CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:41 am Post subject:

1./Take black paint out of car ( been trying to remember this all week )
DONE!

2./Paint plastic rivits that hold the windows in.
DONE!
(see post below )

3./Get PlastiX polish from detailing kit in garage.(DOH! Forgot again, had a good reason though )
Gotta do this still.
4./Polish windows make it shine.
Same.

5./Buy Windows XP( DUH! ) lol
(Ordered. It's in tomrow)
GOT IT!

6./Buy shorter SATA cables
(Done, got em for free)
7./Buy single position ATA 133 cables
(Hey did you know you can just cut the regular ones to fit?)Works great.
8./Buy single position floppy cable
(DITO )
9./Tidy up wires
(Tomorow)
DONE!
10./Buy green lights for case.
( new I forgot something when I was at Tiger Direct ) Maybe next week

11./Buy black 12cm fan ( seriously they have EVERY other color in stock geeze )( Nope coulnd't find a quiet one. Unless I wanted a chrome fan )
I'll keep looking.
12./Check Ultra's web site to see if temperature display is available with green backlite.
(Nope blue only. Damit. Maybe I should get one from Crystalfontz.com)

13./Test AMPRO ( still haven't had time for this, I love the way it falls as number 13 on the list, lucky, lucky )DONE not arc no spark Sad

Wonder why it's still not working right?

14./ Buy 5 panel mount BNC's for later use
(checked out Electrosonic in Toronto today. No gold plated ones )
Keep looking
Make time to do all of the above.
( Working on it ) cleared a whole weekend and pulled an all nighter (check)

Lather, rinse, repeat.
(I need a shower) again.
OK 15 hours is enough for tonight. I'll play again tomorow.

15./Install hauppauge dual analog tunner card and firefly remote

16./Install Real Magic DVD card

17./ rest, watch movie

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:44 am Post subject:

I'm thinking I should replace the freshly painted plastic rivits with some allen head bolts and nuts. These are the ones that hold the plastic side panels in.

Trip to Brafasco next week see what I can come up with.

**AnalogRocks**

Ok Windows did a funny thing. When the drives formatted instead of C:, D: for the hard drives I got G: and H: the USB card reader became c: and d: and the DVD drives E: and f:

I let it got at that. Then I put the haugpauge TV500 card in there and the computer randomly reboots and the DVD drives have disapeared.

I'm reformating this bitc...box. I'll let you know what happens.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 3:07 am Post subject: Green Machine PVR

Seems 3rd time's the charm. Or was it the 4th? I now have a zippy dual tuner Green Machine PVR. I just realized as I was installing things that I actualy got one of my origional requirements. An FM tuner as a bonis.

I've also installed the FireFly remote. It's head and shoulders above the ATI RemoteWonder II except in size.

The SnapStream Beyond TV 4.5 is excelent so far too. It doens't loose it's place like the ATI MMC software did. I'm going to enjoy this.

Tomrow I'll try to get the Real Magic X-card installed.

FOr now I'm running the internal audio. The add in audio card lacks the pins to connect to the front audio hedders. Too bad.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:52 am Post subject:

More problems.

I wanted to actualy just use the damn thing tonight. Fat chance.

I'm on Winblows install #7. 4th install of the PVR card. It was randomly rebooting. There was some errors in the drive detecting.

I think I have it figured out know.

Seems I was right waiting to paint that DVD drive. It's buggered. I put a CD in there and tried to read from it and it wouldn't. I tried a pre-made CD then it would reboot(!!) the computer every time I tried it. It's the SATA drive that bit the dust. So far so good on the ATA DVD drive.

I was having problems with Beyond TV haning on start up too.

As soon as I disconected the Serial ATA DVD drive the system comes up properly.

I hope this is the problem. I've spent about 8 hors to long installing winblows already.

_________________________________________________________________

Now for the other good news: I had to "Modify" the case a bit. Pictures to follow.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:33 am Post subject:

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:44 pm Post subject:

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 12:05 am Post subject:

The pannels didn't fit right after assembly so I fixed them:

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 12:28 am Post subject:

And to hold the side pannel on a little industrial velcro. This stuff almost bends the pannel trying to get it off.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 2:58 am Post subject:

Hmm according to their web site the Hauppauge DVR 500 card doesn't work with the Socket 939 AMD X2 processors. Like the one I just put in my system. Funny I sceduled about 7 rocordings on two tunners last night and they were there when I checked at midnight. Shhhh I won't tell if you won't. Wink

Cross fingers I don't get a conflict between the X-card DVD and the PVR 500

I'll find out tomorow.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 8:17 am Post subject:

Started working on the Ampro today ( lucky number 13 on the to do list ) found 2 bad neck cards. Then I forgot to install the DVD card. I'll try again tomorow.

Just for fun I scheduled about 30 recordings and so far so good. Both tuners humming along.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 1:07 am Post subject:

Had a snow day here today ( I love making my own hours ) I had time to install the Real Magic X-card. Beautiful picture from the video's encoded by the PVR-500 card. Much better than WMP 9 or the Beyone TV playback through the geforce 6150.

I watched about a 2 hour movie and then the PC froze. On reboot it was slow and the motherboard had one long beep, then the screen would freeze, then a long beep. I rebooted ( reset switch ) and that was the end of the PC. Until I removed the X-card.

Weird. You'd think if it had a conflict it wouldn't have worked in the first place. I'll try the back up X-card that I bought and well see if it'll go.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 1:10 am Post subject:

Update the PC just did it again with NO X-card. It beeps, Everything freezes then it resumes.

Any ideas?

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 1:12 am Post subject:

10 second long beep that time. Weird. Maybe some sort of temperature alarm that I don't know about? I'll try rebooting into the BIOS. Whish me luck

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

Sounds almost like a memory timing issue, or maybe the mobo battery becoming ill. Strip everything out of the unit but video and a hard drive. Of, get a copy of Linux with a live filesystem and boot the optical drive (PATA).

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:09 am Post subject:

I could do that but I have found a BIOS update on Foxcon's web site that addresses this issue. Belive it or not I ran out of floppy's though so it'll have to wait 'till tommorow so I can go buy some.

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

Are you saying that you cannot get the system to boot without flashing the BIOS from a Floppy?

Looks like you did me the favor of not buying a Foxcon mobo. At least with the last 3-4 Abit mobo I was able to boot, and also flash the memory from a Windows environment. Seems unfortunate that the floppy is still required these days.

Hey, I am surprised that they haven't made flashing a BIOS from a ROM drive possable.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 5:50 pm Post subject:

It probably is on some mother boards. What's the big deal about having to use a floppy? I've been using them since they were 8" wide.

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

None of my current computers have floppy drives. Smile

Yes, I entered the 21st century.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:25 am Post subject:

I entered, saw what was here, turns out it's a bunch of digital crap and rewound to the 20th century.