Recent Posts

1801

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 06, 2008, 08:38 AM »

Thats just it, there arent any really DECENT RCA connector speakers for use with these 5.1 systems. Heck, I can't find a set that does 7.1. Is there a way to convert standard red/black style connectors to RCA?

1802

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: 30% price reduction on Microsoft home server

« Last post by Josh on November 06, 2008, 07:53 AM »

I was about to mouser that comment but had to step in. Mouser, come on, you know better </moderation>

1803

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 06, 2008, 07:51 AM »

Here is a question for whoever is listening. Are speakers a necessity on a system such as this or do you just turn your tv on when you want to listen to music? I mean, with this system, I would have the capability of streaming throughout the house if i wanted and turning on the tv isnt that big of a deal. Thoughts?

1804

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Direct Access - text expander and application launcher (and much more)

« Last post by Josh on November 06, 2008, 07:48 AM »

IMHO, yearly subscription fees should only be used for SERVICES not actual programs. If you run a software program like that, you are going to lose customers because I really don't enjoy having to pay to continue receiving upgrades to a single major version every year. Not a good policy

1805

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 06, 2008, 02:42 AM »

4wd,

I thank you for the detailed responses. As you can see in my listing at the start of this topic, I have decided on the 9950 125W phenom when i first made the pick. That seems to be the best bang for the buck.

My big concern, now that several have pointed this out, is the graphics card. Is it really going to help me to get an additional card for this system given its intended use? I am not much of a gamer and even when I do game, its on my PS3 or on my workstation computer which can handle most games I am into at a decent frame rate (not top end framerates or resolutions, I dont need the best of the best when it comes to that).

Thoughts?

1806

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 05, 2008, 11:24 PM »

Thats just it, the on board graphics included with this system board is designed for HD decoding and encoding. The problem with add-in cards is additional heat and additional noise generated by a cooling fan that is likely included. Is an add-in card really going to give me much more benefit over the built-in 3300 w/ built in 128MB of ram? I don't really need a gaming capable card as that is not what this system will be used for. This is strictly for home theater purposes. I still have the ability to hook up my home computer to my TV through HDMI out and as such, don't need a high capacity card.

Now, from what I am reading, you seem to say not to go with the 9950. Is that just due to heat issues? I really don't see this thing heating up that much given it's intended purpose. But again, I could be wrong. Could you give me some more info on this? I want to ensure I make the right decision here.

1807

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 05, 2008, 11:37 AM »

Yeah, that is something I have been toying with. I am thinking I will start out with 32 bit and then when Windows 7 pushes out, I am going to make the jump completely to 64 bit, including my workstation. I figure the system will be more than capable to run Windows 7 and as such, wont have any qualms upgrading it as I think the media center is getting a major overhaul in this next release. We shall see.

1808

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 05, 2008, 06:47 AM »

Per your recommendation 4wd, I am switching the 1TB WD AV-GP drives. I am just hoping the OS Drive wont overpower them.

1809

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 05, 2008, 04:40 AM »

One thing I forgot about was a good set of speakers for this system. Does anyone have any input on those? Looking for 5.1 initially but if 7.1 presents itself at a decent price, I might go with that to start.

1810

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 05, 2008, 03:40 AM »

Mouser,

That is why I went with the SeaSonic PSU and am looking for quiet hard disk drives. Those are the two biggest noise makers. The cases are usually fairly quiet as they are designed to be an HTPC and as such, the fans are usually quiet and low-profile.

4wd,

Can you recommend a good case with a VFD display? What exactly is it?

EDIT:

As can be seen above I have decided on the hard disk drives as well. 1x 10000RPM OS Drive (Western Digital) and 2x Seagate Barracuda's in a RAID 1 config for the data portion.

Thoughts?

1811

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 05, 2008, 02:43 AM »

I've decided to go with 2x 2GB Kingston HyperX 1066 DDR2 Memory Modules which can be seen here.

I am now looking for the case and hard drives and I am set to go!

1812

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 04, 2008, 03:23 AM »

Downgraded to a 500W SeaSonic. That is about as low as I want to go in case I decide to throw in an additional video card for future use when I decide to retire this system.

1813

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 04, 2008, 01:54 AM »

Welp, I have decided on the 600W Zalman ZM600-HP power supply which should suffice for the duration of this system's lifetime. Next thing is the hard drives, memory, case and wifi card and I will call this system complete. Thanks everyone for your input thus far. I appreciate it greatly. Keep it coming and if you suggest a better product, I am always willing to change as this list is by no way set-in-stone.

1814

General Software Discussion / Excel 2007 question

« Last post by Josh on November 03, 2008, 11:15 PM »

To all,

I am looking for a way to have a text field in excel 2007 where I can type in a value and have excel filter out all rows that do not contain that text.

Does anyone know of a way to do this in excel 07?

Josh

1815

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 03, 2008, 08:44 AM »

Do you know of an intel motherboard which has a decent video card incorporated into it for HD Decoding and encoding?

1816

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 03, 2008, 07:47 AM »

The graphics card I have in mind is integrated into the motherboard, hence my choice in that model. This is why I am wondering if Intel is being recommended for any compelling reasons. If so, I will consider a switch, if not, the HD 3300 built in board by GigaByte will be what I go with.

1817

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 03, 2008, 07:23 AM »

4GB of ram because ram is a cheap component. I really so no need to NOT get that much in there. The raid stripe is something I WANT to do but not something I need to do. I want the extra disk performance as I intend to be able to record two shows at once in HD (h.264 if possible). Right now, my wife records multiple shows and the throughput is a must. I also want backup capability since the amount of disk activity used for a PVR will likely increase the chance of failure of one of the disks. Maybe I am just being paranoid, maybe I should just go with a Raid 0 approach. I dont know.

Why do you say Intel for the CPU?

1818

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 03, 2008, 07:03 AM »

I was looking at 4GB of ram for the system since the mobo supports up to 16GB. As for the remote, the firefly looks promising but I will check out the Remote Wonder.

When it comes to the case, the display really serves no purpose to me unless its maybe a small LED style (like on most DVD players). I dont need an LCD. CPU is another issue I am looking at. What will the new phenoms bring to the table performance-wise?

Also, a question I have been pondering, would it be best to run 64-bit or 32-bit? This will be a specialized PC and won't require any special applications besides snapstream and tversity. Thoughts?

1819

General Software Discussion / Re: AntiVirus with decent anti-spyware (realtime) detection

« Last post by Josh on November 03, 2008, 01:01 AM »

My apologies for not replying to this. I have decided and am currently running on Webroot Spysweeper. I might be moving back to Symantec Endpoint Protection as it is free from the army, but I am letting spysweeper have a run for a few months. It has helped stop some of the malware my wife tries to install, so its working as it should it appears.

1820

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 03, 2008, 12:11 AM »

4wd, after reading up on your board. I decided to go one up and push to the GigaByte GA-MA790GP-DS4H board. For the cost difference, I feel it might be worth it to further invest in a higher capability board. Now, the case is my next big obstacle to tackle along with CPU and RAM. The NIC on this board is integrated and will suite my purposes unless someone can tell me of another card which might yield some sort of performance increase.

Also, the remote control I am learning comes with the FusionHDTV Card. Does anyone have any input on another remote which might function better and provide support for both Windows MCE (Vista) and controlling the Fusion Card?

Thanks everyone for your input thus far, this is an enlightening experience and will be the first time I have built a PC since about 2001. I had almost given up due to my inability to get a working system but I am feeling squirrely and ready to try again. Thanks and keep the input coming.

1821

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Movie Collector from Collectorz on Bits du Jour soon

« Last post by Josh on November 02, 2008, 10:54 AM »

See here for more info about collectorz upgrade policy.

1822

Living Room / Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by Josh on November 02, 2008, 10:49 AM »

To the community,

I am looking at piecing together an HTPC to use with my existing TV/Media setup I have at home. This system will be designed in a manner so as to replace the need for all of the bulky components such as receivers, amps, optical media players, etc.

Right now, I have a few components selected but I am looking for input to help me select the right components so i don't get either A. Incompatible parts or B. Parts which will quickly outdate themselves.

Here is a list of parts along with what I have selected thus far:

Component	Component Info Link	Purchase Site Page	Price (USD)
Motherboard
CPU
Power Supply
Case
OS Hard Drive
Data Drives
Sound Card
Video Card
Memory
TV Tuner/PVR Device
Network Card
Blu-Ray Drive
PVR Software
Remote Control
Media Serving Application
TOTAL COST

I want the hard drives to be setup in a raid 0+1 if possible (if cost effective) with 1TB to 1.5TB of space spread across two drives (2 750GB drives mirrored to two other 750GB drives). Memory I want to be at 4GB but I am unsure which brand to obtain. The big thing is the case/motherboard. I need a motherboard and case which is in as small of a form factor as possible but still allows me to accomplish what I want.

As for the network card, I am thinking that built into the mobo will suffice as I wont need anything spectacular and that will leave me with an open slot for the WiFi Adapter (which can also be USB if the form factor is visually stimulating).

So, with that said, what do you all think? I am open for input on ALL devices, even the ones I've already chosen, so please provide as much or as little feedback as you wish. My price range is negotiable so please, suggest all components. This is something I intend to last me a while so I am willing to spend the money up front. I am shooting for under 2000 but am willing to move higher if quality dictates (rather than cost effectiveness).

Thanks

1823

Living Room / Re: I propose never buying another EA games title!

« Last post by Josh on October 31, 2008, 07:48 AM »

I propose never reacting to one of f0dder's initial posts again!

errr....wait

1824

Living Room / Microsoft Office Help

« Last post by Josh on October 30, 2008, 05:34 AM »

To all,

I am attempting to create an index of files stored on a network share using either MS Word or Excel. The problem I am encountering is this. Right now, I have a drive mapped to the network share (X:\). Whenever I link to a file by creating a hyperlink in either program, both will change the url to the UNC path (\\SERVER\SHARE\FILENAME) as opposed to the absolute path (x:\filename). How do I prevent this behavior as this file will be access via systems which do not have the ability to map directly to the share but are instead using webdrive to map to an ftp account that has rights to that share?

Thanks!

Josh

1825

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Josh on October 29, 2008, 08:41 AM »

Not as robust? Hell, I have had to stop using it due to little nicities included in it's search functionality. It's extremely quick and allows launching under admin rights simply by hitting CTRL+ENTER on the selected result. Very handy indeed.