Just wanted to say thanks to those who helped me out with answering my questions in regard to building an HTPC. I spent alot of the past weeks going back and forth whether I should spend the money and build a setup or not. Well I bit the bullet today and I am up and running using my new HTPC on my Samsung 50" DLP. Below is what I ended up going with for my setup and so far I have no regrets.

-M2A-VM ASUS MoBo DVI (saved like $15 over the HDMI version since it was on sale)
-AMD 4400+ 2.3ghz processor
-Samsung S202J Multilayer DVD writer
-WD 500GB SATA2 Hard Drive
-Antec NSK2480 case
-Logitech Wireless keyboard and Mouse
-Belkin CAT6 RJ45 cable
-Monster Cable DVI400 DVI cable (on sale)
-Crucial Rendition 1gig DDR2-667 x 2

Everything is great so far, just getting everything updated and adding the programs and stuff I need for the computer. I am running Windows XP Pro and plan to use Mediaportal as my interface.

My only gripe right now is that even on low the fans on the case are somewhat audible so any info on how I can fix this would be appreciated. I thought they were controlled by the Mobo for when to kick on but guess not.

Right now I am using 1152 x 648 @ 60Hz and it has less than an inch on the sides and top of black and the bottom is pretty much dead on. I want to run it at 1260 x 768 @ 60hz but when I do that the bottom is overscanned a bit and I cant find a way in the Catalyst control center to fix this. Any advice on getting over/underscan to a minimum is appreciated.

All in all it took me maybe 3 hours to build the computer and then another few to get the software setup right. Not knowing too much about partitions I setup windows iniatially on a 3gig partition thinking the rest of the HD would be visible but thats not the case. So i did a fresh install on the rest of the HD but cant seem to remove the small 3gig partition and in the storage management section it has it listed as the main partition and I cant figure out how to remove or change this.

For $600 I couldnt be happier with my setup.

Great news and thanks for posting your success story. It's always great to hear positive things!

For the fan noise, are you using the rubber grommet things to attach the fans to the case? Those really help on reducing the transmitted vibrations. Also, remove the grill if you haven't already done so.

It's been a long time since I used the CCC but I thought there was a way to "bump" up the size of the visible area using zoom arrows when you are defining a custom resolution.

IF you Sammy has the same inputs as Mine I would seriously consider using the VGA Input instead of the DVI input, use the PC input source selection, The VGA input supports 720P direct off the video card, I tried both methods when I set mine up & this route was the most trouble free.
At a 1280X720 HDTV Resolution and the Picture quality is virtually identical to using the DVI input on the VGA PC port at least you would be hard pressed to see any differance, this eliminates any overscanning issues, you do lose about 1" around the perimeter of the screen using this method but it eliminates a lot of issues. Set up your video card using the catalyst drivers to run in HDTV mode 720p Forced @ 60Hz and this will eliminate any overscanning issues you may be experiencing, its just the simplest method to use with most Sammy Dlp's, and it works great. Congrates on the successful build completion.
AS far as fan noise antec fans are usually very good niose wise, but you might want to consider switching the up the fans to High and then using a couple of Zalman Fanmate fan controllers Around $7 bucks each to more precisely control the fan speeds & noise level.

- can you run it at 1260 x 768 @ 60hz and then control overscan using your television controls (might require using the service menu, and doing so in some cases voids the warranty)
- during the xp install there is a point where you are prompted to create and choose the file type of your partitions (fat or ntfs). You can press D and delete the partitions you select and create a new on in their place.

Cant find anything in CCC for DVI to adjust the zoom or location of the display. Its not a huge issue but if I could get it to be almost exact I would definitely like to.

I was considering using VGA but none of the Canada Computer stores around me had any VGA cables in stock and I didnt want to pay like $30 at Futureshop for one. I guess either way I will be stuck with a little underscanning unless I use powerstrip with a custom setting I guess?

Now that the case is in place I actually cant even hear the fans so I guess its not a big deal, they seem to be fine and the stats look pretty good. Says CPU is at 27-31 degrees celcius and MB is steady at 31 degrees which I am guessing is ok?

When I redid the XP install I tried to delete the original partition but it said it could not for some reason. Under my disk management it lists the first wrong partition I made as (System) and the second partition I did the second XP install on as (Boot).

Stealth1,

The case should work the same as the 2400 case. Inside the case there are wires coming from each fan which control the speed. Low, Med, High.

You may be running in High which is probably not needed. I run in Med. and I have read a lot of people run Low.

I know you can adjust the overscan and underscan but you may need to apply a HDTV format. One of the tabs has 1280x720, 1920x1080i and 1920x1080p. If you choose all three, options will show up below for which mode to chose and at what frame rate. Once you choose one you can then adjust the screen resolution for over/under scan. It then saves it as a new format resolution and you just apply it.

The Fans are set at low, they arent audible now...was just noticeable before because it was a bit closer when I was setting everything up.

In terms of the over/underscan I only have the 720p checked off because thats the native resolution of the display. But even when you do that it only offers up 4 options, 2 being 1080i and 2 being 720p. The 720p ones are 1280x720 @60hZ and the other is like 1154 x 720 @60hz or something close to that. the 1280 one overscans and the 1154 is pretty close but not perfect. I dont see anywhere that I can adjust it other than the preset options given to me in CCC. I was hoping I could adjust it by 1 point increments until I got it perfect but I guess I cant. I have CCC 7.10

On a side not I cannot get ASUS update to connect to the FTP to update the BIOS, also when I try downloading it from the site it never works. Any info on this?

I doubt the HDMI board is different than the regualr board.

Maybe this explains it better as someone else did it after reading it.

post (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=565431&postcount=62)

If you still have problems I will do it again over the weekend and let you know.

Congrats Stealth1 on the HTPC build! Sounds like a nice rig!

In my setup when I go into CCC advanced view. One of the options is for a DFP, digital flat panel. A sub item are the HDTV attributes( I am not sitting in front of my settings so othis is as best I can remember)

Set "Use centered timings" in CCC

Open CCC (Catalyst Control Center) and enter the Advanced mode.

Under "Digital Panel Properties-Attributes-Image Scaling" select "Use centered timings" and click Apply.

While still in CCC under "Digital Panel Properties-HDTV Support" under "Predefined and Custom HDTV formats" select "720p60 standard" and click "Apply Format". This will switch to 720p mode.

Than after you apply format you should get a a full screen white panel with the ability to shrink expand the screen. both width and hight. once you get the viewable image just to fit your screen you can save that and and then apply that. Then that custom resolution will selectable and you can use that.

Let us know how you make out!

Ok I totaly misunderstood what you were saying, thanks for the help. I see you need to be set under standard and then you can add a custom resolution. Did that and its pretty good but my issue now is that the image isnt centered on the screen. The left side of the desktop is at the edge of the screen but the right side of the desktop is about 1/2" away (black border). Top to bottom the top of the desktop is 1" away from the edge of the screen but the bottom is right at the edge perfect. Any idea how I can possibly fix this. Is there any options for moving the screen around to get it centered?

Hi Stealth1 , Did you set the "USE CENTER TIMINGS" from my previous post?

I just did some reading on your TV. I did not realize that it is as "old" as it is.

As a curiosity, did the ASUS board you got come with component video out? If it did, for the fun of it, you may want to see if you can get the component out to co-operate with your TV better than the DVI.

I tried the component out of the M2A-VM HDMI and it really, really sucks.

I second trying the VGA port...last thing you want is an incorrect aspect ratio.

I use VGA and gave up on the DVI -> HDMI route of this board, and believe it or not, it was underscanning and out of range for any adjustment (1024x768 plasma). It displayed properly @ 1920x2080 to a 1080p panel however, but I got hiccups with HD content at this resolution.

I did set the center timings thing but it didnt do anything that I can see. I think the board only has DVI and VGA, I didnt go with the HDMI one. If I can get my hands on a cheap VGA cable I will try it out and see what happens. My tv has an option for "wide TV" or "Wide PC" When set to wide PC the display is more centered but I cant seem to get the adjustments to make it any bigger. When i go to say 1280 x 768 @ 60hz the desktop becomes much smaller but when its set at 1280 x 720 its about 1" off all around. I set it to 1920 x 1080 @ 30hz and it overscanned in Wide PC which I couldnt figure out how to get that to work. Does adjusting the refresh rate affect over/underscanning at all?

From what I saw regular VGA is meant for 800 x 600 resolution and there is different cables for higher resolution, is this true in this case?

From what I saw regular VGA is meant for 800 x 600 resolution and there is different cables for higher resolution, is this true in this case?

Saying VGA is sorta like saying Skidoo. The current VGA standards go all the way up into the stratosphere for resolutions. There is no "special" cable for higher resolutions on VGA.

Unfortunately, it is starting to look like the money you saved on the version of board is about to be spent on something else. I would suggest getting a demo copy of Powerstrip and see if that lets you fine tune a bit better. If that does not work, then I would suggest a Gigabyte Silentpipe series 8600 GT. It would guarantee zero performance issues during playback and the NVidia drivers are much more tunable than the ATI ones.

The other option, of course, would be to buy a new TV. :D I assume that idea is not in the stars. :p

Hi stealth1, A few more things to try.

I use a DVI to hdmi cable to my TV. The video card is DVI out.
IN the ATTRIBUTES under you DTV

The image scaling you used CENTERED TIMINGS
But... Did you UNCHECK the SCALE IMAGE to the FULL PANEL SIZE?
You should do that as well.

Also under your DTV in CCC is there a SCALING OPTIONS?
Please ensure that you do not check the box to use the scaling options


Good luck

Honestly I have the resolution setup to a point now where I the minor underscanning doesn't bother me that much. I havent had any playback issues so far so im happy as it is. If I do end up running into issues with playback then definitely i will look into a seperate video card but dont think I need it yet. I will try out the powerstrip demo and see what I can get from playing with that. Obviously I would love to have it dead on but the less than 1" underscanning right now isnt worth another $100+. If I cant get closer with powerstrip then I will see about getting a VGA cable and seeing how that works out.

Anyone have insight into whether setting the TV to Wide PC will help at all?


For Image Scaling you can only have full panel size or centered timings, when you check one the other becomes unchecked. I dont remember a scaling option but I will check when I get back to play with it some more. I did some tweaking of the setup and got it a little closer than before but not perfect yet.

Thanks for all the help everyone, I really appreciate the input you have all offered me.

On a side note Mediaportal so far is pretty good but it is very very finicky and isnt really as seamless as I was hoping it would be. Like going from a windowed view to fullscreen takes way to long and if your watching an .iso/.img file it resets the file. Also the controls kinda suck using the keyboard so im going to have to look into a remote if the add-on for that is any good. I have found MP has crashed or locked up way too many times for me but as it is I dont feel like spending $130 on MCE2005 right now.

but when its set at 1280 x 720 its about 1" off all around.

That is the way it is supposed to be on the PC wide input stealth, you
will have approximately a 1" border all the way around the Display but it shouldn't be overscanning, or underscanning on that setting within the display area, that's the way the Sammy PC input looks when running correctly. If you switch it at That setting into TV wide it will overscan slightly
but fill the display.