It's ordered (new HTPC)

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Stereodude

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I ended up getting the rest of the parts for my new "uber-quiet" HTPC ordered today... Thanks to your help and my reading at SPCR here's what I ended up with:

CPU: AMD Socket AM2 X2 4200+ (65W)
CPU HSF: Scythe Ninja Plus Rev. B
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-M55plus-S3G (Rev 1.x)
Memory: 1GB (512MB x2) Buffalo Firestix PC2 6400 DDR2 (CAS 4)
Video Card: MSI NX7900GS-T2D256E-HD (w/ HDCP)
Video Card HSF: Zalman VF900-Cu
Case: Antec P180b
PS: Corsair HX520w

I'm re-using my 250GB Seagate 7200.9 (capture) and the 40GB Toshiba 2.5" HD (system) and the two Lite-on DVD-rom drives, as well as the two HDTV cards, my soundcard, and Bluetooth wireless keyboard/mouse.
 
Handruin

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Looks good. I had no idea Corsair made power supplies. Learn something new every day...
 
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Handruin said:
Looks good. I had no idea Corsair made power supplies. Learn something new every day...
Click to expand...
They're made by Seasonic. You basically end up with a 520W Seasonic with modular cabling for $88 (after $20 google checkout discount) from buy.com.
 
ddrueding

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Nope, but for other reasons I'm now using a Zalman CNPS-7700NT with the fan removed (IIRC, the mounting bracket was easier to work with?)
 
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Ok, Got the motherboard today. Outpost.com/Frys.com sent me the GA-M55Plus with the onboard Quadro NVS 210 instead of the 6100 GPU version. I'm not planning on using it, so I guess it doesn't matter.

I also put the Scythe Ninja on it (without the CPU) and it definitely blocks the first memory slot. It also pushes on some of the capacitors on the other side. But, it shouldn't be an issue though.
 
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ddrueding said:
That's amazingly close to my main system spec (same MB, CPU, HSF, GPU, Case). I'm sure you won't be disappointed.
Click to expand...
How do you manually set the speed of your memory? On mine it detects my DDR2 800Mhz memory as 667, and I can't find anywhere in the BIOS how you can manually set the memory speed. I skimmed through the manual, as well and didn't see anything. Ideas?
 
Handruin

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Check your timings too. My gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 default to lousy timings even though my RAM could handle the 4-4-4-12. I know it's a different board, but just check to see.
 
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Handruin said:
Check your timings too. My gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 default to lousy timings even though my RAM could handle the 4-4-4-12. I know it's a different board, but just check to see.
Click to expand...
Yeah, well...

That's a sore point with me.. Newegg's page is wrong, as are the pictures, and they sent me CL5 Firestix memory, not CL4 stuff... I'm chasing them down now over it.
 
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I knew you would post something like that.

I tracked the problem down to some issue related to my MyHD HDTV card. I disabled it in the Windows device manager and now it's working ok.
 
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Well, it's all together and working. It runs in the upper 50's under load, which isn't too bad considering there's only 2 120mm Antec Tri-Cool fans running at the slowest speed. Nothing on the Scythe Ninja. I'm gonna put the Zalman VF900-Cu on the 7900GS in a few days.
 
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I'm at my wits end with this system...

I bought it because I needed PCI slots. My MyHD card flat out doesn't work in the system (no matter which slot). My Fusion 5 HDTV card is possessed. I can install it and it works fine for a few reboots, then it somehow gets lost and shows up as a device Windows can't load drivers for (says it can't find any suitable driver). If I unstall all the software and drivers for the Fusion 5 card reboot and re-install both it will work again for a few reboots before it all begins again.

I can't believe that in 2006 I'm dealing with a machine this unstable and finicky. This is what I experienced with my first Pentium II system back in January 1998. I'm about ready sell all the pieces and start over. I've built a lot of systems throughout the years, and this is the first one that's this shitty. It won't standby (reboots instead), it won't hibernate (reboots when loading from the hiberfile.sys).

If I limit myself to hardware that actually works in the system I'm down to 1 PCI card and no HDTV cards. I guess I didn't need those extra PCI slots after all. I guess this is what I get for not buying an Intel system.
 
ddrueding

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I'm sorry you're having such trouble. I haven't had any issues with similar hardware (other than 64-bit windows driver issues). You said it didn't detect your memory correctly? Could it be crap RAM?
 
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No, the RAM is fine. I ran Goldmemory for hours without issues. I'm not running x64 Windows either. It's like the BIOS keeps changing things on me, or it doesn't like it when Windows tries to reconfigure it. I'm gonna try a fresh install of Windows, but I'm not holding out much hope.

Are there special tricks to installing XP SP2 on an AMD X2 system? Are there known buggy drivers for the nforce chipset that could be causing my problems? Some BIOS settings I should know about?
 
Mercutio

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nVidia's disk controller can be pretty awful.
Vidcap hardware in general sucks unless you're doing DV over firewire. I haven't found THAT many problems but getting it set up almost alwys takes longer than I think it should.

Have you thoroughly tested your motherboard without your cards?
 
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Mercutio said:
Yes. Does the PC behave without the tuner installed or does it goof up in other ways?
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Not sure. I'll have to see if it will hibernate or go into standby. But, otherwise the PC seems to behave even with the Fusion 5 card installed. The Fusion 5 card just doesn't work after a few reboots.
 
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Well, after a clean install of Windows XP the machine seems more cooperative. It will go into standby and hibernate correctly, and so far the Fusion 5 card is behaving itself.
 
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Right before the system boots there is a system device listing by the BIOS. Listing all the devices in the system and what IRQ they're on. Before Windows goes haywire and finds a new device that list has the note at the bottom that it is updated.
 
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Ok, I've done some more testing.

With the MIT MyHD card in the system as the only PCI card (all other PCI cards removed) it does the same thing. It locks up while Windows XP is loading.

Keeping the MyHD as the only PCI card and replacing the MSI 7900GS with a ASUS 6800GT it does the same thing exact same thing.

That would seem to indicate the MSI 7900GS isn't the source of the problem with MIT MyHD card locking up the system on boot, nor are any of the other PCI cards.

The Fusion 5 problem is more nebulous, but I think it has to do with the BIOS changing some of the plug and play settings for that card on "cold" boots only.

As a totally unrelated aside the 6800GT is really noisy.
 
ddrueding

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Can you change the BIOS to non-plug-n-play mode, where it assigns system resources instead of counting on the OS? I forget what this mode is called.
 
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ddrueding said:
Can you change the BIOS to non-plug-n-play mode, where it assigns system resources instead of counting on the OS? I forget what this mode is called.
Click to expand...
This board is missing some of the typical options of older BIOS's like "Plug and Play OS:" and what not. I can set it to manual instead of automatic for assigning IRQ's and what not. I messed with that a little, but haven't had any sucess with it. I will have to play with those a little more.
 
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Ok, here's a strange one...

If I leave the PCI-E x16 slot empty and use the onboard graphics it will boot into Windows fine with the MyHD card in the system.

However, with the PCI-E x16 slot occupied by either nVidia card (6800GT / 7900GS) it still locks up. I tried manually assigning system resources instead of leaving it to auto and it still locks up at the same point. I also tried underclocking the system as low as it would go and turning the RAM as slow as it could go and that didn't change anything either. Flashing the BIOS didn't do anything either. I also tried to leave the onboard graphics enabled and use the 7900GS/6800GT and that didn't work either. :(
 
ddrueding

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Interesting. I have my onboard graphics enabled AND an X1600 (multiple monitors and my projector). Does it see the MyHD as a video card?
 
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