# Media PC 3.0



## Mussels (Nov 15, 2008)

All my pictures seem to be gone from this thread - i will reupload them if i can find them.


This is the project log for my new media PC.


*1. Current hardware*

Nexus Caterpillar 'silent' case
Athlon 64 4000+ (skt AM2)
GA-MA78GM-S2H - 780G chipset, HDMI. DTS connect onboard (real time DTS encoding)
2x1GB DDR2 800
onboard Radeon 3200
1x 160GB 3.5" IDE HDD. Near silent.
Logitech cordless MX3200 keyboard set
Antec Basiq 550W. Fan modded for silence.

40" samsung HDTV (Shared with main system)
Shares Logitech Z-5500's with gaming PC

*2. Long term hardware list. (parts i'm looking for)*

mATX half height media case. Looking for a silent one, w/ PSU.
2.5" SSD HDD, 30GB or larger. (Expecting to wait a few months on this)


Plan for things to do:

1. Install system with generic PSU on a testbench. Run full power tests with my maplin 2000MU power meter *done*
2. swap to antec PSU, run full power tests. *done*
3. Post results up here on TPU, so that beginners can begin to see how quality PSU's can even save you money *done*

4. take pics as i build the PC, put that up here as a small guide on how to build a HTPC*done*
5. benchmark the living hell out of it, just to see what that onboard video can do 
6. _write up a small guide showing people how to get proper dolby digital/DTS audio out of their HTPC's, as well as the best video quality (AKA, a guide on media player classic, coreAVC and AC3 filter)_ *done. stopped being small.*

Suggestions on what else to do here, are welcome. i've got nothing but free time, as its holidays here so i have no uni 

*Overclocking results:*
Combining RMclock and my OC, i've done the following.


System boots at 250x8 (2GHz) on auto CPU voltages. Ram is at 866Mhz (its stable)
RMclock then kicks in, raising the multi to 10.5 (CPU max) and voltage to 1.328V (tock volts for 500MHz more? win!)
RMclock then uses its automatic adjustments, dropping to 1.25GHz (5x250) at 0.9v
system runs cool and low power at idle/watching movies, and clocks right up when needed (which is... well, never)
load temp is 38C in everest ultimate (15C in coretemp, but thats obviously wrong)

end result: a smart PC that does exactly what i want, when i want it... and doesnt waste any power doing it. pity this doesnt help the pathetic 3dmark 06 score.


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## Mussels (Nov 15, 2008)

*The guide!*

How to build a media PC aka "Home Theater PC" (HTPC)
Obviously, you're gunna need a big screen, a TV, and some speakers. The hardware you have there, will dictate the hardware you'll need from your PC - so plan ahead.

*Planning stage:*

First things first: when making a HTPC, choose small, quiet components. it doesnt matter how good your case/accesory/doodad is that claims to be silent, if it has a single moving part... its not silent. Choose hardware that can run without fans, silent hard drives, and a quiet PSU from the start, and you wont need to spend another $100 later soundproofing your case.

by choosing a motherboard with the right hardware from the start, i wont need an extra sound card or video card - that saves me money when building it, AND saves power when using it (which indirectly, saves me more money). In my case, i also made sure the motherboard has E-sata, as theres where the movies i'll be watching are stored.






here is the rear of the motherboard i chose: for this system i will be using HDMI for video, optical SPDIF for audio, and E-sata to connect my  external hard drives. Because i have all neccesary connectors onboard, thats it for hardware purchases. I dont need any add-on cards to meet my goals.

Some of this stuff is common sense, but its all important when building a media PC.
Because my build is going to be silent, all the fans need to be slow, quiet and possibly temperature controlled. The concern here is that if you dont choose your parts properly, your new media PC could overheat. There are a few key things you can do, to help with this.

 Choose low power parts to start with. Check CPU Wattages, and power draw of video cards - lower is better, for media PC use. If it comes passive out of the box, its going to be a low heat model.
 Be careful with your wiring. If you only have one, or two fans - you cant afford for loose wires to get in the way, and block what little airflow you have
 Zip/Cable ties are your friends! tie those loose wires out of the way!
 Choose quality fans to begin with. My nexus fans are quiet at full speed, and silent when slowed down. Why buy high speed fans, if it takes a $30 fan controller to get them to an acceptable speed?
 Choose a high efficiency power supply, with a quiet fan. If you get an 80 plus certified PSU, that means its going to be more efficient - and that means colder. less heat means less problems.
 Positive airflow is better. That means more air in the case, than out. (dont forget to count your PSU fan here). The logic is that a positive airflow case, while not quite as well cooled will attract less dust - and your media PC is going to be sitting there, for hours and hours, collecting dust for months before you ever get to it. Keep it off the ground, and keep it clean.

*Installation*
At this point, i start installing the hardware. Check this guide here by Zekrahminator. He covers all the basics, i'm only going into media-PC specifics.

In my case, i already had a "sound proofed" nexus caterpillar case available, so i'm using that. Its a full sized ATX case, supposedly soundproofed and silent. Might as well use it for this guide, and my initial build.

The motherboard i'm using, is a Gigabyte mATX (micro ATX) board, with onboard video, audio, and networking. Why? Because its cheaper when i build the PC, and because it will save me power having just one piece of hardware doing all the work (instead of adding in dedicated cards to do the same job). The other advantage here, is that most media PC cases are 'half height' - that is, normal sized expansion cards dont fit! going all onboard, means i dont have to worry about parts not fitting when i replace the case.

First thing when installing a micro ATX (mATX) mobo into a full sized ATX case: lining up the screws! due to different sized motherboards using different hole locations, not all cases line up correctly out of the box. They use brass 'standoffs' which screw into the case, and then the motherboard screws into them. Motherboards do NOT screw directly into a case.
See the following pics, for example.





In this pic, you can see that the motherboard has 8 screw holes (highlighted in red circles)




In this picture of the nexus case, you can see four pre-installed standoffs in the right positions for this motherboard, and some holes where i'll need to attach the rest. Notice how sometimes they're very close to each other - its important to get the right ones, or you could have a standoff poking into the back of your motherboard, and short it out.


Of course, once its all in the case its ready to go. From here on will differ between systems, but theres a few tricks i've learned which can help people out, but have nowhere else to go in this guide.

Get a cordless mouse and keyboard, and place the transmitter on top of your TV. it will have line of sight even if you place the keyboard on an arm rest or a coffee table, therefore having a better signal to use.
 Try and get a case with easy access front USB ports or get a USB docking ball on top of the PC, so people can plug in flash drives or external hard drives with ease. Might as well make it simple to get your movies/music on and off the PC.
Bling is bad. You dont want roaring fans drowning out your music, and you dont want bright LED fans blinding you when trying to watch movies
less is more. One hard drive is enough - make the rest external, or its only going to add to the noise, heat, and power consumption.
Universal remotes can be used in combination with USB media center remotes. Simply "teach" your universal remote the commands your USB MCE remote uses, and you can do what i do and run your TV, speakers, and PC all from the one remote!



*Software Setup*

I'm going to write this guide using the software i use. It works, it doesnt conflict with other applications or programs. If you have any other codec packs installed on your PC (especially K-lite) - remove them before following this guide.

Software you will need:
1. CCCP (aka combined community codec pack)
2. AC3 filter
3. if its on a slower PC, you'll need CoreAVC
CoreAVC is not free, but it definately speeds things up. On dual core machines, its not neccesary - so try with CCCP's inbuild codecs and only buy coreAVC if neccesary.

step 1. Installing CCCP

four pictures are included here - i have omitted steps for install directory and such, as they are unimportant.

1. Install with media player classic as the default player.





2. My suggested settings





3. Screenshot of settings for analogue speaker users (these will be changed later, for those with digital speaker setups like my logitech Z-5500's)





4. reccomended settings





Install AC3 filter now. its pretty basic.

Analogue users:
Pictures are not needed at this stage, so long as you listen to what i'm saying here. There is an option under "output format" to allow you to choose your speaker setup. If using analogue speakers, set this to match your speaker setup. If you're on digital, there should be a "no change" or "same as input" option - use that instead.
That setting can wreck true 5.1 files and drops them down to a "stereo x2" instead of true 5.1, so if you're having problems - try alternatives settings here.

Digital users:
tick the "use SPDIF" box on the "main" tab, and then setup your "SPDIF" tab like the following picture





This will pass through digital audio signals, without modifying them in any way. If you have a 5.1 file, you will get 5.1 sound - if you have a 2.0 file, you will get 2.0 sound. If your file is dolby digital you will get dolby digital, if its dolby DTS you will get DTS.


now for coreAVC (should you use the trial, or buy the program)
You can skip ahead until you get tickboxes for what components to install: untick "haali media splitter" - its already installed with the CCCP, so theres no need to have it twice. thats it.

Now, load media player classic.
Right click on the blank image in the middle of the window, and click options.
In the left hand pane, click 'output' under playback.
use these settings below:





Next click "external filters" and click "add filter"
click AC3filter and hit ok. On the right side of the window, click "prefer"
Repeat this for CoreAVC if you intend to use it.
click ok, close media player classic, and then open your media file... and you will now have the fastest software decoder for High definition files, as well as true 5.1 surround sound.

And the results?





You tell me... just how slow of a CPU can i pull this off with? 

While the full movie may be a higher bitrate than this trailer, it does give you a pretty good indication that even 'older' hardware is more than capable of running HD movies in a media PC.

*******************************************************


*Power testing!*
Now that the system is complete, we'll go on and dispel a few myths about PSU's - some people tell you to get ridiculously high wattage, others tell you it literally 'wastes' power.
I have a power meter, so i did some tests with a few PSU's i had lying around.

Power test: antec basiq 550W PSU

System boot up: Highest reading was 92W, and that was while the vista logon screen appeared. Lowest was 50W. Average was around 65-70W.

Idling at the desktop with cool and quiet enabled, the system is using 46W of power.

*Watching* the aforementioned *HD* trailer played steadily at 62-64W, depending on the complexity of the scene.

*Maxing out the system* with a combination of ATI tool and Orthos, the system peaked at 106 Watts of power used. At this maximum load, the PSU gave off a power factor efficiency reading of 91%.
Despite the fact this PSU was at one fifth of its rated output it had over 90% efficiency, and ran the system perfectly fine. There is nothing wrong with using a 'too large' PSU to run even a low power system such as this one.
**************************************************************************************
*Generic "Sun Pro" 550W PSU*
This PSU came free with a case, and i know for a fact its pretty poor. Its got a 50W higher rating than the other one, but anyone with PSU knowledge out there already knows this generic, cheaply made unit is going to make a poor showing of itself.


*System boot u*p: Highest reading was 94W, and that was while the vista logon screen appeared. matched up with the antec here, more or less

*Idling* at the desktop with cool and quiet enabled, the system is using 53W of power. almost 10% more than the antec.

*Watching* the aforementioned *HD* trailer played steadily at 79-81W, upto 15W higher than the antec

*Maxing out the system* with a combination of ATI tool and Orthos, the system peaked at 118 Watts of power used. At this maximum load, the PSU gave off a power factor efficiency reading of 65%.

this PSU was rated 50W higher than the antec (which sounds like it should be 10% better, to a beginner) but in the end, it was around 10% *worse* - it was less efficient, and that showed up in the power consumption.

*Summary:*
Buy a real PSU - it doesnt just save you the risk of a PSU dying and killing your hardware - this example here uses about 10% less power, so thats 10% less electricity cost every year. THAT will save you money, as media centers are nearly always left on for hours and hours a day.

Note: just because there was a 10% difference in wattage, and roughly a 10% decrease in efficiency at the tested wattages, doesnt lend any credence to higher wattage PSU's "wasting" power. The higher the consumption got, the further and further these PSU's spread apart - if this was a 200-250W system, that generic would be wasting 50 watts or more of power, making the % difference even greater.



*Modifying cool and quiet to save even more power with RMclock.*
This *only* works on AMD CPU's and in most cases, ONLY if motherboard settings are left on auto - if you change your voltages in the BIOS, they aint gunna change in RMclock.

While this process is fairly simple, the program has a somewhat confusing layout. I'll be providing pictures, and a step by step process to show how its done.

1. Default settings




This is RMclocks default settings - notice how the voltages are all rather high.





Here, we disable everything except the multiplier we wish to test (5x) at the voltage we wish to test (1.250v, in this example - which is too high, as AMD CPU's are guaranteed to run at 1.10V at 1GHz)





Now we use the maximum performance profile (this one doesnt auto-adjust) and test it out. Locking it to this setting will allow us to test this specific multiplier on this specific voltage - it ensures its completely stable.





Next we turn the profile on - at this point, if your system freezes or locks up, it means your voltage was too low and the system crashed.





Next, we fire up a few programs. 

CPU-Z to make sure the Multiplier and voltage are correct, and actually changed.
Coretemp to check temperatures. On my system, they're very innacurate - it claims 12 degrees, when its over 25C in my room.

Now, you let it test - if it lasts a few hours, consider dropping it another notch. The goal here is to find the lowest voltage that multiplier will run at - that makes it uses less power, and therefore saving you more money (and making the PC cooler/quieter too)

Once you've done this for the 5x multi, work your way up, one by one, testing each individual voltage out. 
Once you've done that, repeat this process for each individual multiplier. it *will* take you a few hours/days, so be prepared to spend some time on this.

Once you've got them all narrowed in, it will look something like this









Next, go to "performance on demand" and tick all the boxes to enable those multipliers in this profile





Finally, set the program to start that profile whenever the program is started (using the startup dropdown, instead of 'current'). I prefer to set this up, and then leave a shortcut to RMclock in my windows startup folder, so that if it ever goes bad, i can simply boot into safe mode and delete the shortcut.

Thats it!

*End results*
average FPS is shown in the player to prove it wasnt stuttering or performing badly.
Tray icon for RMclock shows i'm running at 1000MHz (or 1GHz) at 0.85v ( as opposed to 1.10V with AMD cool and quiet)
at this setting, plaback consumed an all-devouring 46W of power  mission accomplished.


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## viczulis (Nov 15, 2008)

Here's a case with power supply that I'm looking at. Comes in different colors.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144232

I got some vacation time coming and I'm wanting to build a media center too. Hopefully I can get some answers here.


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## Pinchy (Nov 15, 2008)

Lol Mussels you bored .. .

Na I feel the same way...uni over and sooo much free time .

But yeah, just a suggestion, if you wanna do a professional thing (I mean if your spending all the time, you may as well lol) do it up nice and post it as an article! I know there is already an article on how to build a computer, but this is diff .

**BTW if you do make it an article, ill be happy to help/spellcheck/etc.

^ Just a suggestion


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## Mussels (Nov 15, 2008)

thanks pinchy, thats half my intention. not just the hardware, but the software side as well. all info will be in the first post (personal stuff) and second post (pics/guides) so that the second post can just be imported into an article, if and when its ready.

I wont be going too far into the basics (installing ram/CPU etc), so the other guide and this should go hand in hand.


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## SkyKast (Nov 16, 2008)

this sounds really interesting! subscribed! I'm excited for following along!


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## Mussels (Nov 16, 2008)

second post updated with software instructions.

this guide is going to cover quite a few things, in the long run.

The settings/software in the guide, have let me play 1080P anime movies smoothly, on systems as low as a 1.6GHz pentium 4 laptop (dothan) and a 2.4GHz pentium 4 desktop (northwood)


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## SkyKast (Nov 16, 2008)

wow VERY in depth and detailed this is going to be an amazing guide!


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## steelkane (Nov 16, 2008)

well done,, no matter how much some of us know,, I bet will learn something from this guide.


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## Mussels (Nov 16, 2008)

steelkane said:


> well done,, no matter how much some of us know,, I bet will learn something from this guide.



it has about twice as much info in there now, and i'm finally learning the codes this forum uses while i'm at it!

all thats left is to re-arrange it into a more logical order, and get pics/test results once the parts are in.


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## SkyKast (Nov 17, 2008)

cant wait for the new picts...are those going to be in post 2?


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## Mussels (Nov 17, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> cant wait for the new picts...are those going to be in post 2?



yup. mobos already shipped out, CPU ships tomorrow. once they're in, i'll start assembly/pics.


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## ktr (Nov 17, 2008)

If your planning to connect this to a surround sound system, I would go for an nvidia 8200 chipset (or 8300) for it can do 8ch lcpm uncompress audio over HDMI, while the 780g can only do 2ch uncompressed, and 5.1ch compressed.


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## SkyKast (Nov 17, 2008)

wow I just realized the audio industry is huge and I know absolutely nothing about it


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## Mussels (Nov 17, 2008)

ktr said:


> If your planning to connect this to a surround sound system, I would go for an nvidia 8200 chipset (or 8300) for it can do 8ch lcpm uncompress audio over HDMI, while the 780g can only do 2ch uncompressed, and 5.1ch compressed.



my Z5500's dont have HDMI inputs. see directly under the first pic, where i state that i use optical audio.


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## theJesus (Nov 18, 2008)

lots of great info in this guide.  CCCP and media player classic or zoomplayer are a definite must for any media pc.  I prefer zoomplayer, but the free version doesn't play dvd's, so media player classic is probably the best option for a media pc.


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## Mussels (Nov 19, 2008)

motherboard is due today and CPU + ram tomorrow  piccies soon!

Edit: motherboard just arrived. not much point taking pics yet, as the gigabyte website yielded some pretty decent images of the motherboard.






This is the board i received, a revision 1.1 instead of the 2.0 posted in the original post.

Differences between it and rev 2.0: the CPU support. This revision cannot take the phenom 9850 or 9950. kinda sucky that.


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## SkyKast (Nov 19, 2008)

wohooo cant wait to see these 

by the way what time is it there when I made this post? I am just curois how far different our time zones are. If you dont want to tell for some reason, no harm done...just curious.


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## Mussels (Nov 19, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> wohooo cant wait to see these
> 
> by the way what time is it there when I made this post? I am just curois how far different our time zones are. If you dont want to tell for some reason, no harm done...just curious.



12:51pm when you made the post. its 1:05pm now, as i post this.


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## SkyKast (Nov 19, 2008)

wow 8 hour difference, you are 8 hours in the past....

or 16 hours in the future...


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## Mussels (Nov 19, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> wow 8 hour difference, you are 8 hours in the past....
> 
> or 16 hours in the future...



16 hours in the future, technically. i just had my wednesday lunch 

Now i get to sit here and wait for the CPU to arrive, so i can get cracking on the rest of this guide!


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## SkyKast (Nov 19, 2008)

Mussels said:


> 16 hours in the future, technically. i just had my wednesday lunch



that's weird...ha its nowhere near Wednesday for me or at least when i posted about it



Mussels said:


> Now i get to sit here and wait for the CPU to arrive, so i can get cracking on the rest of this guide!



sweet, cant wait

P.S. are you going to OC this computer? if so please make a guide of it, I am trying to learn how...I went in and got my v core frequency from 3.00GHz to 3.06GHz lol wooohoooo, I have no clue what I'm doing though lol


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## DrunkenMafia (Nov 19, 2008)

Hey mussels.  Ijust rma'd my rev 1.1 and in the meantime bought the rev 2.0.  The northbridge on the 1.1 sat around 80c and the rev 2.0 sits around 45c.  Just an FYI.    It may have been a board problem as it did die.

The rev 2.0 has a different NB cooler on it.


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## Mussels (Nov 19, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> that's weird...ha its nowhere near Wednesday for me or at least when i posted about it
> 
> 
> 
> ...



not for part of the guide, but i have no problems OCing the hell out of it just to see what it can do. For now its in a large, ATX Case - and i happen to have a thermalright ultima 90 CPU Cooler ready to go 
ALso, it seems i can OC the onboard video 




DrunkenMafia said:


> Hey mussels.  Ijust rma'd my rev 1.1 and in the meantime bought the rev 2.0.  The northbridge on the 1.1 sat around 80c and the rev 2.0 sits around 45c.  Just an FYI.    It may have been a board problem as it did die.
> 
> The rev 2.0 has a different NB cooler on it.



Yeah i noted the northbridge heatsink change. i didnt realise you already had this board, i may ask you for OCing advice if i need it.


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## DrunkenMafia (Nov 19, 2008)

From my experience its not a very good oc board.  It has a shit load of options ( remember CTL F1 in bios).  I haven't oc'd an am2 cpu for a while but I couldn't get the FSB past 220.  There are a couple of freq's though that I may have had mixed up.  There is NB, FSB, Mem controller etc....  

I really haven't had the time or patience to oc the thing yet.  

That by no means implies that you can't ask though.    

haahaaa

Good luck.   I am subscribed as I bought this rig to turn into a HTPC once I get a big screeen!!


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## SkyKast (Nov 19, 2008)

Mussels said:


> not for part of the guide, but i have no problems OCing the hell out of it just to see what it can do.



sweet, even though it isnt going to be part of this guide are you going to at least post how you are doing it in another guide


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## Mussels (Nov 19, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> sweet, even though it isnt going to be part of this guide are you going to at least post how you are doing it in another guide



i'll probably chuck it all in post 1.


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## mlee49 (Nov 19, 2008)

Wow, I want to see this come to fruition.  This will be awesomely crucial to prebuyers who dont see the need for a good PSU.


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## SkyKast (Nov 19, 2008)

Mussels said:


> i'll probably chuck it all in post 1.



great, thanks for doing it in the first place!


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## Mussels (Nov 19, 2008)

Progress is being made on the build... slowly. 






My assistant has been a great help


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## Thrackan (Nov 19, 2008)

I'm kinda distracted by your assistant...


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## DrunkenMafia (Nov 19, 2008)

Lol

No wonder you aren't getting much done.  

You need a fat hairy assistant so there are no distractions.  

I was going to ask if I could borrow "your assistant" for my next build but its probably your missus so I won't.


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## SkyKast (Nov 19, 2008)

ha did you intentionally get that much of your assistants cleevage in the pict just to give us something to talk about lol

but its coming along great, good work, be sure to keep us posted!


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## Mussels (Nov 19, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> ha did you intentionally get that much of your assistants cleevage in the pict just to give us something to talk about lol
> 
> but its coming along great, good work, be sure to keep us posted!



it took about 15 photos before she was satisfied with the one i ended up using, lol. girls and attention.


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## SkyKast (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> it took about 15 photos before she was satisfied with the one i ended up using, lol. girls and attention.



lol I know what you mean


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## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> lol I know what you mean



PC is assembled now, i'll be getting an OS on it, then working on the PSU tests followed by some OCing.
(meaning, she went off to TAFE  )


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## SkyKast (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> PC is assembled now, i'll be getting an OS on it, then working on the PSU tests followed by some OCing.
> (meaning, she went off to TAFE  )



sweet, a pict of it all together plz?

and remember to keep updates about your OCing


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## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

best i could manage in such a wiring-unfriendly case 

also, i threw in 6 rear USB ports + two E-sata ports for the hell of it. the case looked too empty without em.


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## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

lookin good mussels..

I look forward to seeing some of your testing & Oc'in.

What OS are you putting on there??


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## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> lookin good mussels..
> 
> I look forward to seeing some of your testing & Oc'in.
> 
> What OS are you putting on there??



vista x64 ultimate edition. only the best


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## SkyKast (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> best i could manage in such a wiring-unfriendly case
> 
> also, i threw in 6 rear USB ports + two E-sata ports for the hell of it. the case looked too empty without em.



haha I am addicted to USBs lol I have 12 in my computer 



Mussels said:


> vista x64 ultimate edition. *only the best*



there is something inside me that tells me thats always how you roll...


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## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

TPU news just said this board is AM3 CPU compatible! weee.

now that i have plugged in the PSU fan (its modded to external power) and its not restarting every 10 minutes, i can finally get the OS on there.


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## SkyKast (Nov 20, 2008)

yeeeuh! does vista x64 look and different than vista x32?


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## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> yeeeuh! does vista x64 look and different than vista x32?



yeah. it says x64 instead of x86, which is all important. more or less, the only real difference is that i'll be going 4GB in it eventually, therefore it helps to go x64 from the start.


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## SkyKast (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> yeah. it says x64 instead of x86, which is all important. more or less, the only real difference is that i'll be going 4GB in it eventually, therefore it helps to go x64 from the start.



yeah my system has 4GB and xp x32 

time to upgrade


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## cdawall (Nov 20, 2008)

looks very cool i'm going to do an intel version of the mediacenter PC


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## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

cdawall said:


> looks very cool i'm going to do an intel version of the mediacenter PC



i went AMD just to be different to my main rigs, helps that i got an AM3 compatible board - if they rock, i can swap this with my LAN rig 

Only real advantage to AMD over intel in this instance, is that AMD cool and quiet actually saves power, whereas intel speedstep does absolutely nothing (tested it with my power meter)


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## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

good to see our mb is AM3 compatible.    we just need to find out when these things are coming out now.


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## SkyKast (Nov 20, 2008)

@mussels

arent you building this for someone?

or is it  a personal build


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## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> i went AMD just to be different to my main rigs, helps that i got an AM3 compatible board - if they rock, i can swap this with my LAN rig
> 
> Only real advantage to AMD over intel in this instance, is that AMD cool and quiet actually saves power, whereas intel speedstep does absolutely nothing (tested it with my power meter)



AMD FTW!!!  

you got that os installed yet?


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> @mussels
> 
> arent you building this for someone?
> 
> or is it  a personal build


personal build. I get lots of questions about my builds, so i figured writing it up step by step would help answer them.



DrunkenMafia said:


> AMD FTW!!!
> 
> you got that os installed yet?



No. having some weird issues... its either because AHCI mode doesn't like me, or because my secondary (300GB) HDD is dead.

edit:
ohhh crap


----------



## SkyKast (Nov 20, 2008)

aww bawls

thats not good


----------



## Jeno (Nov 20, 2008)

what CPU cooler did ya end up putting on there?


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

Jeno said:


> what CPU cooler did ya end up putting on there?



Thermalright ultima 90.

Skykast: solution in the end, is vista SP1 slipstream disk. Making one now.
Grr, i had to read over 40 bloody pages of crap to find the solution.


----------



## SkyKast (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> Thermalright ultima 90.
> 
> *Skykast: solution in the end, is vista SP1 slipstream disk. Making one now.
> Grr, i had to read over 40 bloody pages of crap to find the solution.*



ok good news

yeah lol I read 2 hits from google and gave up...my final decision: bad


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> ok good news
> 
> yeah lol I read 2 hits from google and gave up...my final decision: bad



atm i'm ripping my DVD to my HDD, so i can slipstream SP1 into it with Vlite. Then once thats done, i have to make a bootable installer from a USB drive, since i have no blank DVD's.

Grrrrrrr. i hate you gigabyte. i knew it'd bite me in the ass.


----------



## SkyKast (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> atm i'm ripping my DVD to my HDD, so i can slipstream SP1 into it with Vlite. Then once thats done, i have to make a bootable installer from a USB drive, since i have no blank DVD's.
> 
> Grrrrrrr. i hate you gigabyte. i knew it'd bite me in the ass.



nah, its alright just get bything little nick and then you can enjoy it for 

the rest of eternity.....

Edit: ^ that means I'm bored


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> nah, its alright just get bything little nick and then you can enjoy it for
> 
> the rest of eternity.....
> 
> Edit: ^ that means I'm bored



well supposedly installing off USB is faster than DVD (DVD is pretty slow, admittedly) so we'll see how fast it gets.


----------



## SkyKast (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> well supposedly installing off USB is faster than DVD (DVD is pretty slow, admittedly) so we'll see how fast it gets.



oh i didnt know that usb is faster than DVD, and firewire is faster than USB right?

Edit: I'm kickin it in for the night its 11:30 here


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> oh i didnt know that usb is faster than DVD, and firewire is faster than USB right?
> 
> Edit: I'm kickin it in for the night its 11:30 here



my DVD drives (Even on SATA) tend to max out at 15MB/s, and my USB sticks to 20-25MB/s.
Remember they have the same latency advantages of SSD's, so that may help too.


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

spewing about your install hassles bro.  Mine went without a hitch.  have you got the lastest bios on that board? 

hopefully it goes ok for you


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> spewing about your install hassles bro.  Mine went without a hitch.  have you got the lastest bios on that board?
> 
> hopefully it goes ok for you



latest bios is on there. From what i read, its only rev 1.1 boards with the issue. 1.0 and 2.0 dont have it. Probably why they updated to 2.0 in the first place.


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

That sux, can you take it back and swap for a Rev 2???  I am hoping that my return from rma will be a new board and a rev 2.


Stick with it


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> That sux, can you take it back and swap for a Rev 2???  I am hoping that my return from rma will be a new board and a rev 2.
> 
> 
> Stick with it



the place i bought it from says they only have rev 1.1.
This is what i get for buying gigabyte.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

ok its up and running fine now. Problem is apparently some conflict with the chipset and vista SP0, SP1 slipstream fixed it.

Just getting the OS setup how i like it, and i'll probably start on the long overdue PSU tests.

Edit: Okaaaaay. hearing the vista logon noise at full volume in 5.1 is utterly terrifying.


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

Great to hear.  

I don't think gb boards are that bad, I have had a whole heap of them and only 1 bad one.  Ironic it was actually this one.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> Great to hear.
> 
> I don't think gb boards are that bad, I have had a whole heap of them and only 1 bad one.  Ironic it was actually this one.



its usually just BIOS issues, or the vista boot problem i had. i'm about to listen to some sexy DTS with some FLAC audio files i downloaded


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

cool let me know how good the soundcard is, I am only using a $20 2 speaker "cough" setup at the moment.  Waiting for some cheap logitechs to come up.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> cool let me know how good the soundcard is, I am only using a $20 2 speaker "cough" setup at the moment.  Waiting for some cheap logitechs to come up.



its rather sad... but with the DTS encoding turned on, its really trashing my auzentech and audigy 4. its gunna be hard to go back to the others for gaming...


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

lol.  That is good I guess.  I plan on using it without a s.card for my HTPC setup.  Are you using HDMI, spdif, optical or normal jacks??


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> lol.  That is good I guess.  I plan on using it without a s.card for my HTPC setup.  Are you using HDMI, spdif, optical or normal jacks??



the SPDIF optical. the DTS encoding wont work on analogue, or the HDMI port.


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

ok cool.  I will have to remember that.

hows vista going??  The onboard gfx handles the aero interface pretty well huh


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> ok cool.  I will have to remember that.
> 
> hows vista going??  The onboard gfx handles the aero interface pretty well huh



the only lag i'm experienceing is on this machine thats on the web, the media PC is leeching off it at 50MB/s, and its underclocked to 1.2GHz atm. It doesnt like it.

I'm about to play Wall-E (Blu ray/1080p trailer) and see just how low i can get the CPU usage.

edit:






You tell me... just how slow of a CPU can i pull this off with?


----------



## Thrackan (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> it took about 15 photos before she was satisfied with the one i ended up using, lol. girls and attention.



Well from what I can see, you've got a nice looking assistant

Of course, that doesn't account for her personality, but hey, I just get to see pics so who cares about personality


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

Thrackan said:


> Well from what I can see, you've got a nice looking assistant
> 
> Of course, that doesn't account for her personality, but hey, I just get to see pics so who cares about personality



funnily enough, her helping with the PC actually was her homework - she's doing certificate two in I.T at TAFE (no idea where that fits in with US/UK education systems, but its a level above high school)


anyway, i'm writing these things as they come up here in forums posts (such as the HD one above) and then pasting them back into post #2 - dont forget to check back there and see the udpates as i add them in.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

Power test: antec PSU

Power on: Highest reading was 92W, and that was while the vista logon screen appeared. Lowest was 50W. Average was around 65-70W.

Idling at hte desktop with cool and quiet enabled, the system is using 46W of power.

Watching the aforementioned HD trailer played steadily at 62-64W, depending on the complexity of the scene.

Maxing out the system with a combination of ATI tool and Orthos, the system peaked at 106 Watts of power used. At this maximum load, the PSU gave off a power factor efficiency reading of 91%.


----------



## Thrackan (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> funnily enough, her helping with the PC actually was her homework - she's doing certificate two in I.T at TAFE (no idea where that fits in with US/UK education systems, but its a level above high school)
> 
> 
> anyway, i'm writing these things as they come up here in forums posts (such as the HD one above) and then pasting them back into post #2 - dont forget to check back there and see the udpates as i add them in.



A girl in the I.T., isn't that any TPU'ers dream? 
Anyway, I'll stop before you really think I'm just eyeballin her


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

Thrackan said:


> A girl in the I.T., isn't that any TPU'ers dream?
> Anyway, I'll stop before you really think I'm just eyeballin her



well shes technically not mine, so its all good. i'd just prefer it if we talked more about hte guide - i just added the power section in, go have a gander and give me some feedback.


----------



## Thrackan (Nov 20, 2008)

El Cheapo PSU's tend to have horrid efficiency when low power is consumed (ie 50 watts or sum).
As you have measured, this is not a myth, and it could save you quite some bang on the energy bill on a yearly base.

Also, are you going to try and underclock/volt the system to the point where it can still run 1080p? I'd love to see how low-consumption this can get.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

Thrackan said:


> El Cheapo PSU's tend to have horrid efficiency when low power is consumed (ie 50 watts or sum).
> As you have measured, this is not a myth, and it could save you quite some bang on the energy bill on a yearly base.
> 
> Also, are you going to try and underclock/volt the system to the point where it can still run 1080p? I'd love to see how low-consumption this can get.



actually, yes. bonus section to the guide is setting up RMclock to automatically underclock the system (thats the program in the tray that shows the MHz earlier)

Basically, you can tune in cool and quiet yourself with more steps, and custom voltages on each multiplier - and while watching media, it raises up only as needed.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

Modifying cool and quiet to save even more power with RMclock.
This *only* works on AMD CPU's and in most cases, ONLY if motherboard settings are left on auto - if you change your voltages in the BIOS, they aint gunna change in RMclock.

While this process is fairly simple, the program has a somewhat confusing layout. I'll be providing pictures, and a step by step process to show how its done.

1. Default settings





This is RMclocks default settings - notice how the voltages are all rather high.





Here, we disable everything except the multiplier we wish to test (5x) at the voltage we wish to test (1.250v, in this example - which is too high, as AMD CPU's are guaranteed to run at 1.10V at 1GHz)





Now we use the maximum performance profile (this one doesnt auto-adjust) and test it out. Locking it to this setting will allow us to test this specific multiplier on this specific voltage - it ensures its completely stable.





Next we turn the profile on - at this point, if your system freezes or locks up, it means your voltage was too low and the system crashed.





Next, we fire up a few programs. 

CPU-Z to make sure the Multiplier and voltage are correct, and actually changed.
Coretemp to check temperatures. On my system, they're very innacurate - it claims 12 degrees, when its over 25C in my room.

Now, you let it test - if it lasts a few hours, consider dropping it another notch. The goal here is to find the lowest voltage that multiplier will run at - that makes it uses less power, and therefore saving you more money (and making the PC cooler/quieter too)

Once you've done this for the 5x multi, work your way up, one by one, testing each individual voltage out. 
Once you've done that, repeat this process for each individual multiplier. it *will* take you a few hours/days, so be prepared to spend some time on this.

Once you've got them all narrowed in, it will look something like this









Next, go to "performance on demand" and tick all the boxes to enable those multipliers in this profile





Finally, set the program to start that profile whenever the program is started. I prefer to set this up, and then leave a shortcut to RMclock in my windows startup folder, so that if it ever goes bad, i can simply boot into safe mode and delete the shortcut.

Thats it!

(This is an example atm - its gunna take me a few more hours to tune mine in, before i can do power consumption comparisons)


----------



## Thrackan (Nov 20, 2008)

I'm going to have to see if this will work on my VIA C7 board as well, getting a very low idle consuption there should be perfectly doable this way.

Edit:


> Features
> 
> * Real-time CPU clock and CPU/OS load level determination and monitoring (with optional logging).
> * Detection of virtually any form of CPU clock throttling.
> ...


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

Thrackan said:


> I'm going to have to see if this will work on my VIA C7 board as well, getting a very low idle consuption there should be perfectly doable this way.



i've never tried on a C7. I know it doesnt work on intel core 2's, because the lowest multi they support is 6x - and with the lack of high multiplier chips, you're hardly dropping the clocks. (EG, my Q6600 is 6x to 9x, while this AMD 4000+ is 5x to 11x)


----------



## Thrackan (Nov 20, 2008)

According to the program specs it should at least *work* (see edit above)
I don't know how efficient it will be though, but I should be able to clock my 1,5Ghz C7 down to around 1Ghz and still have workable performance when running as a file/media/webserver.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

Thrackan said:


> According to the program specs it should at least *work* (see edit above)
> I don't know how efficient it will be though, but I should be able to clock my 1,5Ghz C7 down to around 1Ghz and still have workable performance when running as a file/media/webserver.



RMclock has a few profiles you can adjust.

1. power saving (lock it to the lowest MHz setting)
2. Maximal performance (lock it to highest)
3. performance on demand: adjust through all available settings, as performance is needed

even on your via, you can manually change it if you want.


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

30% !!!  Thats great.  I guess I won't be needing my phenom then when I convert it over.  I  still want to be able to flick on the tvtuner and a few multitasking apps though, I will see.

That is good news though.  I did read a review somewhere that a X2 4800 was all you needed for this board in a HTPC setup.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> 30% !!!  Thats great.  I guess I won't be needing my phenom then when I convert it over.  I  still want to be able to flick on the tvtuner and a few multitasking apps though, I will see.
> 
> That is good news though.  I did read a review somewhere that a X2 4800 was all you needed for this board in a HTPC setup.



yeah. those people  who claimed a 4800+ was all you needed, were very, very wrong.
People make an assumption that video card acceleration is working, when in fact it rarely does - using those codecs without GPU acceleration tends to take a beefy CPU and run like poop.

You change codecs to a software based one - ones thats DESIGNED to run on a CPU - and even 1GHz dual cores are enough, as i just proved.

almost finished tuning in the voltages to this machine... will be posting power savings shortly. (really awesome chip, so it saved me a lot of fine tuning)


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

as requested. average FPS shown in the player as well, to prove it wasnt stuttering or performing badly.

at this setting, plaback consumed an all-devouring 46W of power  mission accomplished.


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

is that core temp really 9.3c!!!!  lol


sorry, just read your other post and you said they were incorrect.


----------



## Thrackan (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> as requested. average FPS shown in the player as well, to prove it wasnt stuttering or performing badly.
> 
> at this setting, plaback consumed an all-devouring 46W of power  mission accomplished.



Congrats! <50W on HD playback is pretty nice!


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

Thrackan said:


> Congrats! <50W on HD playback is pretty nice!



yup. now i have nothing left to do except OC the machine a bit.


----------



## Thrackan (Nov 20, 2008)

Mussels said:


> yup. now i have nothing left to do except OC the machine a bit.



How about modding the case


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

Thrackan said:


> How about modding the case



nah. i intend to sell it and go mATX sooner or later, and it'll sell easier in its original state.


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

what sort of case are you looking for mussels?  Are you going for a matx cube type case or a proper amp style htpc case??

Do you have any models in mind?


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> what sort of case are you looking for mussels?  Are you going for a matx cube type case or a proper amp style htpc case??
> 
> Do you have any models in mind?



really unsure. as stated in post 1, my long term goal is a stealth mATX half height case that blends in well with my TV + other AV equipment (which means black, with no lights), and an SSD hard drive.

so i'll probably hold onto this case, til i can get at least a 64GB SSD drive, so that it can finally meet the goal of being utterly silent


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Nov 20, 2008)

I just bought one of those silverstone matx cases for a customer:

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=25_546&products_id=7692

I paid $79 from pccg about 5 weeks ago, the prices have gone up.  

But the case was actually pretty good.  It does have a LOT of ventillation ie. every panel has holes in it but I ended up covering some of them with black cardboard.

The case looks faily neat and is quite small too.  The LED on the front in FRIGGIN bright so I coloured the lens in with a bit of nikko pen 

not a bad little case though.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> I just bought one of those silverstone matx cases for a customer:
> 
> http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=25_546&products_id=7692
> 
> ...



I'll look into that case.

Anyway: OCing!

go into BIOS.
hit ctrl-F1 (its a gigabyte thing, unlocks hidden options)
turn FSB to 250
memory down to 667 (it will have increased due to the raised FSB)
+1 to NB and DDR voltages
CPU voltage to 1.425v (its 0.100 higher than my stock, figured its safe, but will get me some OC)

save and reboot.

time taken: 35 seconds (that includes boot time, after hitting save and reboot)
CPU clock: 2625MHz
Mem clock: 750MHz

so far its 10 minutes orthos stable. CPU heatsink is cool to the touch.
Ya know... it was kinda easy. what did you need help with OCing on this board again?


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

ahah! more OCing! this time, the onboard video.

The motherboard BIOS lets you change from 150MHz GPU core to 1100MHz, with stock being 500. The box even states you can OC Upto 950MHz and achieve 2000 3dmarks with a phenom, so i'll damn well try and beat that 

I ran a 3dmark on all stock, and got a measly 1200 points. Poor DrunkenMafia.

next of all, i cranked it straight to 850Mhz because i liked the number: its stable! 
overall 3dmark score: 1344

terrible! i want more! i want.... 1GHz!

*reboots*
NB voltage to 1.40V, GPU to 1Ghz
System boots.
System load windows.
success! i have gotten faster than teh cardboard box states i can!

*runs 3dmark*
1377
bah! low gains!

time to add the CPU OC into the mix.
CPU: 2.62GHz
Ram: 866MHz
GPU 1000MHz

and the final score is... *drumroll*





Sigh. Gigabyte wins, with their testbench that must have had a phenom to reach 2,000 3dmarks.
*goes to bed*


----------



## Thrackan (Nov 20, 2008)

Did you test OC power consumption?


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

Thrackan said:


> Did you test OC power consumption?



158W at full (ATI tool + orthos) load.

standard CnQ + OC

Load
2.625GHz
866 ram
158W at load

idle
1.25GHz
500MHz ram
66W at idle.

I've never seen it before, but ram clocks *are* changing on this board, as the CPU clocks up and down.


----------



## suraswami (Nov 20, 2008)

Nice work there Mussels.  I wish I had the time when I built my HTPC with Blueray and HDDVD playing capabilities last Thanksgiving.   

Lately I had issue with DolbyTrueHD and DTS-HD sound decoding and this is how it was solved.  May be it will be helpful for somebody.

Problem
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74282

Solution
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1072252

I am using Slysoft's Reclock and it is working wonderfully.  It seems its a beta version and will expire end of January 2009.  So until then enjoy.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2008)

suraswami said:


> Nice work there Mussels.  I wish I had the time when I built my HTPC with Blueray and HDDVD playing capabilities last Thanksgiving.
> 
> Lately I had issue with DolbyTrueHD and DTS-HD sound decoding and this is how it was solved.  May be it will be helpful for somebody.
> 
> ...




I cant test anything with that, as i dont use HDMI audio. Thanks for providing the links anyway.


----------



## DrunkenMafia (Nov 21, 2008)

Mussels said:


> ahah! more OCing! this time, the onboard video.
> 
> The motherboard BIOS lets you change from 150MHz GPU core to 1100MHz, with stock being 500. The box even states you can OC Upto 950MHz and achieve 2000 3dmarks with a phenom, so i'll damn well try and beat that
> 
> ...



Man!!  I must be doing something wrong.  The first board I had, the rev 1.  I upped the fsb to 220 and the thing crashed and died!!    I think there was another issue with that board though.

This rev 2.0 I have.  I can't boot above 210 fsb.  maybe I didn't put the nb volts up.  

What were all your settings for the other crap ..  ht, memory freq etc...  ??  did you leave all those on auto?

its been a while.

And I am going to have a look at my box when I get home.  I didn't realise you could oc the GFX that much with a stock cooler.

What are your NB temps like???  just curious.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 21, 2008)

DrunkenMafia said:


> Man!!  I must be doing something wrong.  The first board I had, the rev 1.  I upped the fsb to 220 and the thing crashed and died!!    I think there was another issue with that board though.
> 
> This rev 2.0 I have.  I can't boot above 210 fsb.  maybe I didn't put the nb volts up.
> 
> ...



everthing was on auto. with a 120mm fan perched near the NB and running at about 600rpm, NB temps were around 70C. the fan was barely moving air at that speed tho.


----------



## SkyKast (Nov 21, 2008)

looking great awesome to see you OCing in action, you really pumped the hell out of it lol


----------



## Mussels (Nov 21, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> looking great awesome to see you OCing in action, you really pumped the hell out of it lol



250MHz GPU + 1000MHz CPU + 500MHz DDR2 ram plays that trailer just fine.

Then i clock it to 1000MHz / 2600MHz / 866MHz... and despite tripling the power usage, nothing runs any faster. sigh.


----------



## SkyKast (Nov 21, 2008)

thats good.....save power and get the same performance? that sounds great to me!


----------



## Mussels (Nov 21, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> thats good.....save power and get the same performance? that sounds great to me!



and for yet another random idea, i'm about to slap a windows 7 beta on there and see how she performs.


----------



## SkyKast (Nov 21, 2008)

oh sweet I have been really interested in seeing this in action!


----------



## Mussels (Nov 21, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> oh sweet I have been really interested in seeing this in action!



i got a copy of the beta ISO at the last lan, i assume it'll last for 30 days without a key just like vista does, which is long enough to mess around with it. i'm just curious as to whats new, especially in changes to the media center features.


----------



## SkyKast (Nov 21, 2008)

Mussels said:


> i got a copy of the beta ISO at the last lan, i assume it'll last for 30 days without a key just like vista does, which is long enough to mess around with it. i'm just curious as to whats new, especially in changes to the media center features.



I think i remember hearing that 70%+ of their research for 7 went towards media


----------



## Mussels (Nov 22, 2008)

just because i can, i've decided on a final strategy.

SO far i've learned this PC can run as low as 50W, at 1.5GHz and below. below 1.5GHz, PSU inefficency kicked in and negated any further power reduction.
It can also run at 2.65GHz stable, without overheating. (albeit, at 125W)

So... lets go for both at once, shall we?

Combining RMclock and my OC, i've done the following.


System boots at 250x8 (2GHz) on auto CPU voltages. Ram is at 866Mhz (its stable)
RMclock then kicks in, raising the multi to 10.5 (CPU max) and voltage to 1.328V
RMclock then uses its automatic adjustments, dropping to 1.25GHz (5x250) at 0.9v
system runs cool and low power at idle/watching movies, and clocks right up when needed (which is... well, never)

end result: a smart PC that does exactly what i want, when i want it... and doesnt waste any power doing it. pity this doesnt help the pathetic 3dmark 06 score.


Edit: managed to get max stable OC (2.625GHz) voltage down to 1.325v. stock volts for 500MHz more? win!
(not to mention its load temp is 38C in everest (15C in coretemp, but thats obviously wrong)


----------



## SkyKast (Nov 22, 2008)

wow thats an amazing OC you just made it really smart and PERFECT for media!

nice job


----------



## theJesus (Nov 24, 2008)

Wow, that's pretty awesome that you can run it so well at such low frequencies and power consumption.  I may have to think about that whenever I actually have to pay for my power usage   I think I may just find an apartment with utils included in rent when I move out 

@SkyKast:  I like your new avvy


----------



## Mussels (Nov 24, 2008)

thanks jesus. i attempted this with my last (939) built but fell apart on a few things.
it had no onboard video, and the BIOS wouldnt go below 1.10V (even through RMclock) which meant power savings were basically nil due to that, it just wouldnt drop below 75W or so.


----------



## theJesus (Nov 24, 2008)

75w still isn't bad I don't think.  lol, there's single components still that can use up more than that.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 24, 2008)

theJesus said:


> 75w still isn't bad I don't think.  lol, there's single components still that can use up more than that.



yeah but i pay my own power bills. i realised early on having my 200-300W rig downloading overnight was a bad idea.


----------



## SkyKast (Nov 24, 2008)

Mussels said:


> yeah but i pay my own power bills. i realised early on having my 200-300W rig downloading overnight was a bad idea.



haha yeah I bet

isnt it funny how you pay so much more attension to your phone/power bills if you pay them yourself lol


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## theJesus (Nov 25, 2008)

lol, I'm really surprised that my parents haven't complained to me about their electricity bill yet.  I leave my setup running 24/7


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## SkyKast (Nov 25, 2008)

theJesus said:


> lol, I'm really surprised that my parents haven't complained to me about their electricity bill yet.  I leave my setup running 24/7



I dot leave it running I put it to sleep every night and when Im at school but its not all the way off...if there is a difference


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## Mussels (Nov 25, 2008)

hey skykast... you'll need a new avatar. thejesus is already in this thread.

sleep mode uses the same power as off on my PC's, maybe 1-2w more. (they all use 5W or so, remember the onboard LED's and stuff)


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## SkyKast (Nov 25, 2008)

Mussels said:


> *hey skykast... you'll need a new avatar. thejesus is already in this thread.
> *
> sleep mode uses the same power as off on my PC's, maybe 1-2w more. (they all use 5W or so, remember the onboard LED's and stuff)



well I asked him if he minded that we had almost the same themes avvy and he didnt respond so...



Mussels said:


> hey skykast... you'll need a new avatar. thejesus is already in this thread.
> 
> *sleep mode uses the same power as off on my PC's, maybe 1-2w more. (they all use 5W or so, remember the onboard LED's and stuff)*



oh i see thanks for the info


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## Mussels (Nov 25, 2008)

the key thing with sleep mode is S1 or S3 - most bioses have the option to choose which one (gigabytes default to S1)

S1, fans remain spinning - more or less only the screen and HDD's power down.

S3, the system might as well be off. no fans, no lights, nothing. a few watts are used to maintain data in ram, thats it.


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## SkyKast (Nov 25, 2008)

oh well I dont remember changing anything and my fans definitely stop...


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## Mussels (Nov 25, 2008)

SkyKast said:


> oh well I dont remember changing anything and my fans definitely stop...



some boards have auto, so you mighta got lucky 

if the fans stop, consider it good.


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## SkyKast (Nov 25, 2008)

thats good news


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## Mussels (Feb 17, 2009)

Small update, i've been running windows 7 on this machine for the last few weeks without a problem.


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