Thanks mate, but if the HDMI port is defective, I will go for a warranty claim; this being a new motherboard.

Also, are you connecting both dvi and hdmi cable at the same time? Only one will work as per the instructions in my motherboard manual. If you need hdmi-dvi adapter pm me. I have an unused one in mint condtion.

No, I am only using one port at a time. I get a feeling the HDMI port has gone kaput. Thanks for the offer with the hdmi-dvi adaptor. I will PM you if I need the same, mate.

 

[John]

Guys,

I have run into issues with my motherboard.

Initially HDMI was working fine and one fine day the HDMI stopped working. So I sent it for RMA. They sent me another motherboard (different serial number), but this one did not work from day one! No output from HDMI.

Now they have sent yet another motherboard and there is still no output from this one either. I am very confused. I have cross-checked it on 3 devices, 3 different HDMI cables.

What can be wrong?

 

[grunthos]

Dude that is some bad service from Asus !
Now I am scared I put in a Asus in my fileserver