Zotac IONITX-A Atom N330 Nvidia Ion?

Quote:Well... I guess this was a mistake. Because http://www.cartft.com has it on stock. Its an onlineshop from germany.

yes, but quite expensive. it's more then +20 €.
i can wait...

but its a nice shop. didn't know about it. thx.

Hi!
I've finally got my first flat screen tv (pioneer kuro...amazing), and now I'm digging into all this htpc stuff.
I'm currently using an Asus Pundit P1 barebone pc to run xbmc but the thing struggels on 1080p.. (AMD Athlon X2 5400, integrated graphics, no HW decoding). CPU is 97% all the time and the video and audio streams get out of sync, video is skipping frames etc.
So.. I'm about to build a dedicated machine to run xbmc. Honestly I was thinking about going for Popcorn player but I realized I dont like these packed solutions since they dont give you much flexibility. Luckily I have discovered Xbmc which is really a well made thing! Congrats to all the developers!

Now, since you guys are already playing with Zotac boards, I would like to ask you to help me decide about hardware..
So, I can't decide whether to go for ION platform or take the geForce 9300 + say intel E7400 dual core cpu. Does anyone have any info about the power consumption and heating of Zotac 9300 board + cpu comparing to the Zotac Ion B? If there is no big difference I would maybe still go for 9300 board since it gives me more flexibility, run win etc.

You may be asking why to run win? True, but thre reason is I'm using an external USB audio card (Native Instruments Audio kontrol1) only supported on win (if anyone knows it it works on linux please let me know).

Another question.. I saw that AsRock is producing the ION box.. What is better? Asrock or Zotac in terms of motherboard performance?

Thanks!

asrock and zotac is nearly the same.
the zotac has two more connectors at the rear.
e-sata and coaxial-digital-out.

the asrock is ready-to-use. case, dvd-drive. but not as flexible as the zotac.

powerconsumption:
you have to look for the TDP of the E7400.
ad the difference to the zotac + 10% or something.
that should be near the real results, i guess.

Hello

I just received my board... I am running latest XBMC Live BUT I cannot manage to have audio goind out of SPDIF digital audio plug.

For sure, everything is fin on the preamplifier side as I just unplugged the cable from my PCH-A100 to plug it to my ZOTAC ION A-serie board.

FYI, I disabled Internal Audio in BIOS to disable HDMi audio (aplay -l does not return it anymore).

Does anyone succeded in having SPIF output under XBMC Linux or Live ?

Regards
Matt

msevestre Wrote:Hello

I just received my board... I am running latest XBMC Live BUT I cannot manage to have audio goind out of SPDIF digital audio plug.

For sure, everything is fin on the preamplifier side as I just unplugged the cable from my PCH-A100 to plug it to my ZOTAC ION A-serie board.

FYI, I disabled Internal Audio in BIOS to disable HDMi audio (aplay -l does not return it anymore).

Does anyone succeded in having SPIF output under XBMC Linux or Live ?

Regards
Matt

The way is the same like with every other mainboard. Name it Zotac, ASUS or what you want.
The forum here is full of this audio-issues with SPDIF and HDMI. You should give the search a try.

To make it short: Try iec958 in your audio-settings and pull up the volume in alsamixer.

Hi !

That's already what is configued... moreover no way to pull level up of iec958 ... it remains to 0

Matt

msevestre Wrote:Hi !

That's already what is configued... moreover no way to pull level up of iec958 ... it remains to 0

Matt

Pull up volume and unmute IEC.

Post output of aplay -l

Patrick

Hi !

IEC is already unmutted, showing "OO" at the bottom with now way to pull it up

here are the resuts :

Quote:(T: XBMCLive)root@XBMCLive:/media/Movies/divx/Nous# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: ALC662 Analog [ALC662 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 1: ALC662 Digital [ALC662 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
(T: XBMCLive)root@XBMCLive:/media/Movies/divx/Nous# aplay -L
default:CARD=NVidia
HDA NVidia, ALC662 Analog
Default Audio Device
front:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, ALC662 Analog
Front speakers
surround40:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, ALC662 Analog
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, ALC662 Analog
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, ALC662 Analog
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, ALC662 Analog
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, ALC662 Analog
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, ALC662 Digital
IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)

Here is what alsamixer is displaying:



Thanks for the help

Matt

donabi Wrote:asrock and zotac is nearly the same.
the zotac has two more connectors at the rear.
e-sata and coaxial-digital-out.

the asrock is ready-to-use. case, dvd-drive. but not as flexible as the zotac.

powerconsumption:
you have to look for the TDP of the E7400.
ad the difference to the zotac + 10% or something.
that should be near the real results, i guess.

The biggest problem for lots of people is that the zotac doesn't have wake-on-usb, so if you were planning on using a usb remote it will not be able to pull it out of standby.

stogiesam88 Wrote:The biggest problem for lots of people is that the zotac doesn't have wake-on-usb, so if you were planning on using a usb remote it will not be able to pull it out of standby.

Not so anymore. There is a new revision of the board that enables wake from USB. This is the board that is being chipped currently.