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+--- Thread: Which Ion based system should I buy? (/showthread.php?tid=51625)
- eddietop - 2009-06-04
Cool that would be useful medicineuk. My revo is on order with play.com ordered the £150 linux version weeks ago but its still not shipped
- >>X<< - 2009-06-04
medicineuk Wrote:Linux is much faster. To be honest when I installed it I thought that it was going to be a nightmare to get everything up and running but it really wasn't a problem at all.
If you looking to use your ION computer as just a media center i would install Linux and forget windows altogether. I did a clean install today and completely removed windows I took screens as I went along so I will post them soon with full install instruction.
Always nice to have a guide, I'm familiar with linux, ubuntu and other systems although a bit rusty not familiar with XBMC
I'm currently in the process of upgrading to a new amp and speakers so as a stop gap I'm using my PC system (logitech Z-5500) this is fine under windows with ac3 filter and zoom player as you can have a lot of control of 5.1 over optical and can achieve a pretty decent sound, using passthrough only and its pretty crap I'm guessing under XBMC Linux its just passthrough ?
Just trying to get a feel of whats possible before I decide to buy an Ion system or build something more powerful, if an Ion is perfectly capable then I'm not going to build
- medicineuk - 2009-06-05
Hello all, as promised the guide is up
Guide to installing XBMC on a ION machine
http://www.xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=52259
- einal - 2009-06-05
I'm really excited about the Ionstar 330 as a XBMC platform. I think the Revo is better looking and it has a memory card slot (which I like...), but the Ionstar has the dual core 330 and an optical drive and I'm not ready to abandon or rip my 300+ disc DVD collection just yet.
Before I pull the trigger on yet another HTPC solution, there are some pressing questions:
I've read about the problem that you can't apply VDPAU post-processing filters to MPEG-2 video, meaning DVD's. Does that mean all DVD video looks like shit or is it just a matter of crap de-interlacing methods for interlaced material?
Secondly, how reliable is Suspend on these things and can it be woken up by USB?
I'm being specially diligent this time around after buying the Shuttle X100 with an Radeon Mobility X1400 and an everlasting promise of better VSync, but after one year I'm still getting tearing and the card has just been declared legacy by ATI with no support in new drivers. I'm running the open source xorg-driver-ati driver now, which shows promise, but I'm getting tired of promise and I'm looking for something that delivers now.
- >>X<< - 2009-06-05
When you doing a youtube demo lol
- Starstream - 2009-06-06
Well I've gotten my Asrock Ionstar 330 & installed XBMC Live
Two significant problems;
* Audio over HDMI doesn't work
* The unit when coming out of sleep displays an X in the center of the screen which will not go away until you reboot the machine.
The good news:
* GPU acceleration works great
* The unit is responsive when navigating the UI (not as snappy as a higher end system)
* Wake on USB works perfectly with Microsoft MCE USB IR & MCE remote
* I can stream 1080p MKV from my NAS just fine.
* It is reasonably quiet you should not hear its fan when playing content or if it is sitting in an AV cabinet/stand. Not as loud as an Xbox 360 (with no disc) but not as quiet as a PS3 either.
I'm going to try the SPDIF output later to see if I can coax so some audio out of this but the sleep x issue is a killer as that stays on screen even through video.
Edit: Working audio over SPDIF.
I also upgraded the RAM from 2GB to 4GB DDR2 (its super cheap now so why not) there was little difference overall but XBMC Live did seem to be a touch more snappy after the upgrade. In the bios I set the onboard GPU to use 512MB of RAM.
Also does anyone know how to correct in XBMC the colour setting so its not running in 0-255 mode for PC's but in 16-235 which is for TV's, this produces very strong blacks even in the UI, I know you can raise the brightness and contrast in XBMC OSD video controls to compensate but I would prefer for it to run in 16-235 if at all possible ?
- >>X<< - 2009-06-06
Starstream Wrote:Two significant problems;
* Audio over HDMI doesn't work
Have you enable "Onboard HDMI HD Audio" in the bios, other than that its probably a driver problem
- Starstream - 2009-06-06
>>X<<' Wrote:Have you enable "Onboard HDMI HD Audio" in the bios, other than that its probably a driver problem
Yup, tried several combination, on my test system I built prior to getting the Ionstar 330 all I had to do was set audio output to digital and use iec958 for both the audio outputs to get HDMI audio but I'm not getting anything at all.
- inframan - 2009-06-06
medicineuk Wrote:Got the IONSTAR on Monday and have been playing with it for the last couple of days.
The main issue that people may have with the IONSTAR is the fan, although you can change it to silent in the BOIS you can still hear it. It's by no means loud and maybe I'm just being to picky but in a completely silent room at the dead of night you can hear the fan spinning
I just got one of these the fan noise is not super loud but it it oscillates which for me is just annoying. I tried speedfan to switch it off when not really needed but didn't get it to work. Probably the mother board is too new.
Does yours oscillate too, just wondering if mine is from a faulty batch.
- JUICESIX90 - 2009-06-06
Could someone let me know if the Aeon skin runs smoothly with Asrock 330?
Thanks
- Starstream - 2009-06-06
Just an update but I now have audio working over SPDIF for the Asrock Ionstar 330.
Disable HDMI audio in the bios just leaving HD audio enabled, default settings for digital audio in XBMC Live will work and output audio over the optical SPDIF connection.
Only the X issue to square away after this.
{I also followed medicineuks excellent Ubuntu + XBMC guide but did not get any audio in XBMC linux over HDMI and also it did not work out of the box with the MCE IR receiver and MCE remote unlike XBMC Live. However the XBMC linux UI was far more snappy in the Ubuntu install I'm guessing that's down to the latest Nvidia drivers being installed.}
About the fan for those really bothered by it, I believe there are two inside it, after removing the DVD drive yesterday I'm certain I saw a tiny little fan next to a heat sink (I'll have to double check) the main fan is a 5cm model, you could replace it easily enough with another fan. I have these great Akasa ultra quiet fans but the smallest they go down to is 6cm so I would have tested it out if weren't for that.
- >>X<< - 2009-06-06
Starstream Wrote:Only the X issue to square away after this.
Maybe this will solve the problem if not maybe ask on ubuntu forum
http://osdir.com/ml/linux.ubuntu.user/2004-10/msg02496.html
- Starstream - 2009-06-06
>>X<<' Wrote:Maybe this will solve the problem if not maybe ask on ubuntu forum
http://osdir.com/ml/linux.ubuntu.user/2004-10/msg02496.html
Thanks for that >>X<< it seems to be the root of the problem, unfortunately I lack the linux experience to correct it in XBMC Live.
I tried booting the ubuntu live disc so I could find the /etc/x11/xf86config-4 file on XBMC Live HD but only found the /etc/x11 folder without that file. I took a guess that xorg.conf is the equivalent and tried to edit it by adding "HWCursor" "false" but it would not let me save the changes saying I did not have proper permissions.
- >>X<< - 2009-06-06
To get root access open terminal and type "gksudo nautilus" without quotes, you should be asked for name and pass then a new file window should open with route access
You should be able to do what you want after that
Some files are hidden as they are in windows but off the top of my head I can't remember how to show them but its pretty easy to find in the menu, stopped using linux a while back and you soon forget stuff unless its in front of you
- Starstream - 2009-06-06
>>X<< my thanks again that did it!
I was able to edit the file and just did a sleep test and the cursor is gone.
I think I might start a separate thread for the various fixes/workarounds being applied to XBMC Live 9.04.1 and the Asrock 330 just for anyone else having difficulty.