[Mini-ITX] A6-3500 (3x2.1Ghz/2.4Ghz) + HD6530D

Wintersdark, how can we easily OC the A6-3500. Any tutorial for it somewhere? I never did that, but if I can increase the stock speed without adding more heat, I'd be more than happy! Thanks.

I've been having a persistent problem with my nyxboard remote with this build. It works 90% of the time to suspend and wake from suspend. But every two days or so I need to press the button on the box to wake it, then unplug and replug the dongle to regain functionality. I have two of these boxes now - same exact setup - and have the issue with both. Is this a limitation in the dongle itself? Because I have the remote programmed with the TVs, too, and it works fine.

Anyone else having this problem or know of any ideas for fixing it?

FYI I have disabled sleep, hibernation and hybrid in the computer itself. I have the sleep timer in XBMC set to 10 minutes. I'm experimenting now with only putting it in standby with the remote to see if it happens only in one situation vs the other (me putting it to sleep vs putting itself to sleep).

Thanks.

(2012-05-11 16:09)Balinus Wrote:  Wintersdark, how can we easily OC the A6-3500. Any tutorial for it somewhere? I never did that, but if I can increase the stock speed without adding more heat, I'd be more than happy! Thanks.

With the motherboard recommended on this entry, you go into the BIOS - rather, UEFI - on boot (press delete when booting) you can adjust the processor multiplier freely. Should be under the... advanced tab? I can't look right now, as the wife's enjoying a Masterchef marathon at the moment, but it's really easy to find. I disabled Turbo and raised the base clock multiplier up to bring the processor up to (now) 2.5ghz. I've still not tried faster (I'm not shooting for an overclock record) and I've not found a need to get the CPU portion going faster.

More important, on the same page as the processor clock is the GPU clock. I found a very obviously noticeable improvement in 1080p Netflix streaming by pushing the GPU clock up to 550mhz. Before the overclock, there was a fair bit of some stutter(looked like playing a video game with the settings a bit to high - low fps), none after. The system handled other 1080p playback just fine, but netflix's Silverlight client is terrible.

I'm sure you could go much higher - my temps are still negligible, with my CPU fan never spinning up at all @2500mhz/550mhz.

Note, though, I'm running a picoPSU now, having removed the MI-008 case's built in power supply due to horrendous heat issues. If you've got the power supply in there, you may have some trouble with heat.

Thanks Wintesdark! I do have the Asrock MB with a picoPSU.

I'll look into these settings and see how it affects my temps. Tks again.

I recently completed this build and I'm having a lot of buffering issues. Any ideas?

A6-3500
ASRock FM1/A75 mobo
Samsung Blu-Ray
Kingston HyperX (2X2) Ram (I was only able to fit 1 stick around the cooler)
Scyth Kozuti SCKZT-1000 Cooler
Patriot 32 GB Sata SSD

3tb WD Mybook live
Medialink Wireless adapter 150mbps

I'm assuming my issue is the 2GB of RAM but wanted to check here first. Should I be able to fit 2 sticks around the Scyth cooler?

I also thought the wireless adapter (150 mbps) may be a bit on the slow side?? Thanks in advance!

What are you playing when you get the buffering issues? You could have buffering issues from an external hard drive over USB 2 with a 1080 Blu-ray image and you could definitely have it over any wireless network with just about any video. Find a way to run gigabit network cables, you'll be glad you did.

I haven't attempted anything beyond the pretty standard dvd/mkv rips. My wireless is pretty spotty but I haven't had any issues with my desktop on the same network so I'm guessing it's an issue specific to this build...

(2012-05-20 22:31)noobius Wrote:  I recently completed this build and I'm having a lot of buffering issues. Any ideas?

A6-3500
ASRock FM1/A75 mobo
Samsung Blu-Ray
Kingston HyperX (2X2) Ram (I was only able to fit 1 stick around the cooler)
Scyth Kozuti SCKZT-1000 Cooler
Patriot 32 GB Sata SSD

3tb WD Mybook live
Medialink Wireless adapter 150mbps

I'm assuming my issue is the 2GB of RAM but wanted to check here first. Should I be able to fit 2 sticks around the Scyth cooler?

I also thought the wireless adapter (150 mbps) may be a bit on the slow side?? Thanks in advance!

Did you share 512MB in bios to the graphics?
Onboard Video...

(2012-05-20 23:51)noobius Wrote:  I haven't attempted anything beyond the pretty standard dvd/mkv rips. My wireless is pretty spotty but I haven't had any issues with my desktop on the same network so I'm guessing it's an issue specific to this build...

Wireless would be my first suspicion. When you save "buffering", do you mean video tearing and pixelation? Wireless data rates are highly exaggerated.

Definitely going to go with the wireless as well.

WiFi is sketchy at best - some (rare) folks get good speeds, but it's been my experience over a number of routers and wifi adapters that it's pretty normal in real world use to get a tenth of the advertised throughput. God help you if you or your neighbors turn on a microwave or any number of other devices that can interfere, or if your HTPC is in a bad location relative to your router, or if the capricious gods of wifi just decide they hate you.

I'd recommend connecting your htpc to the router directly with an ethernet cable and seeing if the problem persists. Your server should be directly connected to the router as well (no wifi from media->htpc).

Mine - pretty much exactly as the OP - plays 1080p video flawlessly(even while multitasking, as it's also my media server. Before overclocking it, it would stutter a little bit (no buffering, mind, just poor framerates) on Netflix HD only, but that was due to the ever-crappy Silverlight plugin.