[trpltongue]

Hello all,

I built my xbmc system a while back using an Asrock H67M-ITX motherboard, and have been using a generic rf keyboard to control xbmc so far. Everything works very nicely except that my wife keeps hitting the wrong keyboard buttons and messing things up in xbmc. So...with that in mind, I thought it would be easy to pick up the ASROCK smart remote and use that to control xbmc.

Unfortunately, it hasn't been that simple. The Asrock remote requires a 3rd party driver, the "Nuvoton W836x7HG driver" but it is listed as being 100% MCE compatible. I installed the driver and in the device manager, under "human interface devices", 2 new items showed up - Nuvoton W836x7HG CIR device driver, and Microsoft eHome Infrared Transceiver.

Within xbmc, I installed the MCE addon and ran the option to "apply current settings to remote", shutdown xbmc, then rebooted.

I thought I would be able to simply install the driver and be off and running. However, that hasn't really happened. The remote doesn't seem to do anything in xmbc. Occassionally I can get a single command to work, but not very effectively. I am working within inches of the receiver, so range shouldn't be an issue.

I know that the remote and driver work because I can use it to reliably wake the pc from the off state.

I know this is one of the more popular motherboards and remotes, is there something I'm missing here?

Any help would be appreciated.

[eskro]

another user has the same issue as you with his ASROCK SMART REMOTE.
he's able to wake from S5 state but cant actually control XBMC with the remote..
pretty much a %50 working CIR receiver kinda, not passing commands to your htpc...

i suggest you ask ASROCK tech support as thats what he ended up doing.
we couldnt find whats wrong.
so far, were waiting on ASROCK for an answer...

meanwhile, there solutions for you.
only use the ASROCK CIR RECEIVER for wake from S5
and then get another USB REMOTE package.

check in my HTPC guide for suggestions.
what i suggest in their are remotes easy to set up!
i dont like complicated stuff

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=117372

[trpltongue]

That's what I was afraid of. I just can't figure out why the remote wouldn't be passing commands to XBMC. Admittedly I don't know much about how MCE remotes work with xbmc, as I've previously just used Girder to remap keyboard commands to xbmc commands. I just thought it would be so easy to have the remote "ready to go". Not so much. Thanks for the link to the guide, I'll take a read through it.

[steved1961]

I'm having the same problem, Asrock sent me an RMA for the Smart Remote.
steved1961

[trpltongue]

Is there any way to test if the remote is working properly? For instance, if I push the mute button on the remote, should it mute windows, or does it only work when you are inside a media-center type application?

[steved1961]

If I unplug the ASRock receiver and reboot, the ASRock remote will work with my HP IR USB receiver. So the remote itself seems to work just the ASRock receiver seems to be bad. The ASRock remote will function as a MCE remote on a second PC I have that uses the standard Microsoft USB IR receiver. I tested with Media Player Classic and Windows Media Player. both work with the ASRock remote using a USB IR receiver..
steved1961

[eskro]

yeah, asrock receiver seems poor quality overall.
inteset cir re-pin'ed FTW!

[filthycatbox]

I have had the same identical problem and am trying to get this resolved, but some moderator with clearly nothing better to do has been deleting my posts.

The only response I've had so far is to contact the Europe division. I'll update this thread if and when I get any resolution with this product.

[eskro]

seems there's poop support for this product :/

[filthycatbox]

Absolutely zero response from ASRock Europe. Any luck your side Steve?

Annoying as hell, as I'm holding off on buying another remote until I know that this one is beyond help.

[steved1961]

I RMA'ed mine back this week. Funny thing is if you go into the drivers tab, there are resource conflicts with the motherboard. So I don't know if it is a hardware or a software issue. Everything was greyed out so I was unable to change any settings. Hoping the second remote will be better.
steved1961

[filthycatbox]

I doubt it will. I read numerous posts over several forums about this remote and only one solution which involves fresh installing the OS using a wired keyboard and mouse. I don't have the time or the patience for that. Meanwhile, I've emailed ASSrock again, with no response.

Did you buy this straight from the manufacturers?

[eskro]

yepp

[trpltongue]

I don't have any driver conflicts, it just doesn't work. So, I downloaded eventghost to see if it was even registering anything. Of course ,as you'd expect eskro was exactly right.

The USB receiver is crap. It wouldn't work at all from 3-4 ft away and on a lark I decided to try from a few inches away and it worked perfectly. So I launched XBMC and it works perfectly with the remote a couple of inches from the receiver.

What a craptastic design. I can't believe they even sell this piece of crap and charge $25 for it. What a waste of money. The weird thing is that it works from up to 20 feet away for turning the computer on? Must be a different receiver for the turn on/off functionality.

I'm going to break the case apart and see if there's anything I can do to help the receiver work from further away.

[filthycatbox]

The receiver will break apart no problem mate, as I found out when I dropped the thing onto a tiled floor

I'm going to try an IR receiver to see if this will work when ditching the piece of garbage it ships with.