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Would a Celeron 1037U or Celeron G1820 be a good upgrade over my ancient E5200 MCE box for transcoding the MPEG-2 MCE recordings to tablets and Rokus via Plex?
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Jun 14, 2014 14:44
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So I'm having some issues with my newly built HTPC. It's my first build from scratch but I have done add-ons before so I have some experience. Everything turns on and I can get to BIOS just fine, but I can't get windows to boot from my HDD. I had a previous version of windows already on it (7) and I can't get it to boot up from there. Do I need to boot from USB and clear the old HDD and start fresh? I have the boot priority to select the HDD first. There are some new things I have no experience with such as UEFI and Legacy settings so maybe I just have a HDD thats too old? Any help is appreciated.
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Jun 26, 2014 16:19
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Dale Meets Wall posted:So I'm having some issues with my newly built HTPC. It's my first build from scratch but I have done add-ons before so I have some experience. Everything turns on and I can get to BIOS just fine, but I can't get windows to boot from my HDD. I had a previous version of windows already on it (7) and I can't get it to boot up from there. Do I need to boot from USB and clear the old HDD and start fresh? I have the boot priority to select the HDD first. There are some new things I have no experience with such as UEFI and Legacy settings so maybe I just have a HDD thats too old? Any help is appreciated. So if you turn it on and just let it go through the boot sequence, what does it go to? Does it give you an option to boot or does it just sit there? If you had Windows 7 on the hard drive previously and you've not reinstalled it or a new OS, it would just sit there. Basically, it's looking for your previous components and when it doesn't find them, it fails. Best thing you can do if this is the case is to re-run the Windows 7 (or 8) install process from USB or dvd/bluray drive. You'll want to format the drive and install windows again.
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Jun 26, 2014 16:54
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Yeah that's exactly what it's doing. I was hoping it would just be plug and play. I figure I'd have to reformat and install windows all over again after digging into it a bit more. I'm working on creating a bootable external as I have no optical drive or flash drive. Edit:Everything is working now, just need to reinstall everything. thanks Dale Meets Wall fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Jun 26, 2014 |
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Jun 26, 2014 17:05
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I have a problem. I can't play movies that use DTS HD Master Audio. I have a Zotac AD10, Windows 8, still running XBMC 12, and a Pioneer VSX-1020-K receiver. I have the audio options in XBMC set to HDMI and have the HD audio option enabled. I'm using the DirectSound options to use the AMD HD Audio thing from the Zotac. When I play the movie it chugs along in slow motion without any audio. The receiver displays that it's playing in Stereo but I think it should display the correct HD audio codec. If I switch the sound options to Optical (not how it's physically connected though) then the receiver switches to DTS and the movie plays, but the video quality looks to take a hit and I'm sure the audio does too. Haven't really been able to find a good solution online. My next move was to update XBMC.
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Jun 27, 2014 21:15
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Upgrading XBMC should fix it - the audio system has been reworked and the passthrough options are now off by default because a lot of people were having problems.
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Jun 27, 2014 22:39
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I have a giant rear end desktop computer that I'm currently only using as a torrent box / Plex server. I am thinking of transferring the mobo/CPU/RAM from it's current giant rear end case to a more shelf component type case, rather than building a new HTPC. Anyone have any recommendations? Would need to be able to contain a full size ATX motherboard and processor. It currently has a Radeon HD5450 graphics card too, so I'd like to be able to house that as well. Is Silverstone still the go-to for HTPC cases?
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Jun 27, 2014 22:43
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Medullah posted:I have a giant rear end desktop computer that I'm currently only using as a torrent box / Plex server. I am thinking of transferring the mobo/CPU/RAM from it's current giant rear end case to a more shelf component type case, rather than building a new HTPC. Anyone have any recommendations? Would need to be able to contain a full size ATX motherboard and processor. It currently has a Radeon HD5450 graphics card too, so I'd like to be able to house that as well. Is Silverstone still the go-to for HTPC cases? Silverstone is still prob your best bet. Another option might be the node 605 from fractal-design.
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Jun 28, 2014 01:03
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Krailor posted:Silverstone is still prob your best bet. Another option might be the node 605 from fractal-design. I use the Node 605 and as far as I am concerned it is the only option. Fractal cases are great and this one is no exception.
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Jun 28, 2014 16:22
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Ixian posted:I use the Node 605 and as far as I am concerned it is the only option. Fractal cases are great and this one is no exception. The page says it has a slim ODD bay, but I don't see it in the pictures, is it on the side or something
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Jun 28, 2014 16:41
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OppyDoppyDopp posted:Upgrading XBMC should fix it - the audio system has been reworked and the passthrough options are now off by default because a lot of people were having problems. Thanks that worked.
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Jun 28, 2014 17:12
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The Milkman posted:The page says it has a slim ODD bay, but I don't see it in the pictures, is it on the side or something It's hidden behind the hinged panel at the bottom. If you look at the second picture on their website that shows the front I/O ports, you can see it on the left.
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Jun 28, 2014 22:01
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GokieKS posted:It's hidden behind the hinged panel at the bottom. If you look at the second picture on their website that shows the front I/O ports, you can see it on the left. Ah I see it now. Thanks. Why is it still so hard to find a htpc case that belongs in a ht
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Jun 29, 2014 00:56
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I think it probably just comes down to it being a pretty niche market, and there's not that many companies that really seem interesting in making tons of models that may not sell all that many units. Silverstone is definitely a company that does (not just with HTPC cases, but also other weird off the wall designs), so it's not really surprising that they offer probably the most comprehensive line of HTPC cases around. I'm a big fan of their products, because I like the understated elegant design most of their higher-end products have, they're almost always well-built (if not necessarily easy to build in), and the aforementioned tendency to try new things in case design, so it works fine for me - I'm actually getting the ML07 to put the MB/CPU from my old hackintosh (which was in a FT03 Mini) in and use as an HTPC.
GokieKS fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 01:50
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Yeah, it's a niche market. And for big ATX motherboards it's a niche inside a niche. It's a minor miracle the Node exists at all - though it's big (because it has to be for that MB) it's designed really well, fits in perfectly with other A/V components, and is quiet. My favorite part is it was designed to be no deeper than it needs to be - a common problem with "HTPC" cases is they stick out a little on many shelves because front to back they are too deep. The Node is the only case it's size I've found that isn't like that.
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Jun 29, 2014 16:49
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KingKapalone posted:I have a problem. I can't play movies that use DTS HD Master Audio. I have a Zotac AD10, Windows 8, still running XBMC 12, and a Pioneer VSX-1020-K receiver. I have the audio options in XBMC set to HDMI and have the HD audio option enabled. I'm using the DirectSound options to use the AMD HD Audio thing from the Zotac. Xbmc used to do this for me (stuttering video etc) if I was attempting to play HD audio tracks like DTS HD while NOT using pass through ie down sampling to stereo. Enable pass through and allow xbmc to bitstream to your receiver. This should fix it. Also you may want to use wasapi instead of direct sound. It usually seems to perform better.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:14
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Quick question regarding emulation. My HTPC is built very budgeted so I didn't go with a graphics card and bought a pretty cheap processor. I'm able to play movies and most things fine, but with PCSX2 I'm not able to play at full speed. I lag from anywhere from 30-50 FPS. I've looked up all sorts of speed hacks for slow processors (down to 1.8ghz from ~2009) but even these have graphics cards. My question is since it seems my processor is unable to play at normal frame rates, would adding a graphics card solve this problem? If so, what would a decent budget graphics card typically run me? The processor I have is Intel G1840
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Jul 1, 2014 14:05
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Emulation (especially as you get into the PS2 and Wii) is VERY heavily CPU bound. It's pretty much not worth it to even try on a Celeron without speedhacks enabled, and even then it won't guarantee anything. A dedicated graphics card will improve performance in some ways, but mostly in the form of how high of a resolution you can use, and if you can use texture upscaling. You're going to want at least an i3, preferably i5, to get decent performance out of something that recent. Edit: I should note, it's not impossible to get good performance with weaker stuff. I'm running a Core 2 Q6600, and can do most PS2 stuff just fine. But if you're buying Haswell, i3 is the minimum respectable line. G-Prime fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 15:26
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Okay that's what I was thinking the other option would be. I originally was looking at an i3/i5 but decided to give the celeron a shot for an "econobox" HTPC. I figured if it can emulate the newer consoles then great, but it wasn't on my list of needs so didn't' warrant the extra cost. Thanks.
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Jul 1, 2014 16:59
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Speaking of the NUCs, is it true the Celeron ones dont do HW decoding or at least don't do it well? I think i'm finally gonna test out one of these bad boys and see what their like. Wanted to the try the economy Celeron ones and see if its viable. Also what is the SKU of the latest celeron NUC? so many version on amazon...
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Jul 2, 2014 18:00
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I just got one. Intel NUC BOXDN2820FYKH0 Celeron N2820 I put 4gb of ram and a 120gb SSD. I use it for XBMC and Netflix. It works fantastic for both and runs Windows 8.1 like a champ. I would even use this machine as a desktop for doing office work or web browsing. It's amazing how powerful a low power machine like this is these days. I don't know if it's doing decoding in hardware or software but it plays HD content fine.
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Jul 2, 2014 18:05
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Gozinbulx posted:Speaking of the NUCs, is it true the Celeron ones dont do HW decoding or at least don't do it well? No, I don't think that's true. Where did you hear that?
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Jul 2, 2014 22:05
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:No, I don't think that's true. Where did you hear that? Read it on what was a probably an early review. Sounds awesome, gonna try it out.
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Jul 2, 2014 22:21
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:No, I don't think that's true. Where did you hear that? I assume he's referring to Quick Sync, which was not enabled on Pentium / Celeron parts until a driver update added support for some of them, but which doesn't include the Celeron models used in the NUC.
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Jul 2, 2014 22:22
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Ixian posted:I use the Node 605 and as far as I am concerned it is the only option. Fractal cases are great and this one is no exception.
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Jul 3, 2014 12:54
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GokieKS posted:I assume he's referring to Quick Sync, which was not enabled on Pentium / Celeron parts until a driver update added support for some of them, but which doesn't include the Celeron models used in the NUC. Ah. In that case, no, you don't need Quick Sync to decode video in hardware on the HD4000 GPUs.
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Jul 3, 2014 14:07
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TomR posted:I just got one. Intel NUC BOXDN2820FYKH0 Celeron N2820 To be clear, this isn't the newest Bay Trail ones? This is a dual core from what I can tell. It still works well?
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Jul 3, 2014 19:12
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Yes it's a dual core Bay Trail. Intel hasn't released a newer Celeron NUC as far as I know. It works great. Really great. My desktop is an Ivy Bridge i5 at 4.2ghz with 16gb of ram and the only thing that I have noticed the dual core Celeron being slow at was unzipping compressed files. And I mean it's not slow, it just isn't instant like my main desktop. None of the skins I have tried in XBMC have shown any lag at all. It's very responsive. I can watch the highest bitrate HD stuff I have no problems.
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Jul 3, 2014 19:22
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TomR posted:Yes it's a dual core Bay Trail. Intel hasn't released a newer Celeron NUC as far as I know. It works great. Really great. My desktop is an Ivy Bridge i5 at 4.2ghz with 16gb of ram and the only thing that I have noticed the dual core Celeron being slow at was unzipping compressed files. And I mean it's not slow, it just isn't instant like my main desktop. None of the skins I have tried in XBMC have shown any lag at all. It's very responsive. I can watch the highest bitrate HD stuff I have no problems. Would you care to link me to the listing you bought? Was it Amazon? Did it have prime? Also if you dont mind me asking, which HDD and which ram did you use?
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Jul 3, 2014 19:40
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This is where I got mine. I'm in Canada though http://www.ncix.com/detail/intel-nuc-boxdn2820fykh0-celeron-n2820-80-94184.htm I just went on pcpartpicker.com and found the cheapest single 4gb SODIMM that was 1.35 volts. Got the cheapest non garbage SSD as well. It was 120GB but I don't think you need anywhere near that for a media computer if you use networked storage. Edit: That's the SSD I got too. My NUC came with a 2GB flash drive with a linux install on it, nice touch but I didn't use it. Also it's a good idea to flash to the latest firmware too. TomR fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Jul 3, 2014 |
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Jul 3, 2014 20:18
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I ended up getting on Amazon for what i think is the market price and then got decent ram and got the cheapest recommended ssd from the ssd thread (PNY XLR8) at 120 gb.
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Jul 3, 2014 22:15
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I was seriously considering buying the new fanless Gigabyte Brix whenever it becomes available. I'm sure the Bay Trail Celeron could handle XBMC easily. But I was also interested in Steam home streaming and was wondering if I should go with an i3 and active cooling instead.
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Jul 6, 2014 20:52
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Well, the version of the NUC I have there is a CPU fan. I also have a plasma TV. If I stand close enough to my entertainment center to hear the fan in the NUC I can hear the buzz from the TV, and the TV is louder. This is with my head inside of 24" mind you.
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Jul 6, 2014 21:04
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That's cool, but the problem with fans is that three years down the road there's gonna be dirt in there or some sort of lubrication problem that will cause the fan to spin much louder than before. And doing something about it with a form factor like that would be a huge pain.
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Jul 6, 2014 21:13
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Fair enough, but the NUC is actually really easy to work on. You take out the 4 screws and the whole thing comes out in layers. Really the only issue would be if you could get a replacement fan.
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Jul 6, 2014 21:21
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I've had my own HTPC for awhile, and recently got into cablecard ethernet-based tuner (specifically the HD Homerun Prime). Been trying to talk the rest of the family into ditching the cable boxes - I pay the cable bill, and the boxes alone are running about $50/mo. Found an old Dell GX280 in the alley next to a neighbors trash, sans RAM or HDD (P4 2.8 version). It has a paltry 2GB in it for now and an old WD Raptor SATA 38GB I had sitting around, plus my old video card (Geforce GT520 - I was surprised to see a PCIx slot in a PC this old), and a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium I had left over. It's only 32 bit, but I'll still toss another 2GB in it eventually - Komputerbay sells dirt cheap DDR2 on Amazon. Right now, it's hooked up to our guest bedroom TV (27" 720p LCD), and aside from being a bit sluggish to start WMC, works great. Even over wifi, watching TV on it is generally clear (you'll see an occasional pixel here and there on fast moving scenes, I blame that more on the lack of RAM though). Changing channels is faster than these piece of poo poo boxes Verizon has started rolling out. I think the other TVs will eventually get low end NUCs (unless I can find more ancient PCs next to trashcans). I have one active HDHR Prime, and another one I purchased from a forums member (don't have a cablecard for it yet) - between the two, that should be enough for the 4 TVs in the house, including the occasional recording.
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Jul 7, 2014 07:29
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I bought this fanless Celeron a while ago from AliExpress. It works pretty well, except it doesn't support standby and WoL properly (newer revisions of the mainboard apparently fixed this, I guess you could ask the dealer).
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Jul 7, 2014 10:56
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You can get fanless Bay Trail based systems without buying from AliExpress now.... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KR0QHXW  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JJF0XUO Though for my purposes I have never found a case that supports fanlessness *and* an expansion card and 3.5" hard drives, so I'm going to have to deal with at least one fan when I try to build a small Bay Trail J1900 Celeron MCE/HTPC box.
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Jul 7, 2014 12:26
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Ah, the Gigabyte one looks nice. It's still going to end up being somewhat more expensive than the Chinese variant when you factor in the RAM and so on, but I guess it's not a huge difference (and I'm assuming a whole lot less hassle).
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Jul 7, 2014 13:08
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Got a NUC up and running. I was really disappointed to learn that there is no native Netflix ability for Linux. I tried out the workarounds, and although they work... it was kinda choppy for me and not really watchable in action scenes. Oh well. Good thing I still had a good windows 7 key laying around.
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Jul 8, 2014 03:43
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