New Motherboard

[tremble]

Ok im currently in the look for a new motherboard for my HTPC. I've just bought myself a new Silverstone LC04 (http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc04.htm) case(and I'll say what a ncie box!!) and the motherboard im using at the moment won't fit(its one out of a Soltek qbic). The case pretty much restricts me to a MicroATX board if im wanting to use both the AGP and the PCI slot.

Im planning on buying an LCD tv sometime after christmas so im doing things in mind with that. I will need to use the two available slots on the back of the box for a graphics card and my DVB card which means im pretty much relying on the board having atleast 6 channel audio. How does it work with the audio outputs using the standard audip im/out and mic plugs, I tried to set this up using my current board but couldnt get it working properly and wasn't sure if it was possible through linux.

Can you guys make any suggestions to a decent enough board thats not too expensive. Im using a socket 478 Pentium processor.

Nick

[kempez815]

The Abit IC7 is one of the best 478 boards. OC's very noice too :)

[tremble]

Thanks but because of the position of the AGP slot in that board it isn't much use to me. The very first slot is blank and the AGP slot is actually positioned in the second slot which means I would only be able to use the AGP slot.

[tremble]

How do ASRock fare with regards to motherboards. I've seen them about but never had any experience with them so I don't really know. reason I'm asking is I've seen this (http://www.asrock.com/product/product_939NF4G-SATA2.htm) motherboard and it looks pretty good to me. Only one I've seen with 8 channel sound. the PCie is much more practical on this board, most of the micro ATX boards have the 1X PCIe slot as the second one which aint much good if you have a normal PCI card for your TV card.

[Xantho Nyx]

I had an asrock mobo for a wile cost me £20 new did the job wasnt great but lasted a year befor i sold the rig was for the older amd prosessers tho

worth the buy if ur not going to OC or dnt want the best from ur games but for watching movies and good price

never had any problems with it eather

[tremble]

Actually now that I've done a little more looking into the Amp that im thinking about buying, the number of sound channels the motherboard has is irrelivent. What im more interested in is a digital output. So that ASRock board wouldn't be of much use to me.

I was looking at the ASUS P4P800-VM, it seems to be one of the few Micro ATX boards that has a S/PDIF out header on it. How dificult do you thing it would be to mod the back of the case to fit one of these (http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_5557.html). I'de take it off thwe PCI bracket and mount it to the back some how. Any ideas or other suggestions as to a motherboard??

[zealot]

I was looking at the ASUS P4P800-VM, it seems to be one of the few Micro ATX boards that has a S/PDIF out header on it. How dificult do you thing it would be to mod the back of the case to fit one of these (http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_5557.html). I'de take it off thwe PCI bracket and mount it to the back some how. Any ideas or other suggestions as to a motherboard??
Hope you know that the chip set is rubbish at outputting Dolby digital avoid at all cost if using WMCE. It seems to output PCM instead of Dolby or DTS and then you have timing issue sound not insync with picture you also get motion judder all can be avoided if you use a separate sound card.

[tremble]

Thanks for the advice Zealot. Im not using WMCE, rather im using MythTV, are the problems still the same?? The problem is that the case only allows two cards to be used, one being my TV card, the other being the Graohics card. So unless there is a way to avoin using the graphics card yet still have an output for my LCD tv then I don't really have the option of a sound card.

[zealot]

Not sure about other software it may work I just don't know.
The thing about the drivers they haven't been updated since 2002 :eek:
you can get round the problem its just very long winded for me a USB sound card works a whole lot better.

[tremble]

Think I may have found a solution. At the same time of setting up my HTPC with my new hardware Im also going to be setting up my file server...also running under linux. The solution would be to put my tv card in that and have it running the backend. That would free up as slot on my HTPC for a sound card, I could just fire in my Audigy 2 from my main righ at the moment and could use the onboard sound till after christmas when I plan to switch over to a socket 939 and PCIe motherboard.

You guys think that would be practical, running the myth backend on my fileserver?? Means my HTPC would be pretty minimal, all I would really have running on it was myth frontend.

[stdRaichu]

You guys think that would be practical, running the myth backend on my fileserver?? Means my HTPC would be pretty minimal, all I would really have running on it was myth frontend.

Will work better than any other setup, since the captured TV streams won't be clogging up your network as they get streamed over to the file server. If you do have seperate backend and frontends, it's always best to keep the TV cards as close to the HDD's as possible. Alot of Myth users don't even bother putting hard drives in their frontends, since they're not really needed to boot an OS which can be stored anywhere.