I finally decided to put this together after a long wait. Talk about being behind in terms of knowledge/technology. I had to do a lot of reading and I am still a newb. I am going to have this done in a few weeks. If this is greek to you, seriously, it’s worth some investigating. Here’s my build:
PHARCYDE-HTPC-1
Antec New Solution NSK2480 Black/Silver 0.8mm cold-rolled steel MicroATX Desktop Computer Case 380W PS ($114.99 + 16.47)
I absolutely LOVE Vista. I have had 0 problems with it and the new features and UI make it a great upgrade. I am loving it every minute. No driver issues at all.
I use the 64 bit version which should make it less adaptive but, honesty, no problems at all. I use Media Center for the HTPC so I have no real choice as I want things to be very native.
My laptop came with Vista Extreme or whatever, i would rather have XP, Some of my tuning software for my car, i gotta use my old laptop because only xp supports it. but what can you do :sad
Holy shit. My Vista x64 Business was rock solid and SP1 RC1 was rock solid. Vista x86 Ultimate has been absolute shit in terms of reliability. I am putting on SP1 and praying.
Instability appears to be from bad Patriot ram. I replaced the ram with ram from another machine and I am reloading Vista. This is why people should always go back to their posts and be accurate or bad information is spread.
Again, I absolutely LOVE Vista. It’s been rock solid for me and I am hoping this ordeal truly is not related to the OS.
LIES! HTPC = Home Theatre Personal Computer. I don’t use DVD. It all gets ripped to my HD. I have 2TB of HD space. Basically, I am typing this post from my couch using a wireless keyboard and viewing on my 52" HDTV. It also supports Blu-Ray and HD Audio. It also has connections for my digital camera and digital video camera as well. I plan to do DVR with it after I get it all up and running nicely.
I altered the list based on last second changes:
I’ll break it down:
PHARCYDE-HTPC-1
Antec Black/silver MicroATX Case w/ 380W PS (NSK2480) (It’s the computer case. It looks similiar to a receiver in a Home Theatre system)
AMD Athlon 64 5400+ 2.8GHz (ADO5400IAA5DO) (This is the CPU)
GIGABYTE AM2 AMD 690V Micro ATX (GA-MA69GM-S2H) (This is the motherboard with HDMI and digital optica via S/PDIF)
GIGABYTE EVR Sleeve CPU Cooler (GH-PDU22-SC) (CPU fan)
Patriot Extreme Performance 2X1GB 240-Pin DDR800/PC26400 Dual Channel RAM (PDC22G6400ELK) (The memory that is actual the problem)
POWERCOLOR HD 3450 256MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 (AX3450) (The video card. It’s ATI’s new line that has very good HD decoding for watching Blu-Ray DVDs).
Seagate 500GB SATA 3.0GB 720RPM 16MB Cache HD (ST3500641AS) (One of the 4 HDs)
Seagate 500GB SATA 3.0GB 720RPM 16MB Cache HD (ST3500641AS) (One of the 4 HDs)
Pioneer SATA Blu-Ray DVD-ROM/12X DVD±R DVD Burner (BDC-202BK) (Blu-Ray drive for ripping/watching Blu-Rays and burning DVDs and whatnot)
NETGEAR 802.11b/g PCI Wireless Adapter (WG311) (Wireless card so I can connect to my HTPC via my other PCs and to use the Internet on the HTPC as well)
VidaBox Premium Wireless Keyboard with Optical Trackball (ACC-BT-KBOTB) (Wireless keyboard with built-in mouse)
