Things got very interesting over the past 2 hours or so. I went into my RAM timing and dropped my voltage down to 1.90 (it was 1.95.) I bumped the speed back up to 800Mhz, and locked the timings in at 5,5,5,15, 2T. The 2T was set to auto before, but after reading some postings, I decided to try it. After that, it ws back to working on the software side of things.
It was relatively stable with the default windows WDDM X1600 driver, but the performance was suffering a bit. I went to ATI's site and grabbed the 7.2 Catalyst package. The latest (7.3) has several reported issues in only the first 5 days of release! Rather than install it, I just extracted it and then pointed the control panel driver update to the extraction directory and just did a driver install. None of the other crap they like to include. I'm not in the mood to overclock this vid card, so just the drivers, thank you! After a reboot, it was incredibly stable. I reinstalled the HD Homerun drivers, no lockup. Wow! I went into Media Center and flipped on a HD, and WOW was it smooth! Now, the past few times I used that damn Windows Update, it's resulted in ugliness on this box. After creating a restore point, I let it do its thing...Windows update ran, rebooted and the box is still up, stable and flying. Interesting.
So, as a test, I dragged it over to the TV, hooked it up via component, went into Media Center, set the display to 1080i and holy crap...live HD TV! Whew! So, for grins, I had it recording something on PBSHD while I watched Jeopardy in HD, and there ws no performance hit at all. I thnk that the combination of the new RAM timings and the Catalyst 7.2 drivers has done somethng to calm this thing down. It's only been about 2 hours, but I've been beating on it pretty bad for that period. Right now DVRMSToolbox is installed and I've just installed AnyDVD. As soon as the current recording is done, I've got to reboot and then we'll see how we're doing. I was able to get my 360 Extender connected to it last night and it worked just fine. So, I don't know. I think I'm still going to gove the 7600GT a shot when the RMA comes back and I'll try the Corsair RAM as well, but for right now, this is in much better shape than it was.
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OK. DVRMSToolbox is installed and running flawlessly. I recorded a couple shows and the commercial XML file was created on the fly, and when I played it back, all the commercials were skipped. Right now, I'm recording 24 and it's processing it as it records. I just love live commercial detection! With the old machne, anytime it ws detecting commercials on an HD recording, the machine was brought to its knees and was unable to do ANYTHING! With this, as it was processing, it was recording the HD broadcast, I ws watching the basketball game in HD, and just for grins, I had it record 2 analog shows at the same time. There was a slight perfomrance hit, but it was still useable! I've never had a machine that could handle all that!
Nero 7 is installed as well as AnyDVD now. The purpose here is to rip our movies on the HD. With the additional 200GB drive I tossed in there just for movies, I figure we can fit about 40 DVDs ripped on there, and organize them with My Movies. That'll be the next install. First I have to wait for the current recording to finish so that I can reboot for the damn Nero instalation to work. Yeah, I know, just another Windows limitation!
The covers are back on the box, but it's not hooked up to the TV now. That was just for a test. Oh, and during that test I tried out the optical S/PDIF output into my receiver. Ahhhh...surround sound is da' shit! I'm thinking I'll be screwing with this for the rest of the week in the current condition, and then this weekend, I'll see about getting spousal approval, as it's only in stage 2 now:
Stage 1 - All covers off, boxes and screws strewn all over the kitchen table along with an old monitor. The "just get it working" stage.
Stage 2 - Covers are on. The PC's been moved over to the desk and I'm working on it with a decent display and all the peripherals that will be in use for the big show.
Stage 3. Dropped in place next to the TV and ready for action. I'm going to have to program the Harmony remote and get all of the activities on it perfect before handing this over to Jen for the test drive. All the cables are going to have to be neat and hidden and the performance has to be better than acceptable.
It's only been about 4 hours of stability, but that's the best yet. And there are no signs of this thing nuking itself yet either. Ahhh...just in time for the Masters!
OK...time to update and regroup here...this thing is all over the place.
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