DFI Infinity RS482 turning out to be a great htpc board

[UncleBob]

It's a decoder for sound, nuthin to do with graphics. Not sure if it will but it's a free trial, so worth looking at, I'd think. I had the same Realtek onboard sound myself.

[JeremyWills]

JW you might want to look at this or this as well . I have two of the 32 inchers and love them . It has DVI as well as HDMI inputs . I have had them both for a little over a year , and they have been rocksolid . Only bad thing is the price has dropped about 300.00 each since I bought mine .


Chris

appreciate the leads sir, actually im toying with the whole 1080p thing, personally i want that capability as I am semi considering a ps3 like i said before because they will have a folding client for it but....... im open to all possibilites so thanks for the info, i have seen this display at the wally world near my place and it was for a pretty good price, i had put it on my backburner as a contender, i just really think its pointless to invest in a screen with built in tuning when i already have a pci tv tuner in my htpc box and definately doing the homework on the hdtv one and the whole vista thing etc.... why have a tuner in the tv when the pc will be doing the work of tuning for hdd recording etc... spend the money saved on the bloatware for just a straight up 1080p capable display only, im just buying it as a glorified monitor

[JeremyWills]

UB, curious update

i have tried flashing to the newest bios, reinstalled windows using the included cd driver disk that came with the motherboard, then tried thier updated files on the website, tried a different cable, etc... everything that has been suggested thus far, my friend suggested maybe your a/v reciever is the culprit, you know i figured why the hell not try it elsewhere, so we drug it over to his house and viola, on his AV recievers, they have 2 seperate movie viewing areas btw anyhow neither exhibited the sound dropout issues so............... either my av reciever is going out, i hope not or............ theres just some compatibility issue between the two, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr i hope i dont have to spend yet more money on it grrrrrrrrrrr but this motherboard has an rca coax header on it and the coax spdif bracket is cheap, ill try that first before buying an all new a/v reciever, i so hope its not going south on me grrrrrrrrrrrrr i just prefer optical but if the coax out will work then great, actually im considering this Video card and now with that coax spdif pass through with the onboard header on the board or sound card its looking more and more lucrative to me hehe
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102032

i been wanting an excuse for a new vid card anyhow and if im understanding what im reading on the web about this guy if i have to get a coax bracket to try i might as well get the damned video card with it to try and solve this issue and have the hdmi upgradability as im more and more convinced hdmi just might be the way to go for my new monitor, everythings adopted it now and DVI is slowly being weaned off, grrrrrrrrrrrr yes as we type i just watched an entire dvd on his a/v reciever and not one sound dropout issue, so maybe just maybe my toslink on mines going south, i hope not

[UncleBob]

It very well may be the cable. Did you bring yours to his house??

[JeremyWills]

we tried several cables, his included, i have him and another friend over for a lan party tonight, we will be trying each of thier computers on my reciever now, if it displays the same symptoms then we know my reciever is jacked up, son of a........ i hope not

[UncleBob]

OK, bummer, dood. Let us know how it works out!

[JeremyWills]

its either some form of incompatibility with my av reciever and this board or...... my av reciever could still be going out but...... neither of those other machines exhibited the problem, so im going with the incompatibility thing, son of a..... ill try getting a coax spdif header first before i totally give up on either the reciever and this board, i can technically go back to my msi and relegate this board to my burn box, im at this point thinking of seriously doing that, grrrrr this board ocs like mad though and it was bought primarily as such so...... the msi made an ok board, but i wanted the onboard optical because i just think IMHO it sounds better, and it had better connectivity to things with the onboard dvi and component etc.... oh well might have to revert back to the coax or the other board, ill keep chipping away at it, the dfi board otherwise has excelled with flying colors, it could be something im still overlooking too
who knows

i am considering a better video card though and so the msi would be a mute point connectivity wise with a vid card in it as well, grrrrrr desicions hehehe its always something

i guess i can always try rmaing the dfi and see if another one does the same thing, im really starting to lean on some form of incompatibility between the this board and reciever only as its worked fine everywhere else, ill also drag it over to my parents house and see if it does it there on thiers, if not then i know for sure and will help plan my next course of action

[UncleBob]

Definitely sounds like a compatability problem. Did you consider the CHAINTECH AV-710 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Card I found it to be a great solution for less than most any other card and it has optical out.

[JeremyWills]

i dont have to have my heart set on optical only, i have coax as a backup, theres the onboard header to try with a coax bracket first, also i could drop this pci sb audigy i have handy first but i had other plans for it actually, but it has spdif i can use as well, i shouldnt have to though, the onboard passing the signal and letting the reciever do the work should be sufficient, i dont want to populate that pci slot if at all possible as i plan to get another pci tuner for media center, stupid thing dont support combo cards i found out grrrrrrrrrrr

depending on what video card i do drop in there its possible my pci express 1x slots going to be useless so that leaves me with 2 pci slots, that was the whole premise of the onboard sound as it didnt chew up hardly any cpu time just passing a signal through and frees up my expansion slots

if coax out works then the hdmi video card thing works out problem solved, ill have the header and pci slot bracket chewed up by the vid card alone and that would also keep those slots freed, if i go standard bracket route ill have to put it on the pci express 1x slot and i would like to keep it free for who knows what 1x devices might come down the road later, yep the curse of matx and sff sometimes, you have to bank on the onboard stuff working out for it to go the way its meant to be, as minimal as possible


anyways, i do appreciate the information though

[UncleBob]

Yes, I understand. Micro-Atx boards present just that problem. I have tried 3 different boards till I found the ASUS A8VM I am using now. http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.p...&postcount=142

[JeremyWills]

hehehe i have read your post sir before, good info

i wanted an ocing board so either way wether this winds up being my permanent htpc board or not ill have a use for it, spdif aint a deal breaker if i just throw this in a corner oced to hell and gone and folding 24/7 if i have to try out another board for media center purposes

FWIW this thing plays hd content pretty damn good with the onboard graphics, if i do break down and buy that pci express hdmi video card i can just imagine how much better its going to be, jesus Im wanting a new display so badly now hehe

if i can just hammer out this spdif issue this is the perfect matx htpc board, it really is
IMHO

[UncleBob]

Keep workin at it, it's well worth the job.!!

[JeremyWills]

update

finally have that hdmi enabled sapphire radeon x1600pro

its a sweet card, now i just need an hdmi display for it

the media center remote rocks too, im glad i finally broke down and bought it, the wireless mouse was working, but........ its nice to have that good ol tv remote feeling again

sadly the reviewers of these video cards made it sound like there was the possibilty of passing the spdif out from this video card on that spdif out connection

turns out this is an spdif in, you run a coax cable from your coxaial spdif out on the mobo or sound card to this port on the graphics card and then the hdmi cable carries it over to the tv or a/v reciever etc.........

i was hoping this was a seperate spdif out so i could enable coaxial output, oh welll, gonna have to get that coaxial spdif bracket after all but im planning on buying one, taking the connector off the block off plate, also removing this one off the video card as I prefer to run the sound seperate, this way though I can populate the hole left in this video card bracket with the dedicated one from the motherboard and it will work as output instead of input

with a micro case and 4 block off plates plates and pci and pci express slots are a premium, for media center to use hd and standard tuning you need 2 seperate pci tuners, it wont do combo ones, also that leaves one pci express slot left so who knows what you might populate that with down the road, so............

i am trying to not kill a pci or pci express slot with that dedicated spdif bracket only

i hope im making sense here, im not interested in passing the sound via hdmi at this time, unless I get an HDMI display, but.......... that wont be for a while with my current budget etc........ so im trying to make do with this setup, its a dissapointment as it was misinterpereted but oh well, its still a workable solution, i do love the card and having the hdmi capability for down the road will be a good thing as displays are now coming out with the dvi dropped and with hdmi only so this makes display choices much much easier, it even came with a hdmi cable and the dvi to hdmi adapter so theres plenty of flexibility now for me to have to play with

[UncleBob]

I hear ya. How are you running the sound now? I use a Yamaha receiver for mine....as an olde headbanger I need all the amps I can get to hear stuff and the motherboard wasn't ever going to do it.
Well, you have the hdmi cables now when you need them, as they aren't cheap you're ahead of the game there, huh?
I just bought a 37" Sharp LC-37D4U LCD. It has every damn input you can think of!

RS-232C Input: 9-pin mini D-sub x 1
HDMI Input: HDMI x 1
HD Component Input: Y/Pr/Pb x 2
CableCARD Slot: 68-pin PCMCIA
S-Video Input: 4-pin DIN x 1
Composite Video Input (A/V): RCA x 3
Audio Inputs: RCA L/R x 3
Audio Outputs: Optical Digital Audio x 1, RCA L/R x 1, 3.5mm Stereo Minijack x 1
S-Video Output: 4-pin DIN x 1

Yes, no DVI in, however!
I really like the idea of a cablecard. No extra box and Comcast charges to install the card, but no monthly fee! No extra remote for the wife either...a big plus! This is going to be a wall mount in the bedroom.

[JeremyWills]

yea


CC has some promises, just depends on the particular situation