Top posts
Latest articles
Looking for a new HTPC setup
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...I love my HTPC, which I build over 5 years ago. Much to my surprise it is still very capable of playing full HD and to some extend even 3D movies. But alas it is time to start thinking about a new smaller setup. Right now I have the Antec Fusion case with a mATX board in it. Which served well over the years.
Unfortunately the design of the mATX in combination with my ATX does not allow me to use the SATA ports properly (they are sorta sticking out to the side and into the case). So the hunt is on again for a new HTPC setup. Well not everything has to be brand new, I have a working digital tuner card as well as a relatively new graphics card for hardware acceleration. So this was my current setup, which I loved:
- Antec Fusion V2 case
- Gigabyte MA69GM-S2H motherboard, a bit old but working (could use replacing maybe?)
- AMD Athlon XP2 6000+
- Asus EAH5750 Formula
- 6 GB Dual channel DDR3 memory
- Harmony Remote
- SATA 160 GB Samsung HD
- FloppyDTV digital tuner card
- LG Blu-Ray player
So I’m not looking for anything fancy any more. I will be moving at least the FloppyDTV an LG Blu-ray player over to the new case. And preferably the graphics card unless I can find an onboard one with equal performance and HD decoding skills. So what are my new requirements:
- The case has to be smaller then my current one (I like the Fusion but it is to big for my likings)
- The system has to be as quite as possible (so minimal fans or big fans moving at low speed)
- It has to have an IR port to receive the Harmony signal
I’m sorta already stuck, and I’m only looking for a new case so far. Am I the only one looking for a small case for a HTPC that is at least a bit stylish, that does not need to have a display.
No HDCP using the Gigabyte MA69GM-S2H onboard card??
Ok I recently got a very weird problem with my HTPC. Since a couple of days I’ve been unable to play any Blu-Ray disc. Even after updating my PowerDVD to the latest patched version.
Before this update of PowerDVD the weird behaviour was the disapearing of PowerDVD when playing discs. No message no error nothing, just gone! After the update the DVD player informed me that HDCP was not available and it could not play protected Blu-Ray discs.
This sounded weirdt to me since I have played them in the past, and I know the onboard graphics chip (the Ati Radeon X1250) supports it.
As it turns out, after a lot of digging, I had recently installed an updated version of the Catalyst Control Center. Which should not be anything strange, its recommended practice by a lot of software developers. However the graphics chipset on the motherboard appears to have some custom stuff, since after installing the latest version from the Ati site HDCP was no longer supported.
When I reinstalled the version of the Catalyst Control Center that came with the PC all my troubles went away. No more warnings / crashes or unable to play disc reports.
