My New HTPC Build

Built using spec recommendations from eskro's A8-3850 (4x2.9Ghz) + HD6550D thread, but with a couple of changes.

Specs:

MB: Asrock A75 Pro4-M
CPU: AMD A8-3850
Ram: 4Gx2 PNY MD8192KD3-1600-X9 R (8 gig total)
PSU: SILVERSTONE ST50F-ES 500W
SSD: OCZ Petrol PTL1-25SAT3-64G (Windows OS + XBMC)
Case: SILVERSTONE Grandia Series GD05B

Total Cost: $542.23

All My Parts:


Setting Stuff Up:


After starting the wiring process I started to wish I had gone with a Modular PSU:


Going to add a 4Tb drive in the empty space next week, Perhaps a blu-ray drive at some point.

Here is XBMC running on my 60 inch plasma:




Everything went fairly easy. I seem to have a little problem with grabbing extra thumbs and fan art in xmbc in that it doesn't seem to connect to anything or try and fetch them at all....cant seem to figure it out.

(2012-04-20 18:28)Horrorjunkie616 Wrote:  Everything went fairly easy. I seem to have a little problem with grabbing extra thumbs and fan art in xmbc in that it doesn't seem to connect to anything or try and fetch them at all....cant seem to figure it out.

I had big problems too, but tried several different things. Here's what I found works well for Movies (Haven't figured out my TV Shows just yet)

I created a folder named: Movies
Under there, I create folders with the names of the movies as they are formally named on http://www.imdb.com as a reference (if I needed help)
So I'd have as an example folder under Movies named:

The Good the Bad and the Ugly (and in this folder is my movie: The_Good_the_Bad_and_the_Ugly.iso)
The Fantastic 4 (Fantastic_4.iso)
and so on......

Once I had all of my structure created,...I then added this folder to XBMC.
I used the default movie scraper and for the most part, everything worked fine.
One or two movies that I did have problems with were either because I used the wrong name (such as named "Fantastic 4", "Fantastic Four", or because there were multiple versions of the movie (remakes). To resolve that issue, I added the year the movie was made to the end of the title.

I then went to System, Video, Export Video Library.
This then copies the fanart, thumbs abd .nfo files for each movie in it's own separate folder as shown above.

This way, if I every accidentally screw something up,..and scan this folder again,..it will skip all the folder with pre-existing data files.

very nice HTPC!! powerful too! congratz!

Thanks for the help GortWillSaveUs, I actually have movies set up pretty much how I want them. Gonna work on TV shows next. It just seems like XBMC just wont connect to any service to get extra stuff....which is odd because when I did an install on my everyday pc as a test run it worked just fine, now that too seems to not be working.

Yeah eskro I'm enjoying it pretty well so far. Haven't tried any gaming yet, but I chose the case cause it can fit a normal video card if I choose to add one later on.

Here is the inside with all the wiring done:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

So still plenty of room with decent airflow.

marvelous!

I was so busy Setting up how xbmc looked that I overlooked actually playing any files. Turns out I am getting skipping and laggy video on almost all of my video. Some videos also seem to play in fast forward with no sound, and others look fine with no audio. Should I have installed codec packs or an external player?

I was a Boxee Box user who decided he wanted more power, that thing played all these files no problem and This PC is magnitudes more powerful then it.

Make sure you have the latest drivers for everything installed. I read on these forums for another Asrock motherboard, to make sure you go into the BIOS and dedicate 512 MB to the video. I think the default was something crazy low like 32 or something.

(2012-04-21 07:43)Mick1152 Wrote:  Make sure you have the latest drivers for everything installed. I read on these forums for another Asrock motherboard, to make sure you go into the BIOS and dedicate 512 MB to the video. I think the default was something crazy low like 32 or something.

+1 no default is 256 .....

yes set to 512

Damn, thought I remembered reading the default was much much lower... ah well... at least I got part of it right!

+1 for the 512 MB to the video