[badgerman26]

Hi All,

I am a mac man, but keen for a wife friendly small silent HTPC for XBMC so we can watch Divx from Couchpotato & Sickbeard as automated as poss. Will be to 1080p HDTV via HDMI. Sound to amp via S/PDIF. Remote control via Harmony 550. Would also like to use AirVideo server so can watch on my ipad on wifi. That is it.

Is this a good option for this (I saw it from eskro - thanks), I have no experience of setting up PCs, but can read instructions and glean info from the web and even have a soldering iron!

Zotac ZBOX Mini PC Barebone Nvidia ION, Celeron CULV SU2300

I don't have much time, hence going down the built nettop route. I originally thought of the Revo, but this seems better.

Will also get RAM Corsair 4GB DDR3 1066MHz/PC3-8500 Laptop Memory SODIMM CL7

And a 32GB Onyx SSD 2.5" SATA-II

I have a USB optical drive to install windows, keyboard and mouse to set up.

My Q's;

Can you use this set up easily with an external HDD to store the media as have 1TB?

Can I use my PS3 remote extender for the Harmony? Can I use my ipad instead of a keyboard to input into anything other than XBMC i.e. SB/CP etc?

Any thoughts on this for my needs? Am I missing something? Anything else better that I will appreciate for ~£380?

Thanks

[eskro]

the ZBOX HD-ND22 is a great little box!

if you plan on installing windows on it,
i suggest a 30GB SSD at least --> http://ow.ly/1sQi5P
it has greater read and write speeds then the one you selected...

2GB or ram is enough too,,,

[badgerman26]

Thanks eskro, hoping you would reply. Are there any issues to having a ext HDD and internal SSD?

Any other suggestions for similar money. I assume this would be better than linux Revo for ~£80 less?

cheers

[tboooe]

I have the ND-22 running XBMC, Sickbeard, and SAB. It works great as an HTPC. All my media is stored on an external NAS while an internal SSD runs the OS. I also own a Revo 3700 though not with Linux. The ND-22 has a better processor which to me is worth the extra money.

[badgerman26]

I have the ND-22 running XBMC, Sickbeard, and SAB. It works great as an HTPC. All my media is stored on an external NAS while an internal SSD runs the OS. I also own a Revo 3700 though not with Linux. The ND-22 has a better processor which to me is worth the extra money.

Sounds good is that with Win7? What RAM did you go for. Is there anything else needed to install Win7?

[tboooe]

Sounds good is that with Win7? What RAM did you go for. Is there anything else needed to install Win7?

Yes, my ND-22 is running Win7. I bought a 60gb OCZ SSD and installed 4gb of Crucial memory. The only other thing I would recommend is optimize Win7. This means uninstalling all unnecessary applications and services. The OCZ forum has a good thread on what services can be stopped. Also look into RT7lite. It is an app that helps to make optimizing Win7 a bit easier.

Since the ND-22 does not have a cd rom, you will have to make a bootable USB stick to install Win7. You will also have to get into the ND-22 bios to specify that its boots from USB.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.

[eskro]

there's no issues at all running windows7 on 2GB of ram + 30GB SSD

[badgerman26]

Hi tabooe & eskro.

Got my htpc set up. Had an old hdd so just using that over SSd for now. I seem to have a few issues, that I could do with your help.

On running SAB I noted par2.exe was taking ~80% CPU. This made playback on xbmc stutter on both sd and 1080p. I deleted SAB and this seemed to sort the picture. However in my problem solving I installed the hd audio drivers from nvidea zotac cd. Now I can't get sound out of xbmc any more either through hdmi or coaxial. It seems to be related to the drivers as was fine before. It says; failed to initiate audio system.

Any ideas on par2.exe and lack of sound. Not quite as plug n play as had hoped. Cheers

Is it worth getting ssd and starting again?

[claypigeon]

Hi tabooe & eskro.

Got my htpc set up. Had an old hdd so just using that over SSd for now. I seem to have a few issues, that I could do with your help.

On running SAB I noted par2.exe was taking ~80% CPU. This made playback on xbmc stutter on both sd and 1080p. I deleted SAB and this seemed to sort the picture. However in my problem solving I installed the hd audio drivers from nvidea zotac cd. Now I can't get sound out of xbmc any more either through hdmi or coaxial. It seems to be related to the drivers as was fine before. It says; failed to initiate audio system.

Any ideas on par2.exe and lack of sound. Not quite as plug n play as had hoped. Cheers

Is it worth getting ssd and starting again?

SABnzbd (and par2) have no relationship with your audio problems.

I attempted to document the challenges with mixing SABnzbd with xbmc here

I dont know the answers to your audio driver problems out side of there is no correlation between SABnzbd/Par2 and the audio system, but you might consider downloading the latest version of "hd audio drivers from nvidea zotac cd", then deleting the prior version and associated drivers and trying again.

The issues you have outlined (PAR2 cpu utilization issues, and your audio driver issues) would not be improved with a SSD, a pair of fuzzy dice would be just as effective as a SSD in resolving the issues you have outlined. Are you having performance issues associated to reading and writing to the dasd? that is the only place a SSD can benefit performance. BTW if you only have 2G of ram for w7 64, that was Microsofts minimum configuration, so if you have any memory constrained issues you may start page faulting (symptom is lots of drive activity, but look at your systems monitor regarding memory for page fault information), if so the best fix for that is more ram.

[badgerman26]

Hi claypidgeon,

Sorry, am pretty sure 2 issues are unrelated too. I saw your post about SAB n xbmc. Bit annoyed as thought it could handle both. Otherwise would just get at2 or revo.

Anyway go time it so par2.exe is not running in eve when watching xbmc?

I have 4th ram.

[jdwoods]

I do not own the Zotac ND22. I plan on getting one in the next couple weeks.

I understand that Par2 and XBMC may not play well together.

To mitigate this issue, I suggest that you schedule all processing of DL'ed NZBs during times when you are not generally using your HTPC. Scheduling is really simple in Sab.

[MidnightWatcher]

+1 for the ND22. It's a great little box.