Mike Garcen

[Mike Garcen]

[quote=Gunserotti]

1. When you power the unit can you have it go directly to an interface…say XBMC?

2.  Is it really that difficult to maintain?

3. Im looking for a high end system, low profile, can do hd audio, works perfectly with my Harmony, and is preassembled. Price is not a concern.  Any recommendations?

 The asrock vision 3D series looks nice

[/quote]

1. Yep, you’d just place that app in the startup folder. But in theory, your HTPC wouldn’t be turned all the way off ever (standby)

2. Really depends on how much you tinker. THink about your laptop–do you work that hard to maintain it? Totally depends how much you install and what you hope to achieve. In theory once you have everything set up, it’s pretty low maintenance.

3. Curious why you say “high end” system here. If the sole use of the system is HTPC usage, then “high end” really isn’t necessary. There’s so many platforms that can do a phenomenal job for HTPC, blu-ray, etc. Take a look at some of our Intel & AMD reviews.

TO your core question, the difference between HTPC & Media Players is simple–Media Players you are confined to whatever applications the device supports–so say Facebook decides to start their own amazingly awesome video streaming application–you can’t use that until your media player is (if ever) updated. On an HTPC, there is literally NO limit.

SO, there’s nothing a Media Player can do, that an HTPC system CAN’T. But the same can’t be said the other way around.

[Mike Garcen]

keep checking ebay? otherwise, any of the harmony remotes (they have some fairly low end ones you could get for around $30-40, less used, that could manage both and more

[Mike Garcen]

gone gone gone i’m afraid, sorry

 

edit: maybe some data recovery software might be able to find it on your hard drive. 

[Mike Garcen]

Check out our very own Mikinho’s Valve software

[Mike Garcen]

oh, the quest to re-use an old stereo equipment!! i’ve wanted to do that probably since the beginning of my HTPC days, but never had the tools/time to do so. but i have of course read a TON of build logs for people that did it. Best trick i’ve seen people do is re-use the motherboard/backplate tray from a cheap case, which makes mounting your motherboard safer/easier.

as far as recommendations go, there’s so many options for you. It’s way different than the gaming world when it comes to budgeting. The motherboards aren’t NEARLY as expensive as gaming, instead the focus on the motherboard is the graphics capabilities of it.

Any preference on AMD/INTEL? Obviously you’ll save a little on AMD, but both have their pros and cons. I HIGHLY recommend reading our recent reviews on both platform motherboards as they’ll give you some great details.

[Mike Garcen]

The main issue you’ll have with that ASRock OEM system is simply the size and the limitations. You say he wants to watch programming recorded anywhere on 3 rooms, so storage space is going to be a big deal. Or does he have a server as well?

What are you using in the other rooms, extenders or these same OEM boxes?

[Mike Garcen]

i know this is going to suck to hear, but before you can really say the board is dead, i think you need to try reinstalling the OS entirely from scratch. If it didn’t power up at all, then i would say it was, but the fact that it really seams to be a weird driver conflict, i’d say the OS reinstall is worthwhile

[Mike Garcen]

absolutely. unless i’m misreading something. You can easily remote desktop into your WHS2011 box on your network. You don’t need any registry modifications.

In fact, i’m pretty sure it’s enabled by default, if not click on Start > Right Click My Computer > Properties > Remote Settings > Remote Desktop > Allow Connections

Then just launch the Remote Desktop client on your laptop, and put in your server name. Now note, i had issues getting my server friendly name to appear, so i ended up having to use the local ip address – so 192.168.1.5

[Mike Garcen]

no, but i did use to run a lab, and of course computer workbenches are standing height, so i was on them for prolonged time…i couldn’t imagine it full time though

[Mike Garcen]

The fix for this is actually way simpler than you think.

When you turn the TV back on and see MCE loaded in 4:3 mode, leave it on! Instead go to Tasks > Settings > Display and re-configure the monitor in THERE to be 16:9 with whatever the proper 1080p resolution you want.

Then everything should work perfect from that point forward. I had the same issue with my Onkyo receiver and my HTPC on turn off/on of the display.

[Mike Garcen]

away mode definitely is not on.

just tried booting in diagnostic mode from msconfig and disabling everything starting up…still no dice. so i don’t think it’s any software.

i checked the BIOS and theres absolutely no standby options in there….

next?

[Mike Garcen]

[quote=Aaron Ledger]

You could check to make sure Away Mode is not active. In regedit, goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerPower ancd make sure AwayModeEnabled is 0.

You could try deleting or setting the default power profiles back to default.

[/quote]

that string doesn’t exist there. will try the profile idea as well. should i add the registry string?

[Mike Garcen]

[quote=Aaron Ledger]

What happens when issuing “powercfg -requests” and “powercfg -a”. Also, check out the power-troubleshooter messages in your event log. Here’s more info on powercfg that may be helpful.

[/quote]

So i checked event viewer, looks like the last successful resume from sleep was 9/5 (12 days ago)

But i think it was unreliable even then…i could try a system restore i suppose? but any other ideas?

[Mike Garcen]

C:Windowssystem32>powercfg -requests
DISPLAY:
None.

SYSTEM:
None.

AWAYMODE:
None.

C:Windowssystem32>powercfg -a
The following sleep states are available on this system: Standby ( S3 ) Hibernat
e Hybrid Sleep
The following sleep states are not available on this system:
Standby (S1)
        The system firmware does not support this standby state.
Standby (S2)
        The system firmware does not support this standby state.

C:Windowssystem32>

[Mike Garcen]

no, i had this issue in the past, but it was more sporadic. Then it worked a while, then it didn’t. It did work at some point with the new hard drive, i was just trying to give a history.

it’s a whitebook ASUS laptop, no newer bios available…

and yes, i know i SHOULD reinstall windows, but i just have everything setup on this so i really can’t.

[Author]

Posts