Technology, video, phone & computer questions

[StuW]

The only real big question remaining is whether replacing the video card has resulted in a stable system; the hard resets were intermittent, so I have no way of reproducing conditions which would be expected to cause a reset.

Could it have possibly been overheating of GPU/CPU?

[Angrboda]

The only real big question remaining is whether replacing the video card has resulted in a stable system; the hard resets were intermittent, so I have no way of reproducing conditions which would be expected to cause a reset.

Could it have possibly been overheating of GPU/CPU?

No. This motherboard has always been problematic. I RMA'd it in the first year, but Gigabyte has a policy that, if it passes the tests administered by their test machine, they just send the board back to you. So it's a bad motherboard, but it's problems generally can be minimized to the point that it's usable.

[StuW]

Ahh yeah, Gigabyte make awesome boards but have shitty customer service.

[Autumnlicious]

Voltage may be iffy on the mobo -- check that. Simplest thing you can do is make sure the PSU provides enough watts.

Memory can be iffy as well -- I've encountered maddening crashes over the course of a year, which ended only when the memory was swapped out (Corsair 1GB DDR 1066 memory if I recall).

There is also the issue of EM noise (possibly from your power) that can destabilize a quasi-stable system.

I don't like XBMC -- I'm not certain of what infrastructure it uses to play media.

I am most familiar with the FFMPEG, Xine, VLC -based families of media players. Supporting exotic formats is... well let's not say it is a "solved" problem by any stretch. I'm still not sold on VLC's performance but time will tell.

I've developed and worked on custom systems that use ffmpeg/tvscan for recording/transcoding, mplayer for viewing, et al.

I'll tell you one quick thing about streaming -- don't. The best performing solution requires very specific codecs/formats to create pseudo-streaming, the "true" streaming solutions (RTSP, RTMP) are fucking chaotic as hell (wasted hours on this), and the maturity of the software is questionable and slow to grow.

The problem is best solved through:
1) minimization of parameters (choose what formats will be used, what user interface, etc)
2) understanding what will be a best combination for your hardware

XBMC might be a good user interface, but does it fit your intended use case? Are there plugins that would provide adequate functionality that a stock install wouldn't provide?

You might find a Pi can serve your needs adequately for playback. I am uncertain as to the recording capabilities (for DTV, etc).
REF: http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Raspberry_Pi...n_playback
REF: http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=PVR

[Angrboda]

I think something got lost in the translation here. The Raspberry Pi is something I might use in place of a full blown HTPC for myself. That's just idle talk about the tech. The main concern is what software / hardware combo to use for a media server for a less than fully tech savvy sister. So far it's shaping up to be Playon on Windows (WHS, Vista, 7, or 8), on a P45 based intel board with an E7400 core 2 duo and an ATI HD5450. The finer details and any changes from that have yet to be determined. I don't have a Nook HD, but I have a Nook color; I figure if I can get reasonable streaming and DLNA capability across to the Nook color and wired / wireless PCs and netbooks, that's about the solution I need. The license will also likely include "PlayLater" which is some sort of DVR shiz that I know nothing about. The only other concerns are streaming / serving Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu from the central server. The ability to stream common video formats, primarily divx based avi, mp4, and DVD, is the main goal. The rest is hoped for but not essential.

Regards the stability problems, I've had the board about 5 years and it's had all sorts of hardware combined with it, and periods of stability followed by periods of instability. I've been building computers for fifteen years and assisting people with troubleshooting hardware problems for close to as long. It's a problem with the board. I just got a lemon that's sufficiently functional that I haven't given up on it.

[wolf39us]

Good thing boards are cheap!

[Angrboda]

I hate computers.


Switching from an nVidia to an ATI graphics card hasn't resolved the hard resets. Argh.