ASRock ION 330 as Media Center
Intel’s low-powered & low cost Atom processor has been all the rage in the computer industry for quite some time now, and nobody has embraced it more than just about every Taiwanese hardware manufacturer whose name starts with an ‘A’.
ASUS thrust the netbook form factor into the minds of the masses, but it was Acer who (so far) has won the small form factor war, as the number one netbook maker (the Aspire One grabbing 50% of the market). But it hasn’t stopped there. The Atom is appearing in other form factors, from very capable home servers and now tiny desktop computers.
The biggest drawbacks of the Atom processor are it’s overall speed for anything really complex, and it’s graphics chip, which uses an outdated Intel incapable of any real power. To boost the former, Intel introduced the dual core Atom 330 running at 1.6GHz. In the case of the latter, graphics powerhouse Nvidia developed the ION platform, which would pair the ‘good enough’ computing power of the Atom with it’s own more powerful graphics subsystem.
This is where a third ‘A list’ Taiwanese manufacturer comes in. ASRock (an ASUS spin-off) has introduced the ION 330. Guess what it’s running?
ASRock makes three models of their small form factor device. The most powerful being the ION 330-BD which includes ION graphics and a Blu Ray player for approximately $600, the ION 330, which is identical except that it has a DVD drive (with write capabiltiy) instead of the Blu Ray, which retails for about $400, and the low end S330 which replaces the ION graphics with the standard Intel 945GC + ICH7 chipset. None of the models come with an operating system, so you’ll have to install one yourself.
Although my goal was to set up an HTPC, I went with the ION 330, and skipped the BD player. If I decide to commit to BD in the future, the ION 330 easily accomodates adding one later, and for less than the $200 premium.
So, before getting into the nuts n bolts of the review, here are the specs…
| Specifications | |
| CPU | – Intel® Atom™ 330 (Dual-Core CPU) |
| Chipset | – NVIDIA® ION™ graphics processor |
| Memory | – 2GB DDR2 800 MHz memory, support dual channel, maximum memory capacity 4GB*
*Due to the CPU limitation, the actual memory size may be less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows® XP / XP 64-bit / Vista™ / Vista™ 64-bit.
|
| VGA | – NVIDIA® ION™ graphics, support DX10 / Full HD 1080p (Blu-ray / HD-DVD)* playback
*Blu-ray/HD-DVD disc is supported by Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive.
|
| HDD | – 2.5” HDD 320GB |
| DVD | – DVD Super Multi (Slim type) |
| I/O | – 1 x HDMI (with HDMI to DVI adapter), 1 x D-Sub VGA, 6 x USB 2.0, 1 x S/PDIF (Optical) |
| LAN | – Gigabit LAN |
| Sound | – HD Audio 5.1 channel |
| System Acoustic | – Below 26dB |
| Power Unit | – 65W /19V Adapter |
| Dimension | – 195mm (W) x 70mm (H) x 186mm (L) |
| Volume (liters) | – 2.5L |
| Weight | – 1.7Kg |
Hardware
Out of the box, the ION 330 is a decent looking little computer, available in either glossy black or white. In size, it’s a little bit bigger than a Mac Mini, and certainly smaller than the Shuttle XPC, which is one of the most popular SFF PC designs out there. Unlike a Shuttle type case, it slides discretely into a a low profile entertainment centre.
I would have liked to have seen a USB port on the front, as well as audio in/out jacks, since these are items that could conceivably be accessed a number of times, either for removable media or a headset when Skyping or gaming in the living room. Hiding these behind a door would have been perfect. An eSATA port around back would also be a welcome addition for some users. For my needs, however, it’s not a deal breaker.
The system generates very little sound when in use, and silent in standby.
Set Up
In the above picture, you can see how small the actual unit is in comparison to a VCR (which I haven’t even wired up since my latest move). My current home set up includes a Windows Home Server (WHS) which does back up duties to several computers, as well as being the central media repository for them and an Xbox 360. My desktop has served as a Windows Media Center including recording TV for a couple of years now, but in my new place, there’s no way to run cable to the room it’s in.
After hooking up the ION to a Samsung 46″ 1080p TV, it was time to install an OS. Since I’m running WHS, I opted to go with the Windows 7 Release Candidate, which comes with the latest version of Microsoft’s Media Center. Not only is WMC a ‘best in class’ media experience, it’ll also be automatically backed up to the server once the Connector software is installed.. I’m still tempted to try the Linux based MythTV (and more specifically Mythbuntu), and now that the Win7 install is backed up, restoration should be a snap if I opt to ‘roll back’.
The only minor hiccup installing Windows 7 was that it took one reboot more than necessary to recognize the 1080p display. After taking all the updates, and installing the WHS Connect software, Firefox and the Boxee.tv beta, it was time to put it through it’s paces.
One last note about the hardware. I was originally told that the ASRock doesn’t support HD audio through the HDMI port (and this by a salesman), and have read elsewhere that it’s audio out is 5.1 max. Both of these aren’t accurate. In Windows 7, I just had to enable the Nvidia HD audio to have it output through the HD cable. I have a 5.1 system, but reports are saying that the HDMI audio supports up to 7.1 channels of LCPM audio.
The Basics
Before getting into media playback, I tested the general computing stuff. Not surprisingly, it all went off without a hitch. Having a 1080p computer display in your living room, even for general computing, is nice for those times when you just want to check something quickly without taking out the laptop.
Next was testing the media functionality. Both Media Center and Windows Media Player had no problem seeing my server’s media library and playing everything back.
I can safely say that the basics checked out fine.
HD Video
With an array of codecs and file types, I had to get trailers in a variety of formats to see how the system would fare. I downloaded a number of movie trailers for testing, in both 720p and 1080p. I was a little nervous because although the ASRock supposedly handled 720p content with no problem, the sales guy at the computer store said that it might encounter some stutter with 108op. Luckily, I saw no stutter whatsoever.
720p and 1080p H.264 encoded trailers of G.I. Joe (honestly, ONLY downloaded for testing fast motion- not because I have ANY interest in the film) and Funny People put CPU usage in a fairly wide range of usage, from just over 20% all the way up to 51% at the high end. Playback in all cases was flawless. This was using WMP. There’s a 4% overhead if you want to watch through Windows Media Center.
In fact, the closest to the danger zone was a 1080p XviD from the Blade Runner HD-DVD, with the CPU spiking upwards to almost 70% in some of the more flashy moments, though it mainly hovered around the 60% mark.
Since I don’t have a Blu Ray player, and haven’t gotten around to hooking up the HD-DVD player (yeah yeah laugh all you want), I didn’t have a chance to test the actual disc playback for Blade Runner, but I think it’s safe to say that it’ll work fine, as others have reported less CPU usage from Blu Ray physical media than their digitally ripped counterparts.
I saved memory usage for last, as no matter what type of file I played back, RAM consistently hovered in the 55%-60%, with the highest spike being around 65%.
Streaming
Streaming is the toughest nut to crack, partially because of the heavy dependence by many on Flash for video. Adobe has been notoriously slow on dishing out an FLV player that properly (as opposed to halfheartedly) makes use of a GPU like Nvidia’s ION, although they’re supposed to be rounding that corner any time now.
Standard definition Youtube works great, but once you hit the “HD” button, it’s a different story. It’s more or less unusable, struggling to keep the frame rate up, though I didn’t notice any audio stutter. Other FLV based players are probably going to see similar performance issues.
I can’t blame ASRock for this, as I’ve seen stutter of Flash videos on my workstation, which is capable of handling multiple streams of HDV for video editing, and even on that HD Flash is, to be honest, somewhat barfy. You can go into Flash and play around with acceleration settings, but because this is partially depending on the source, there isn’t one universal “click this setting to fix all your woes” recommendation.
Even Microsoft’s Silverlight 3 did a good job with HD (as it properly uses the GPU), once I tracked some down some content to test.
Until Adobe sorts this out, I just keep hoping for the wide adoption of the HTML5 standard, with directly embeddable media files and no need for a proprietary wrapper. (EDIT: Almost a year later, and Adobe’s Flash has been updated to 10.1 and performs much better now).
Enough bashing of Adobe though. I primarily plan on viewing streams through Boxee.tv (a fork in the great legacy of XBMC, which deserves it’s own write up, given how much is owed to that piece of software), so it was time to kick that particular can.
If you’re not familiar with Boxee, it’s a ‘Media Center’ type interface for all your local media, as well as a number of online channels of streaming video. It’s real goal is to be the ‘social’ media center. As a social networking tool, it allows you to rate videos, and share recommendations with friends. It’s been in beta for some time, and can be run on Windows, Mac or Linux.
My biggest worry was that it was going to crash, since I had used it a week earlier on my desktop system and the software would crash with a memory leak after a couple of minutes of online streaming. Luckily, when I hit the site, there was an updated version that fixed this problem, and Boxee performed well. I didn’t have the Task Manager running, but there were no hiccups streaming a number of feeds.
In the streaming video department, I also decided to give Windows Media Center’s Internet TV 2 beta a try. The ITV1 beta never worked for me as I would get a “not in the US” type warning. ITV2 worked however, allowing me to stream some network TV based content and ‘internet channels’. Although some of the network TV stuff looked okay, the internet based videos varied greatly, though some of it seemed to be an improvement on other reports of horrible video quality all around. It should be mentioned for US users, Netflix will also be added to Media Center 7, just as it’s currently available in the earlier Vista version.
What I’m really hoping for when Boxee gets out of beta (uhm… I mean alpha), is that it will function as a Media Center Add In with it’s own dedicated tab.
But I digress.
DVR
The final test to round out the effectiveness of the ASRock ION 330 was using it as a Live TV/PVR viewer. Since there are no available PCI slots in the ION, and no room to put a card even if there were, I opted to pick up the Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1950 external dual TV tuner. The device is basically an external USB box with dual TV tuners, cable and ATSC HD over the air (OTA)* with a dedicated IR remote and an IR Blaster to control a set top digital TV box.
I only have analog cable, so I wouldn’t need the Blaster portion of the IR, but I wanted the IR receiver to control the ION 330 with my Logitech Harmony. After installing the drivers, Windows Media Center detected the signal and downloaded the proper electronic programming guide (EPG). The EPG is basically the same kind of guide you get with cable or satellite TV, but on steroids. Not only can you navigate it interactively, it offers a lot of additional functionality.
As for getting it to work with the Harmony remote, I had to manually set up the majority of the buttons using Logitech’s Harmony software, which takes a couple of minutes. Once done, I didn’t have to use the mouse and keyboard again.
Performance-wise, the ION handled both live and recorded TV like a champ. Since the heavy encoding is all handled by the Hauppauge device, there was only a nominal uptick in CPU and memory usage.
* I didn’t have a chance to test it with OTA HD TV signals. If I get my hands on an appropriate antenna (has to be indoors), I’ll update this post. Since the Hauppauge doesn’t handle the encoding of HD signals, this would have to be handled by the ION. Whether it’s is capable of this is a worthwhile question to ask. Earlier demonstrations have shown it able of playing back HD content while simultaneously transcoding to a lower format, so it’s really up in the air right now.
UPDATE June 2010: Since original writing this article, I’ve had a chance to test out recording HD over the air, and the ASRock actually does handle it well via the external tuner.
Gaming
When the term ‘gaming’ comes up, there’s two ways to look at it. One is from the casual gamer point of view. Flash based internet games and other less taxing fare, which is almost not worth mentioning from a performance perspective. Of course they worked. In the same vein, PopCap type games like Chuzzle and Plants vs. Zombies work fine as well.
From the hardcore gamer POV (which is usually First Person), the ION is not going to cut it as a dedicated gaming rig for your living room. If you’re the kind of person that asks “Does it play Crysis?” irony free, then you already know this.
Even so, the ION isn’t utter rubbish either. Higher end games are certainly not going to be a joy to behold, but I did install Left 4 Dead, and it was certainly playable albeit at 720p resolution with most of the advanced settings dialed down. It didn’t look as crisp as the Xbox 360 version (or my desktop PC version), but it wasn’t bad either. Certainly acceptable if you want to sit back in the living room and play a few rounds of survival mode.
If you’re interested in high end PC gaming in the living room, the ION 330 isn’t going to cut it, but you probably won’t have to wait too long. Nvidia has already announced the ION 2 platform which will support full Intel Core 2 processors, which should be available around the end of the year, give or take.
Utility Software
The ASRock comes with a couple of pieces of Windows software which some may find essential. One is the overclocking software which will allow you to goose the CPU speed from the default 1.6 GHz up to 2.2GHz. My first couple of attempts didn’t work, but the problems were probably caused by a DUE (Dreaded User Error), as others report no problem with it.
I did, later, enable the one stop overclocking in the ASRock BIOS, which gives you preset options for 1700MHz to 2100MHz. This certainly made L4D perform better, but all my media testing was done on the default 1600MHz (1.6GHz). It’s nice to know there’s an easy option if you feel the system needs a little goose.
The other utility is Instant On, which allows the OS to boot up in times as fast as 4 seconds. When you shut down the system with Instant On running, it deliberately reboots once, then shuts back down. This is a function of the software that allows it to go into ASRock’s special sleep state. I tested it out 5 times, and although I never saw it hit the 4 second mark, it was always faster than 10 seconds (twice at ~5 sec. twice at between 6-7 sec. and once at ~8 sec.) measured by hand with a with a timer.
A special note regarding Instant On is that if you plan on using the ASRock ION with a Windows Home Server, you can’t achieve these speeds unless you enable guest accounts on your server, AND you don’t password protect your ION boot up. Not only is this a bad idea from a security standpoint, but since I’ll be using it as a PVR, it’s really pointless.
I realize most users won’t be using the ION 330 with WHS and a tuner card as PVR, so those running Windows on it should definitely think about installing Instant On.
The Wrap Up
The ASRock ION 330 is a very capable living room computer and outside of not answering the question of recording HD content via an external tuner, makes for a great HTPC. Given it’s small size it’s easy to tuck away in most living room set ups.
Though more expensive than some dedicated video playback devices, it’s cheaper than some others, and certainly much less expensive than most dedicated HTPCs. Having the choice of installing whichever operating system you wants makes the ASRock versatile, especially if you want it to do more than just play videos and music. My only caveat would be to anyone who wants to do serious gaming on it.
Otherwise, the ASRock is a great deal, and the pre-built package is about as cheap as building your own.
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… i think its safe to say VHS isnt makin a comeback you packrat 😉
I know. 🙂 The only reason I’ve held onto it is because I have a couple of tapes I want to capture before being done with it.
Doug, any thoughts on whether YouTube HD would run smoothly after overclocking to 2+ Ghz? Also, did you notice any excess heat or noise when overclocking?
Noise and heat may have went up just a smidge (I didn’t measure other than general observations), but nothing to be concerned about. Even an hour into watching an MKV I didn’t notice much more heat blowing from the fan.
Overclocking helped a LITTLE bit for the HD videos I tried, but I still wouldn’t call it a good experience. In fact, I noticed it actually was a little better if I right clicked on a flash file and turned OFF hardware acceleration. The core problem is with Adobe, but they’re SUPPOSED to fixing the GPU acceleration very shortly. Now that ION and Tegra are starting to crop up in more devices, they’re really seeing the benefits of doing it…
http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1243934217700.html
until that day, I’d say don’t count on smooth HD flv playback.
Doug, thanks for the response. Dang, that’s the only thing holding me back from snatching one of these systems. By chance, do you know what is the baseline Intel processor that would be able to handle HD flash like YouTube? I remember recently trying YouTube HD on a Sony Vaio Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.80 Ghz, and, if I recall correctly, it played without any hitches. How then does the ASRock not cut it?
I’m not sure why the Atom doesn’t cut it. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that it might be a combination of less cache and I don’t believe the Atom has some of the higher level multimedia instruction sets as full fledged Intel and AMD processors.
I was hoping you could give me some advice with the ASRock ION 330. I really am hoping they (2) will do what I need.
The first one will be connected directly to a plasma, primarily for playing AVI’s (typical BT files), DVR-MS, Video_TS and possibly MKV’s in the future (currently ripping with MakeMKV standard settings). I also will add a USB Tuner for live digital TV. Rarely used for music.
The 2nd 330 would be used pretty much for the same use – except it will mainly be playing MKV’s, AVI’s & WTV files. It will be connected to an Onkyo 875 AVR, and Epson TW1000 projector.
In both cases
– I will have it running W7 and plan to use Media Center as the player (if possible)
– They both will usually only be playing back files from the the gigabit network (WHS and other W7 PC’s).
Questions
1) Will I need to use a 3rd party player or will the default 7MC player be able to handle this adequately? I will probably install Sharks W7 codec pack.
2) If I need a 3rd party player, what specifically do you suggest?
3) Sorry if this is a really dumb question…but will it be able to playback AVI, Video_TS, DVR-MS files OK? (there only seems to be talk about BD playback)
I would really appreciate any help/advice you could give me about this.
Thanks
Hey saxnix, I run all my files off of WHS as well, but through a 100Mbps network (since I haven’t felt the need to upgrade my router yet).
I don’t think you’ll need to install a 3rd party player, as I’ve played back all the formats you’ve mention except Video_TS files (and actual BD discs) with no problem.
The only 3rd party player I’ve installed is Boxee, so I can access my online videos like podcasts and the such. I DID play a couple of 720p MKVs on Boxee from my WHS as well, and it worked fine. I highly recommend Boxee, even though it’s still in alpha.
As for adding a USB tuner, I’m not sure which one you plan on getting, but I went for the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1950, which has on-board Mpeg 2 encoding for standard def TV. 7MC had no problem recognizing it and using it to record.
I still haven’t had the chance to try HD recording, since I haven’t set up a proper over the air antenna yet. I’m not sure how the ION 330 would hold up doing that, since HD encoding wouldn’t be handled by the Hauppauge.
Thanks Doug, that is all very reasuring.
I have decided on this tuner – http://www.digitalnow.com.au/product_pages/TinyTwin.html as it seems to be working well with W7 here in Australia. 99.9% of its time will be used on one SD channel so I am hoping all should be ok with it. It will probably be 2 weeks before I take delivery but will report back when it is all set up.
The USB tuner works fine. I got them both set up last night and I am very happy with my 330’s.
Excellent. It’s a great little media center, eh? Try any gaming yet?
Also curious if you tried the overclocking (which you only really need if you’re gonna try gaming). I wouldn’t recommend the Windows utility. It’s better to just enable the overclocking in the BIOS.
No, I haven’t tried the OC yet (I don’t play any games), but was thinking of doing it anyway – I figured it couldn’t hurt??
I have never overclocked in the past, is there any downside to doing it?
I’ll have to take a look into the LAN driver. My first guess would have been the Vista 32bit as well.
My limited tests had no problem, but there’s always a chance that your own processor can’t handle it. It DOES generate more heat.
Try overclocking, then do a google (or bing 🙂 ) search for ‘stress test program’. There are a number that will max out the processor, and see how it runs for an hour or two. If it holds up, then you should be good. If it doesn’t you can always knock back the overclocking a bit and try again.
The BIOS on the ASRock makes it really easy to just pick the speed and give it a go.
Question about WHS. I set one up the way I wanted it and backed it up to the WHS. My plan was to use this backup to set up the 2nd one. After starting the Asrock with the recovery disc insterted – and finally working out where bios was (initially F2 didn’t work – user error no doubt 😉 ), as it didn’t find any network device. That is typical for all other times I have needed to load a backup. The problem I ran into was I couldn’t find the driver for the LAN. The only thing I could find was the Nvidia Vista 20.13 (all in one). This didn’t work (I tried it serveral times on 2 different flash drives – but it was obviously the wrong driver).
I ended up setting up the 2nd on manually (so to speak), but would be keen to do this in the future – as I probably will buy a third one. Also, I am sure at some stage I will want to do a roll back….Any suggestions on where to get the lan driver (win7 x32)?
Hmm… I would have gone with the Vista 32bit driver as well. Could it be a network conflict? Was the backed up ASRock on the network when you did it?
I obviously don’t have a second ION 330 to test this myself, but I’ll see if I can duplicate it on the same machine in the next day or two. Another place where you can find a lot of help on WHS specific stuff is wegotserved.co.uk. They have a great forum there.
I am a dumb-ass. I found them on the Nvidia website (as directed by a user on AVS). I only looked on the Asrock website and it didn’t even occur to me to check out nvidia. So I think I have them now :).
I may have spoken too soon?? The driver just finished downloading and it is an app, not a file structure. Do you know if WHS will accept that?
15.37_nforce_win7_32bit_international_whql
Generally, if it’s the WHQL version, it should work fine. I’ve been on vacation though, so I haven’t had time to do any extra playing around with my setup. Did you give it a whirl?
I received my third 330 yesterday and thought I would give it another go – this time I used the files that WHS says should be used (they are in a folder called Drivers needed for Restore…or something like that when you open a backup). These should have worked but didn’t??
Doug, can you set the box on its side without obstructing airflow or causing any other mechanical issues?
The DVD tray is one of those snap-ins so it should read discs just fine. As for air flow, it’s a front-back design with no side vents, so I don’t see that being an issue either.
The vertical grill to the left of the optical drive is the intake, so there wouldn’t be any airflow issues. After a couple of hours of operation, the sides are warmish, but nowhere near hot (when not overclocked), so you should be good.
Mine sits better in the entertainment unit lying flat, but if I were going to stand it up like a Wii, I’d rotate it so the power button side is towards the bottom, and I’d also consider getting some appropriate stand, or even plastic risers of some sort to prop it up on an angle like a Wii, just in case (plus it would look cooler). 🙂
Hi Doug. Great Review. I’m a bit late with my question but if you see this, can you comment on how well the Media Center UI runs on the ION 330? Is it sluggish at all when navigating through the menus? Also, how does it perform when scrolling through the EPG?
No worries on the lateness. 🙂
As for smoothness, when I’m using the wireless keyboard/mouse navigation it’s as fluid as you expect it to be. I rarely use those though.
99% of the time I’m using my Harmony, which is using the Hauppauge IR codes instead of the standard MCE remote. The WMC UI still runs really well on it, but I do notice that there’s sometimes a brief pause (about one 15th of a second). Sometimes you can ‘get ahead’ of the remote.
Since everything is smooth when using the keyboard/mouse (even the EPG), my guess is that the brief ore to do with the remote interacting with the Hauppauge IR software, which is being sent through the same USB port as the live TV signal, as it’s a little more noticeable than on my desktop PC (which I also use with Media Center with an MCE remote).
I haven’t spent the time tweaking the Harmony or Hauppauge software, because it still performs better than digital satellite and cable boxes I’ve used. 🙂
On a slightly different tangent, my setup is using the tuner with analog cable, with no issues. More recently I helped someone set up an ASRock with the ATI TV Wonder 650 USB tuner, and he wanted to use it with OTA HD instead of cable. I can report that it records OTA HD flawlessly, though to get the OTA HD EPG in Canada, you have to ‘trick’ WMC that you’re in the States, then switch back.
[…] side. It seems they are releasing an update which should fix the flash issues. A quote from this review (a good indepth review btw, geared towards using the ASRock ION 330 as a PVR) […]
[…] too lazy to disconnect my VCR). Although I’ve been happy with my cheaper nettop solution (an ASRock ION 330) for my digital media solution, I have to say that the with the added horsepower of the X3400, […]
[…] the remote. The software is another matter. Although it’s not as slick as a full blown HTPC setup, which I’m using in the living room, it’s about half the price with spectacular codec […]
Finally got a satellite to have Internet at Playa Roca Beach Hotel in Las Penitas-Leon, Nicaragua. We only got cell phone ability less than 3 years ago, had to drive 15 miles over “shitty” roads just to check email. So now how to learn how to get TV on the computer as the local over the air TV stations (all 3 of them) are in Spanish.
We are a small, 7 rooms including dorms in a small Pacific Ocean paradise fishing village, so have $0 dollars for anything even remotely expensive.
We are hosting Thanksgiving for our Peace Corp volunteers in Northern Nicaragua and hope to make it as close to “home” experience with Amerian Football on TV if we can get it.
We have TV and we have slow Internet reception and have a lap top. How to make TV happen, even getting it on lap top monitor would be better than nothing.
http://www.nicaliving.com/node/17414 Basic overview with picture
Learn Spanish “ON THE BEACH!” $45 Ocean Front Suite to a $6 ocean dorm http://www.playaroca.com Nicaragua is the “Survivors” choice of destinations and we need more survivors interested in experiencing paradise for dimes on the dollar. Save more money on vacation than staying at home! http://www.laspenitas.net http://bit.ly/4Ujkk
[…] interface. On the Revo 3700, navigation of the guides was certainly snappier than my personal ASRock ION 330, which has first generation Atom and ION hardware. With an always-on machine, you can also share […]
Hi to the author,
Not sure if you’re still checking your blog, but I have questions. I have the ION 330 BD with bluray, upgraded my RAM to 2gb, and also inserted a 2nd HD. I also got another cheap $20 media remote, b/c the delivered remote just sucked. It lagged and would not work from even 5 feet or beyond.
Anyways, I’m experiencing the following:
1. sometimes out of hibernate, the windows media center seems to lag and hang. I get a black screen and I have to grab my keyboard to do the dreaded control-alt-delete to close and reopen.
2.. generally there seems to be lag when WMC is running. There is about a 1 to 1.5 second delay and once you run it some more, it gets faster, but the lag comes back once in awhile. do you get this problem?
I’m thinking about selling this thing just b/c of the lag issues.
I tried using boxee, but I don’t like the social features. I tried using XMBC which seems faster, but I don’t like the non-intuitive menu/settings structure.
WMC is simple, works, but laggy. Ugh. Any ideas on how I can improve this?
3. Sometimes, even when the ION is on standby, the fan starts blowing really loud. The unit itself is on a shelf below the TV, so I’m not sure what’s causing it to suddenly start. It’s after it’s been on standby for awhile. It’s a random thing.
Hey, thanks for replying.
Here’s how mine is set up…
I upgraded my system to 4GB (shipped with 2GB) and am running Windows Home Premium 64 bit. I noticed you said you had 2GB of RAM. Are you running 32 or 64 bit Windows? Are you overclocking your ION 330? There’s a built in simple overclocking feature in the BIOS that lets you bump it up to 2.1GHz. This is different than the Windows utility for overclocking, which I don’t use.
I also added a Hauppauge HVR-1950 TV tuner so it can function as a PVR and gives me IR control in one unit. I never put the system in hibernate/sleep, nor do I use that ASRock Quick Boot utility. This also allows me to access my home media from work or anywhere I’m logged into Windows 7 by using the built in media sharing feature of Windows Media Player (which doesn’t need to be running to operate).
I also don’t have the BD version, so I’m not sure if there would be any differences in system overhead. If you go to the Windows desktop, with WMC minimized and not playing anything, try adding the system widget that displays memory and CPU usage. At idle, what kind of usage are you seeing? Also, if you play back video with WMC in a window on the desktop, what kind of usage do you see?
The only additional codecs I’ve added to my system are DivX for video, and AC3 filter for audio, and I haven’t run into any problems with it yet, except for the occasional HD video not pausing. I have to stop the video, but once I resume, skipping forward and back works. It only seems to happen with HD video, and only about 1 in 5 times.
Do you have other programs actually running in the background when using WMC? For example, is Boxee always on in the background? There’s a script that allows you to launch Boxee directly from the WMC interface, and when you quit Boxee it returns to WMC.
There’s also a program called Media Center Studio, which allows you to add just about any program to the Extras section of Windows 7 Media Center. Although the below tutorial is aimed at Zune, it can be done with just about any program. Of course, depending on the type of remote, you may have to do custom key mapping on a per-app basis.
http://www.simplehelp.net/2011/02/15/how-to-access-zune-desktop-player-from-windows-7-media-center/
Although I haven’t installed this yet, the principle is the same, in that you launch a YouTube viewer, Zune, Boxee or whatever else from WMC, and when you quit that program, it shuts down and goes back to WMC.
The only time I’ve noticed lag in navigation is when I launch the 3rd party add-on from http://www.mediabrowser.tv/ but it’s only half a second at most, and the features it adds to the experience is worth it.
I hope some of this helps. Let me know.
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