RehabMan
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RehabMan
The reset procedure outlined in the guide does not reset the bindings. I tried it, and after I re-enabled the bridge, all the bindings to the various clients were still there.
Uninstalling the InfiniTV4 driver on the server didn’t work either. Bindings were still there after a re-install.
What I ended up doing was temporarily renaming the new computer (SPEEDY) back to ROCKET. Then went through the InfiniTV4 Network Tuner wizard in WMC on that computer with the name ROCKET. I was then able to setup the binding, then remove the binding (several reboots between all this). Then renamed the computer back to SPEEDY and was able to setup the now unbound Tuner1 and assign it to SPEEDY.
Now watching the morning news on SPEEDY…
I don’t even see a way in the Ceton stuff (Diagnostics or InfiniTV4’s web page) to reset all the bindings. Seems I may have to uninstall the Ceton software on the server, then re-install. Maybe that will get it. Then, of course, re-setup all the HTPCs using it…
I guess I could have done the unbind from the the Rocket client before I started tearing it apart, but this wasn’t something I thought I’d run into.
There should be a rule: Resources on the server shall be administered by the server.
Just to chime in here as well… No glitches or choppiness here either with the i3-2100T/DH67BLB3. Also running 1080p.
In addition I have two other HTPCs using G620T (Sandy Bridge Pentium — an arguably less powerful chip than the i3-2100T) and no problems there either. I don’t use those machines as often, but when I do I have no problems…
There is pretty much no benefit to SATA III hard-drives. It is a marketing thing. Hard-drives are nowhere near saturating the SATA II bus, let alone SATA III. Maybe in a very busy RAID0 config or busy multi-disk config with lots of simultaneous access… but not in an HTPC I don’t think.
The latest gen of SSDs do benefit and the last gen of SSDs should have benefited if the SSDs were in RAID0 but that’s about it.
Modular PSUs are a give and take. On the one hand you have less unused cables running about, but on the other the plugs into the PSU generally take up more room so if your case is tight (mine was) it is kind of a wash. I kinda wish Seasonic had some fanless, non-modular power supplies. Or just PSUs that were a bit more shallow (an extra inch to spare between the PSU and OD would have been nice in my Vidabox vCase3).
I ordered one too. I don’t really need it now, but what the heck at that price, why not try.
We’ll see what happens…
As far as PSU recs… I’ve had good luck with Seasonic and tend to stick with them. I tend to limit myself to those that are either fanless or with 12cm fan. I have two HTPCs (on in guest house, one in garage) where I wanted to save some money and went with the SS-350ET, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151077. Not modular but has 12cm fan… hard to find modular in the lower priced, lower wattage. For my main HTPC, I bucked up and purchased the SS-400FL, which is fanless, modular, and of course, expensive.
re SSD… Other than the sudden failure of the first-gen OCZ Vertex, I’ve had good luck with the OCZ drives. Just don’t try to run them in a RAID0 config. You lose trim, and there are issues with sleep in an Intel RAID0 config. I did that for a while on my dev machine and eventually got tired of it… I see you have a Windows Home Server and so do I. To tell you the truth, because of the reliable backup system in WHS, I don’t worry about hardware failures that much. And… Intel has had their share of trouble with their SSD drives too (I seem to recall their drives suddenly failing and reporting only 8MB or storage available — think that was a firmware issue that they later corrected). SSD is new tech… no getting around it… there will always be problems when you’re on the bleeding edge of tech. Well worth it if you have a good backup strategy (which is just smart anyway).
As far as CPU performance, that i5-2500k is getting you almost double the performance (according to the charts at passmark.com) of an i3-2100. But it may be a bit more difficult to keep cool/quiet than a lower wattage i3. I’m using the i3-2100T with a Skythe Big Shuriken cooler, and my HTPC is silent unless you get your ear about 12″ away. From the couch, silent… Performance is more than adequate, but I don’t do any commercial skip stuff (for some of the same reasons you mention).
… and you’ll need a Windows 7 license.
You could save some money going with an i3 instead of the i5, unless you have some specific use for the additional CPU abilities (ie. you plan to do a lot of transcoding, commercial skipping, etc.). The Sandy Bridge i3 chips… and even to some extent the Sandy Bridge Pentiums are more than capable of normal HTPC duties.
The SSD is definitely a luxury, but it is likely a luxury that you’ll like… a lot. You might look at some of the OCZ drives, unless you’re stuck on going with Intel. The Sandforce based Vertex II drives have worked out pretty well for me so far (I also had an Indilynx based Vertex drive that went belly up less than a year — it was replaced on warranty though and is still running fine).
You definitely do not need a 650w power supply. I’m running 350w Seasonics in a couple of HTPCs and a 400w fanless Seasonic in my main HTPC. All are still overkill.
When you take out the cost of the Ceton ($300 at newegg.com) you’re down to $700. Not that I’m suggesting not having the Ceton card… just that it is the most expensive component of the HTPC and makes comparing your cost for the HTPC against what “computers normally cost” difficult. You’d save about $100 going with an i3 so now you’re down to $600. The SSD is a $180 luxury, so now you’re down to $420… which is pretty low for a pretty nice PC.
Oh… you’ll need some RAM.
I was equally nervous about setting my HTPC to sleep when not in use. But this spring I took the plunge after about 9 months running 24×7. No problems so far. It always wakes up with enough time to get the Ceton card going and make the recording. It is nice to know that the computer is not on 24×7 and I am saving electricity not to mention wear and tear on the moving parts.
I don’t have extenders, preferring to have multiple HTPCs instead, so I’m not sure what issues lurk out there with stand-by and extenders.
[quote=jrandeck]
The share is being hosted by WHS 2011, so there shouldn’t be any Samba issues. The server is running (no sleep mode) and there’s not much other network traffic going on.
Both the Media Center PC and the WHS are connected to the same 24 port D-Link switch at 1Gbps.
[/quote]
Is the share the standard “Recorded TV” share provided by default in WHS 2011, or is it an additional share?
If additional share, are you sure it is being indexed? You will need to RDP into the server and look at control panel Indexing Options.
Also, if you view the Recorded TV library properties from the HTPC client, does it show as indexed? I forget what will show there, but if it is not indexing it will show something like “unresponsive” or something like that.
That’s why I asked where the files where hosted. If hosted on a non-Windows NAS, then it is likely you’re dealing with a Samba implementation of SMB where your mileage definitely varies. It seems that when dealing with Windows-based shares, the library mechanism relies on the server to do the indexing of the share for Windows Search (supported by Windows Search 4.0), and it also seems that certain (maybe all) NAS servers fail to implement this indexing.
I have had some recorded TV temporarily (usually during HTPC upgrade process) stored on my WHS (both v1 and 2011) and didn’t run into any issues.
What kind of machine (OS etc) is serving your network share?
You will probably want to just turn that behavior off. See Power Options in the Windows Control Panel. Generally, you don’t want Windows to be turning off your display when it detects idle.
In your case, I don’t think the standby helper app mentioned above will do you any good for the occasional black screen when your TV/amp turns back on (ie. even though your PC is never sleeping, your TV/amp are going into standby which tends to cause the same HDMI handshake issue with the WMC app.)… You should probably look into what I’m doing which is to shutdown and restart WMC as appropriate (ie. when you turn on / turn off your AV system).
I’ve gone the route of having my Harmony remote shut down WMC (Alt+F4) when I put the system to sleep. It also re-launches WMC (GreenButton) when you turn the system on. This way the handshake is always done with the Windows desktop, not WMC. This has solved all my HDMI issues, which were 1) dropping back to 1024×768 resolution, and 2) black screen.
By the way, you can usually get your screen back from the black-screen by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del then hitting Esc. The 1024×768 problem requires running back through WMC TV setup.
[quote=swoon]
For your sub output, do you have your speakers set to small? Small should force the low frequencies to the sub.
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Thanks for the idea. I tried that and it didn’t help, even though my speakers are more “over-sized bookshelf” than “small.” I even tried switching the listening modes to “5-channel stereo” etc. and nothing will cause it to take a 2-channel stream and make it a 2.1, fronts to the speaker terminals and sub to the RCA sub output. I think that amp is just too ancient to do all the things we just expect to work.
I ended up just hooking the front speakers up to the sub right along with the fronts and that fixed the problem. Sub now does the crossover analysis and things sound pretty good (for a garage).
Now we are officially “off topic”…
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