Sapphire HD2400XT for Media Center use, need help!

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 17 Jan 2008, 00:50

Hi everyone.

I recently built a BD / HD DVD HTPC with the following specs:

- Shuttle XPC SN68PTG6 Deluxe (with 300w PSU).
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ (2.8GHz).
- Seagate 500GB SATA HDD.
- LG GGW-H20L BD / HD DVD optical drive.
- 2x 1GB Corsair DDR2 PC6400 800MHz.
- Hauppauge Nova-T-500 DVB Tuner.

I got it all set up & working (eventually, after a tiff with AHCI settings) & everything was fine apart from BD / HD DVD playback, while pretty good, wasn't perfectly smooth, especially in action scenes. I decided it would be a good idea to get a dedicated graphics card with hardware VC-1 & AVC acceleration. I figured this would ease the load on the CPU leaving it free to do other things...

So I ordered a Sapphire ATi-based HD2400XT based on great reviews & the following requirements:

- PCI-E.
- Single slot.
- Fanless so it would be silent.
- Powerful enough to accelerate HD playback.
- Cool running temperature so as not to create too much heat in a small Shuttle XPC case.
- HDMI output with audio.

Since the Shuttle motherboard is based on an nVidia chipset, I uninstalled the VGA driver & also ran driver cleaner software (which never seemed to complete its task - it just sat there so eventually I just closed the application).

I then switched from onboard video to PCI-E video in the BIOS & turned off the PC. I installed the ATi card & turned the PC back on. Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit) detected the new card & I installed the latest ATi Catalyst driver - v.7.12.

I put my Fantastic Four BD (encoded in MPEG2) into the drive & Power DVD Ultra loaded to play the disc. The disc played fine. Great!

Then I tried my Spider-Man trilogy BDs & every one of them started breaking up into pixels (similar to a weak Freeview signal) & often flashing into full-screen green pixelation. Not so great.

I tried my Jason Bourne trilogy HD DVDs & they gave the same results. I fiddled with loads of setttings in both Catalyst Control Center & Power DVD Ultra & nothing made any difference.

Thinking it was a dodgy install of the graphics drivers, & uninstalled & reinstalled them, rebooting where necessary. This did not cure the problem, so I figured it must have been a conflict with remnants of the nVidia driver & so I wiped the HDD & started Vista installation again.

After doing all this, BD & HD DVD playback was then EVEN WORSE than it was before - it would just lock up & started giving me error messages. I would get Vista telling me the desktop has changed to the Basic setting instead of Aero.

I would also get an error message stating that the display driver had stopped responding but recovered successfully every couple of minutes or so.

I've also started getting graphical glitches on the Windows desktop in the form of green lines & also DVD playback gives white specs popping up all over the screen.

I was better off with the built-in graphics!

The Sapphire HD2400XT runs extremely hot - I can't touch it after about 30 minutes of up-time. But at the moment I'm running the system without the lid on! That can't be right. Its just running way too hot for proper use.

I remember reading that if a graphics card is not getting enough power, it will generate too much heat as it tries to do its workload. I don't really see how that can logically happen, as if its not getting enough power, how could it overheat?

But anyway, the required spec for the Sapphire HD2400XT is a 300w PSU. I'm running a 300w PSU in this Shuttle XPC & I have no option to upgrade to a faster PSU so that is out of the question.

I'm thinking that either the HD2400XT card is faulty or it is not sucking enough juice from the PSU due to the other hardware in use. I can't understand why it is getting so hot when most of the reviews I've read have stated that the card runs pretty cool. I mean, the heatsink on it is MASSIVE!

What do you guys think? Faulty card? PSU not enough to cope with it? Any suggestions for another card which would work?

Shuttle's support list states that they've had ATi HD3850 & nVidia 6800 cards running in my system, so why should a HD2400XT not be pulling enough power?

I'm baffled by this & frankly quite annoyed. I don't know if its just a driver issue or faulty / incompatible hardware.

Anybody else come across these issues?

For now I've taken the card out & reinstalled Windows again to use my onboard graphics card, which isn't really acceptable because HD playback isn't perfect & thats the whole reason I built this HTPC!

EDIT: I've just noticed there are new Catalyst v.8.1 drivers available as of today. I guess I'll be reinstalling the card & trying them tomorrow...

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 17 Jan 2008, 04:19

Driver cleaner software does work. Both Driver Cleaner.net Professional and Driver Sweeper have a built-in log viewer, remember to view that next time.

BTW You should only run driver cleaners when booted into safe mode.

I have no real experience with media PCs, sorry. Could you please try running a taxing modern 3D game on the system, like FEAR? If you get artefacting, that it'll be an over-heating problem.

EDIT:
Well-coded games don't need to be installed. Just copy over the game's directory from your gaming PC and run it. Eg FEAR will run, as long as you're using a cracked EXE (to remove the CD check DRM).

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 17 Jan 2008, 13:05

I tried Driver Cleaner Pro & I did view the log but it just stopped after it cleaned a couple of registry entries. It didn't give any sort of message to say it had finished or anything.

I did also run it in Safe Mode.

I could run something taxing on it yeah. Crysis taxing enough? LOL. I've got FEAR, I'll put that on. I'm not bothered about installing it because I'll only be wiping the system again at some point.

(Thank god I split the HDD into 2 partitions & kept my media on the 400GB partition!)

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 17 Jan 2008, 13:11

Possibly a faulty card but GPU acceleration is worthless anyway, no point in it if your CPU can handle things.

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 17 Jan 2008, 13:13

The CPU can't handle BD & HD DVD perfectly smoothly & despite Shuttle saying the onboard HDMI is HDCP, it isn't.

I've got no choice but to use a separate GPU & it is NOT worthless - hardware inverse telecine, 3:2 pulldown, de-interlacing, etc, is far better than anything software decoding can do.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 17 Jan 2008, 18:06

Wrong, ffdshow + AviSynth filters is the only way to go for DVD on HTPC's. All the GPU stuff is inconsistent and poor in comparison. With newer drivers they're starting to do reasonably in HQV and the like but when faced with real material it's another story.
Overall HTPC's are really losing it now, even with lots of tweaking they cannot compare to current players and displays. Were it not for the joy of softsubs I'd use my PS3 as my source pretty much all of the time.

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 17 Jan 2008, 22:25

DVD? Who said anything about DVD? I'm playing BD & HD DVD on this HTPC. And I wish everyone would stop trying to shovel the PS3 down my throat - I don't want one! Bottom line is, they can't be made multi-region, therefore, a PS3 is useless to me!

That is why I have gone the HTPC route.

Oh, and its definitely the card overheating which caused the problems - I stuck a 12" desk fan next to it & within about 30 seconds all the artefacting had disappeared!

So the card is going back to E-Buyer...

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 17 Jan 2008, 23:29

You mentioned IVTC and deinterlacing which are only relevant to DVD.

How are the rest of your temps? You might have to look at an aftermarket cooler unless the card is actually faulty.

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 18 Jan 2008, 13:47

An aftermarket cooler isn't possible because it won't fit in the Shuttle case. My motherboard & CPU are both running around 35 to 40 degrees so thats not a problem.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 19 Jan 2008, 01:27

FFS Just get a card with some decent air cooling, like one with a Zalman cooler (VF series) fitted. You'll lose a single PCI-E x1 or PCI slot but big fucking deal, you'll likely never use that slot anyway. Zalman are known for their quiet air cooling solutions. A little noise never hurt anyone, just turn up the volume on your stereo.

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 19 Jan 2008, 13:01

FFS before you post, REALIZE that I've already said I can't "lose a single PCI slot" because I don't have one to lose! I can't fit a 2-slot graphics card in my case. There physically isn't enough room in the case for it. FULL STOP.

As for the noise, what about the times the machine will come on from sleep to record something in the night when I'm asleep? I don't want the damn thing waking me up. THAT IS WHY I WANT IT AS SILENT AS POSSIBLE.

EvaUnit02, you need to stop getting on your high horse with people all the time. You're no better than the rest of us you know.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 19 Jan 2008, 14:17

Sorry I don't know IM but this forum is pretty good:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/