JournalJournalhttp://www.leetang.com/journal/2010-01-24T21:25:02ZSquarespaceHTPC - Updatehttp://www.leetang.com/journal/2010/1/23/htpc-update.htmlLee2010-01-23T22:42:32Z2010-01-23T22:42:32ZIt's been about two months since I got the idea to build a home theater PC to replace my TiVo HD.  Much of that time was spent waiting for a computer to arrive.  I had been planning on building my setup around the Dell Zino HD small form factor computer.  However, I encountered a few problems with it once I got it in.

The Zino that I got had an Athlon 3250e dual core processor and Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics on the AMD 780g chipset.  I put Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit on it, which ran pretty well overall.  The main thing I wanted to do with the system was run Windows Media Center and view/record TV shows in HD.  I set up the system to run at 1080p.  Watching TV was smooth until I hit the menu or guide button in WMC. As soon as WMC put up on overlay (such as the main menu or the electronic program guide) on top of running content, the framerate slowed significantly - to about 3 frames per second.  This was unacceptable.  I ended up turning the resolution down to 720p.  After I did this, the system ran fine even with a program guide overlay on top. This ended up to be a common issue among people with the AMD 780g chipset.  It is widely discussed on the Zino HD AVS Forum thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1170527

So, I relegated this system to an older TV, because I don't want to restrict myself to 720p on my main TV.  I then ordered another Zino HD, this time with a 3250e processor and a discrete Radeon HD 4330 graphics card.  This system was on order for a month, and then I got a note from Dell informing me it had been delayed.  During this time, I kept up with the AVS Forum thread and saw that people encountered lots of other issues with the system, and workarounds included modifying drivers to get performance gains.  I realized that getting this system working was going to be as much work as building a system from scratch.  In addition, it would be less expandable, and I would have to wait an indefinite amount of time to get it in due to production delays.

Long story short, I decided to build an HTPC from scratch out of components from Newegg.  I have the system built, and after a little bit of work, it does everything I need it to do, and quite well at that.  The disadvantage is that it is bigger than the Zino HD, and probably a bit louder.  Luckily, neither point is significant enough to adversely affect my home theater experience.  I will write an article in the near future describing the setup. 

]]>HD Home Theater – The Next Revisionhttp://www.leetang.com/journal/2009/11/28/hd-home-theater-the-next-revision.htmlLee2009-11-29T01:13:04Z2009-11-29T01:13:04ZEvery once in a while I get a wild idea to really tweak stuff in my home theater system.  I think I’ve got enough revolutionary changes to it coming up to warrant a full article.  Before doing that though, this post is my way to capture some thoughts about what I want to write. 

There has been some serious buzz around the net about a new computer Dell is releasing called the Zino HD.  It’s a small form factor computer that looks like it was made to be a home theater PC.  It’s about 8” x 8” x 3.5” from what I’ve read.  It’s quiet, and it has HDMI out.  Check out this AMD engineer’s blog about this computer:

http://blogs.amd.com/home/2009/11/12/the-dell-inspiron-zinohd/

Pretty exciting stuff.  So of course I ordered one. 

I’ve been running Windows 7 on other computers and have been very impressed with it.  One cool feature that I’ve tried is Windows Media Center – which allows me to stream content from my computer to my Xbox 360.  Cool… but it would be even cooler to have an actual computer attached to the HDTV, no extender necessary. 

Then I thought, what else could this do?  Windows Media Center has gotten great reviews and has a particularly good interface for showing TV listings.  The Engadget review linked above even claims that it beats the TiVo hands down.  And I love my TiVo HD. I realized that I could attach a TV tuner to the Zino HD and have a little HTPC that replaces the TiVo.

Now for a TV tuner.  The Zino HD is great for being a small computer but does not lend itself to expansion.  There are four USB ports on it, but I did not think putting USB tuners on it was the way to go – I would need two of them because I’m used to being able to record two shows simultaneously.  There is however, a very cool solution to this problem in the form of a network-addressable dual HD tuner.  Just like a NAS, but instead of storage, you get access to two HD tuners over Ethernet.  OK, maybe a bad analogy, but you get the point.  This thing is called the HDHomeRun.  After installing the drivers, Windows Media Center sees it as two tuners as long as your Windows machine is on the same network as the HD Homerun.

That’s it.  I’ve tested the HDHomeRun and it works great.  Now just waiting for the Zino HD to arrive.  There are other things to address, such as hooking up an infrared-based remote control to the Zino and also getting optical SPDIF audio out, but there are straightforward solutions to those issues as well.

]]>Windows Live Writerhttp://www.leetang.com/journal/2009/11/12/windows-live-writer.htmlLee2009-11-12T23:57:07Z2009-11-12T23:57:07ZTest post from Windows Live Writer

]]>SquareSpace iPhone apphttp://www.leetang.com/journal/2009/11/7/squarespace-iphone-app.htmlLee2009-11-07T16:12:49Z2009-11-07T16:12:49ZTest post from SquareSpace iPhone app.

]]>Xbox 360 HDMI Cable DIYhttp://www.leetang.com/journal/2009/10/27/xbox-360-hdmi-cable-diy.htmlLee2009-10-28T01:49:05Z2009-10-28T01:49:05ZIf you've tried to hook up an HDMI cable to your Xbox 360 at the same time as a TOSlink optical audio cable, you know about the problem of getting them to fit.  The optical audio out on the 360 lives on the connector of a component cable.  But that adapter is so wide that you can't get the HDMI cable to fit in at the same time.  I came across an excellent tutorial on how to rig up a setup that works:

http://www.chadledford.com/?p=50

This works fine, but it can cause problems when you're switching your HDMI source on your TV away from the Xbox while it's on (as some of the folks in the comments mentioned).  There appears to be a fix for this by disconnecting a wire inside the adapter, but the one that I got was completely hot-glued together.  Solution?  Bought an official MS HDMI kit on ebay for under $15.  Easy way out, sure, but now I can switch inputs without the Xbox resetting.

 

]]>Clean install of Windows 7 using an upgrade dischttp://www.leetang.com/journal/2009/10/26/clean-install-of-windows-7-using-an-upgrade-disc.htmlLee2009-10-26T12:40:59Z2009-10-26T12:40:59ZSince Windows 7 was announced, one of the most pressing questions on people's minds was, can I use the upgrade disc for a clean install, or do I have to install Vista/XP first?  Well, I got the Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade in the mail the other day and tried installing it on a machine with a clean hard drive.  I was pleasantly surprised when the installer didn't ask for any old OS discs to verify that I was upgrade-eligible.  Very nice.

]]>DDR3 Memory Issueshttp://www.leetang.com/journal/2009/10/14/ddr3-memory-issues.htmlLee2009-10-15T00:34:28Z2009-10-15T00:34:28ZI got some Crucial DDR3-1333 (PC10600) memory (CT2KIT25664BA1339) for my MSI P55-CD53 motherboard and was experiencing a lot of random crashes and reboots.  This wasn't an operating system problem - I experienced the same instability booting from a DOS USB floppy.  Turns out this particular type of memory has some compatibility issues with Intel P55 motherboards.  I got the system to become stable by manually going into the BIOS and changing the multiplier for the memory so that it was only clocked at DDR3-1066.

Of course that's not very satisfactory, so I tried some different memory.  This time I got OCZ DDR3-1333 memory(OCZ3P1333LV), specifically designed to run with the P55 chipset.  I put it in my system, set the BIOS settings to autodetect the memory, and found that it decided that it was actually DDR3-1066 memory.  I ran CPU-Z within Windows to read the SPD settings on the memory and confirmed this - the chips are actually PC3-8500.  Not cool, since it was clearly labeled as DDR3-1333.  I went to the BIOS and manually changed the multiplier and the timings to 1333MHZ, 7-7-7-20, 1.65V.  It's been stable since, and has successfully passed many runs of MemTest86+, but still, I think there's a bit of bait and switch with this memory. 

]]>Flashing the BIOS on an MSI P55-CD53 Motherboardhttp://www.leetang.com/journal/2009/10/8/flashing-the-bios-on-an-msi-p55-cd53-motherboard.htmlLee2009-10-09T01:53:48Z2009-10-09T01:53:48ZI had a pretty frustrating experience updating the BIOS on my motherboard.  This particular board has a feature to read the BIOS file off of the root of a USB thumbdrive.  Great, since everybody's got a thumbdrive.  Unfortunately, there is zero documentation on how to actually get this feature to work.

I copied the new BIOS on a FAT32-formatted thumbdrive, booted my computer into the BIOS setup screen, and plugged in the drive.  The BIOS wouldn't read it.  I tried formatting the drive back to FAT16, and again it didn't work.

I looked at the readme file that was included in the BIOS and it gave instructions on how to install it.  It involved booting from a floppy and made no mention of the USB flashing capability.  Luckily, I have random computer parts lying around so I hooked up the floppy drive and... found that the BIOS file was 4MB. 

After messing around with it some more, I found two solutions to this problem.

  1. Make a bootable USB drive and put the BIOS on it.  Instructions on how to do it here: http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm
  2. Insert the thumbdrive into the motherboard prior to booting up instead of after it is on.

The second solution obviously is easier but I found out about it only by trial and error after successfully flashing the BIOS using the thumbdrive.  I have read on a few forums that people were sometimes bricking their computers using method two, so if I had to do it again I would stick with the first method.

]]>Windows XP Mode under Windows 7 (64-bit)http://www.leetang.com/journal/2009/10/8/windows-xp-mode-under-windows-7-64-bit.htmlLee2009-10-09T01:22:55Z2009-10-09T01:22:55ZI was trying to get Windows XP Mode running under Win7 64-bit.  However, after I installed it, I had trouble launching it.  The first time starting it up, the progress bar would go to about 20%, then drop down to 0% then repeat indefinitely.

I found some Microsoft technet posts addressing a similar problem people were having.  It turns out that you need to enable the XD-bit (or NX-bit on AMD) if you have a newer processor that supports the no-execute feature.  I went to my bios and... it was already enabled.

Turns out that my actual problem was that I installed XP Mode first, then Virtual PC.  I tried it again the other way around on a subsequent Windows 7 installation and it worked.  The Virtual PC installation applies a patch and presumably some changes to the registry to allow this to work.

]]>Website Under Constructionhttp://www.leetang.com/journal/2009/10/7/website-under-construction.htmlLee2009-10-08T01:49:45Z2009-10-08T01:49:45ZThis site has seen an evolution from a plain html file edited in emacs, to a site running on Mambo Server, to something I made in iWeb.  Most recently, it was running on a Wordpress install.  Now it's time to try something new - running on SquareSpace.

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