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Installation issues / Please can someone help me with some installation issues?

« on: October 05, 2007, 04:46:37 pm »

Please can someone help me with some installation issues?

I have been using Windows MCE 2005 since it was released and have been unhappy with it since I first installed it.  I have been using and supporting Windows since the late 80’s and tried to work through it, but even now it is still crashing once a day-ish.  However, I did not know of any alternatives until a friend pointed me at LinuxMCE about a month ago.  I watched the installation video and was amazed!  I downloaded the DVD because, not being proficient with Linux, I thought this was preferable to the CD’s.  After all, I believe Media Centers should be consumer boxes.

The initial installation went OK and I selected UI2 in the video section, when the installation finished I got the error 'Orbiter failed to setup the transparency' and had absolutely no idea where to start!  After about 30 minutes trawling this Forum, it seemed to be something to do the wrong video drivers or resolution.  I set the video back to the minimum and then watched the nice lady as she talked me through the configuration.  Only to discover I could not watch TV, with no indication of what was wrong.  I though it might be something to do with video setup again and managed to find my way to the KDE desktop and system settings to change the video driver.  Being unsure of what drivers supported which chip sets, I selected the ones I thought were the nearest, clicked ‘Test’ and that was the end of that.  I had to power cycle only to get the corrupted display back.

Then I attempted my second install.  This time I accepted the low quality video and thought I would try and get the TV working.  After finding my way to the MythTV setup and the back out to the KDE desktop and the MythTV backend setup, I discovered my TV card was not detected!  Oh joy!  After finding something about Conexant cx88 chip sets not being automatically detected, I started poking around.  I think I got the driver loaded but still could not watch TV.

Then I gave up.  So far I have spent about 8 hours spread over 3 days and I am fed up.  The videos looked so promising.

Please can someone help me with these configuration issues?

This is a list of the hardware I intend to use…

MCEPC01
Motherboard   Gigabyte GA-MA69VM-S2 (AMD 690V)
CPU               AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz
RAM               Corsair TwinX 1GB DDR-2 PC6400 c5
Graphics   onboard (ATI Radeon X1200)
Graphics   Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T MCE
DVDR               Sony DWD22
HDD               Western Digital 250GB WD2500JS (SATA2)
HDD               Gigabyte I-RAM GC-Ramdisk (4GB) (SATA2)
VFD              SilverStone MFP51B (OEM iMon VFD + remote)

MCEPC02
Motherboard   AOpen XC Cube EY855 (Intel i855GME + ICH4M)
CPU               P4M 1.6GHz
RAM               Corsair TwinX 1GB DDR PC2700
Graphics   Gigabyte N55128D-P 128MB FX5500
Graphics   Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T MCE
HDD               Maxtor 160GB (PATA/133)
VFD               SilverStone FP54B (parallel interface)

MCEPC03
Motherboard   Gigabyte GA-M55S-S3 (NVIDIA nForce 550)
CPU               AMD Athlon64 X2 5000+ 2.6GHz
RAM               Corsair TwinX 2GB DDR-2 PC6400 c4
Graphics   Gigabyte GV-NX76T256HI-RH 256MB 7600 PCIE
Graphics   Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T 500 MCE
DVDR               Sony AWG170AB
HDD               Western Digital 250GB WD2500JS (SATA2)

MCEPC04
Motherboard   Jetway J7F2WE2G (C7 2.0GHz (VIA CN400/VT8237RP))
RAM               Corsair 1GB DDR2 PC4200 c4
Graphics   onboard (VIA UniChrome Pro AGP + MPEG-2/MPEG-4)
Graphics   Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T MCE
SSD               Samsung 8GB MC8DE08G5APP-0XA
HDD               Maxtor 160GB (PATA/133)
SSD               4GB CF

This could be some long term but I am prepared to give it a go if you are!

Thanks in advance,

Colin.