tigerwoodKhorns Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 I have an HT server built on Windows Media Center 2005. I love the interface and remote, but it is sluggish. I have a Pentium 4 2.8 with 2 gigs of ram. This thing should run like a champ. I know that my video is not compatibel with the OS, but will that drain my resources? I can add a video card for $50 but I want to make sure that I am fixing teh actual problem. Anyone out there experienced with this OS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 >I love the interface and remote, but it is sluggish. O Lord. This is the wrong place, but I'll state MHO anyway. It's Microsoft. By definition a virus. Fills up your hard drive, gradually slows down your system, then causes it to crash. You have no idea how much I hate these people. They've held computing to where we were in 1990 and I'll be dead before we get out of it. I have 8gb RAM and a CPU with the inherent capability to compute the 9 billion names of God in about 5 minutes, and Bill Gates OS brings it to a standstill just bringing up a network directory. Please, take it to HT or anywhere... Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 Have you tried tweaking the operating system. If you search tweaking or optimizing Windows OS you should find some help. First of all do you have two hardrives? The faster the better. One for OS and one for Data usually helps and move the page file to your data drive. If you try another video card get one with lots of ram. I doubt that its responsible for slowing your system down that bad. If you can't resolve these issues consider using Linux as a media system. There are some free options available but does require RTFM. Linux custom Kernels do have their strengths over Windows monolithic kernels. Don't forget my favorite : ) Mac OS pick up a mini mac and a terabyte exteranal stoarge and you got it made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich_Guy Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 Actually upgrading your video card is probably a very good idea and will most likely make a considerable difference. You most likely are using an AGP card, I would recommend a Nvidia 7600 GS video card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 The 7600 comes in 256MB and 512MB. I'd get the 512 if your going that route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wallflower Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 Format the hard drive and re-install the OS.....[] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted July 14, 2008 Author Share Posted July 14, 2008 I played around with Task Manager and teh CPU goes to 80 to 100% when it has a video load. I think I need a card. I found this list of compatable cards (old list):ATI Mobility RADEON 9800 ATI RADEON 9800 Series ATI RADEON X800 Series ATI Mobility RADEON X700 NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 NVIDIA GeForce FX5700 NVIDIA GeForce FX5750 NVIDIA GeForce 6600 NVIDIA GeForce 6800My motherboard has an AGP 8X slot open and a 32 bit PCI slot open. I want to use a card that has no fan to keep it quiet. I don't care about gaming, I just want a music server, I want the card to run cool and I want the computer to run smoothly. What do I need to buy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich_Guy Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 This looks like a good choice http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3053805&CatId=318 Also this would be a lower budget minimum card that should work for you http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3569995&CatId=318 How many watts is your power supply? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donkeyshins Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 This looks like a good choice http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3053805&CatId=318 Also this would be a lower budget minimum card that should work for you http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3569995&CatId=318 How many watts is your power supply? Unfortunately, the 6200 is rather underpowered for MCE2005 (I was a beta tester on it). I'd go for a ATI 2600XT (I'm a little leery of the HD3xxx series in AGP) like this one which should give you more than enough "oomph" as well as HDCP/HDMI compatability should your TV support it. Although, to be honest, if you can afford the $300 or so to do a system upgrade, you'd be better off building a new system with an integrated graphics solution (e.g. Athlon or Phenom on AMD 780G chipset or Core2Duo on Intel G45 chipset when it releases in August) built on a 65nm or even 45nm process - you'll use less power and have a fuller feature set / more processing & rendering power than a P4 2.8 (which is at least 4 if not 6 years old depending on whether it is Northwood or Prescott). And general MS and Vista hatred that runs rampant on the interweb aside, Vista is the bomb for Media Center - a huge improvement over MCE2005. Yes, I'm typing this on a Vista machine right now. If you do decide to upgrade your system instead of getting a video card, as long as you have 2+ GB of RAM, you should be fine with Vista Home Premium which does have MCE included. If you do decide to go Linux per some users' suggestions, the user friendly variety is Ubuntu (I believe they're on Hardy Heron and Intrepid Ibex is set to RTM/RTW in October). Not as easy to use as XP if you aren't familiar with Linux CMD shell, but it is probably the 'best baked' for home use. I play around with it every once in a while to keep on my toes. -D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 Maybe I misspoke. I thought this was about HT. If you are speaking music server only, then I am guilty of speaking about it at length here over the years. I won't go into my plans for the next gen version, but at the moment I am still running a 5 year old fanless Via Epia MB with XP. No moving parts but the HDD. Sound card is Card Deluxe and I use the onboard graphics. Whole thing is dead silent and, since I don't load it with anything not required to play music, runs just fine considering the POS OS we are stuck with. As to Media Center, I can't see that it has anything you cannot get via WinAmp or other OEM player except even more Microsoft kludges. For this app, I'd go back to 98SE in it's compact mode of 100mb if so much of the code were not too obsolete to work anymore. All one needs here is a disc operating system, graphics, sound, and perhaps network drivers. What we need the other 900mb of gewgaws and garbage for eludes me. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 I played around with Task Manager and teh CPU goes to 80 to 100% when it has a video load. I think I need a card. I found this list of compatable cards (old list):ATI Mobility RADEON 9800 ATI RADEON 9800 Series ATI RADEON X800 Series ATI Mobility RADEON X700 NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 NVIDIA GeForce FX5700 NVIDIA GeForce FX5750 NVIDIA GeForce 6600 NVIDIA GeForce 6800My motherboard has an AGP 8X slot open and a 32 bit PCI slot open. I want to use a card that has no fan to keep it quiet. I don't care about gaming, I just want a music server, I want the card to run cool and I want the computer to run smoothly. What do I need to buy? Speed of loading video can be a combination harddisk speed, ram, and video ram. There is a synergy at work here. With one week link performance is degraded. You say you just want a music server but what do you mean about "video load"? Please clarify...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 For this app, I'd go back to 98SE in it's compact mode of 100mb if so much of the code were not too obsolete to work anymore. All one needs here is a disc operating system, graphics, sound, and perhaps network drivers. What we need the other 900mb of gewgaws and garbage for eludes me. Been there done that....98 totally sucks as a music server. As far as memory....it's dirt cheap - certainly not something an engineer would ever complain about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 I did some research into Windows Media Center 2005. It seems slow loading viedo is mentioned in just about every review of WMC. It seems the nature of the beast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted July 14, 2008 Author Share Posted July 14, 2008 Speed of loading video can be a combination harddisk speed, ram, and video ram. There is a synergy at work here. With one week link performance is degraded. You say you just want a music server but what do you mean about "video load"? Please clarify...... I built this computer a few years ago and never used it, I don't want to upgrade because a music server shoudl be an easy application, its just streaming music. I like the interface that Media Center 2005 has. It has a remote control and onscreen it loads album covers. You scroll through the covers and choose your music. Whenever I go to a sceen that has a bunch of covers the computer jumps to about 80 to 100% CPU usage. I can also use a bunch of resources just grabbing the Task Manager window and moving it back and forth quickly, it leaves trails and the CPU usage jumps up very high. When I just use Media Player the computer does OK, it just has trouble with Media Player. Media Player also warns me that my video card is not compatible. I want as little card as possible for two reasons, cheap and I don't want a fast card that will generate too much heat, I want to stick with fanless. The 6200 is not certified (see above). I think that a 6600 or 6800 should work. Can I get by with 128 or 256 memory? It seems hard to find cards that have 512. I also read up on the AGP 8X slot. That seems to be what I need as it is faster than the PCI slot. I am worried about using a card with a fan. Are they quiet or should I avoid them? I can't find a faster card without a fan for the AGP slot. This card has a fan and is on the list: Nvidia 6600 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1642902&CatId=318 Something like this does not have a fan but it may not have enough memory: Nvidia 5200 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=588461&body=REVIEWS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fenderbender Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 Quick question....is all of your media and your op sys, programs on the same drive??? as your media fragments on the drive and it gets over 1/ 2 way full..it takes time to find all of the pieces. Even on my macbook pro..4gigs off ram...it will grind to a halt if I kept my media on the internal drive....all media is kept on an external just a thought after everything else is said and done and checked out....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 For this app, I'd go back to 98SE in it's compact mode of 100mb if so much of the code were not too obsolete to work anymore. All one needs here is a disc operating system, graphics, sound, and perhaps network drivers. What we need the other 900mb of gewgaws and garbage for eludes me. Been there done that....98 totally sucks as a music server. As far as memory....it's dirt cheap - certainly not something an engineer would ever complain about. Won't argue over your experience as that is absurd, and I would not waste time defending ANY Microsoft product. However, your statement about cheap memory makes zero sense. You are suggesting that, since memory is cheap, let's just write gigabytes of OS overhead nobody needs so we all get our money's worth for the ghz processors required just for the OS to run? Many years ago programmers prided themselves on writeing efficienct code that executed quickly. MANY years ago... Crikey, Mike, I did not think you capable of such a statement. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 Speed of loading video can be a combination harddisk speed, ram, and video ram. There is a synergy at work here. With one week link performance is degraded. You say you just want a music server but what do you mean about "video load"? Please clarify...... I built this computer a few years ago and never used it, I don't want to upgrade because a music server shoudl be an easy application, its just streaming music. I like the interface that Media Center 2005 has. It has a remote control and onscreen it loads album covers. You scroll through the covers and choose your music. Whenever I go to a sceen that has a bunch of covers the computer jumps to about 80 to 100% CPU usage. I can also use a bunch of resources just grabbing the Task Manager window and moving it back and forth quickly, it leaves trails and the CPU usage jumps up very high. When I just use Media Player the computer does OK, it just has trouble with Media Player. Media Player also warns me that my video card is not compatible. I want as little card as possible for two reasons, cheap and I don't want a fast card that will generate too much heat, I want to stick with fanless. The 6200 is not certified (see above). I think that a 6600 or 6800 should work. Can I get by with 128 or 256 memory? It seems hard to find cards that have 512. I also read up on the AGP 8X slot. That seems to be what I need as it is faster than the PCI slot. I am worried about using a card with a fan. Are they quiet or should I avoid them? I can't find a faster card without a fan for the AGP slot. This card has a fan and is on the list: Nvidia 6600 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1642902&CatId=318 Something like this does not have a fan but it may not have enough memory: Nvidia 5200 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=588461&body=REVIEWS What is your computers memory usage at peak as well? Have you tried to lowering your video resolution settings to see if the problem goes away? Set it as low as possible. I do agree with you that this computer should make a good media server. As I asked before Do you have two hardrives? One for system and one for data? If not you would see an increase in performance by using this configuration. Also move the page file to the data drive and turn off the page file on your OS C:\ drive. 256MB should be enough video ram. How much do you have now? I always overload on video ram and ram. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted July 14, 2008 Author Share Posted July 14, 2008 What is your computers memory usage at peak as well? Have you tried to lowering your video resolution settings to see if the problem goes away? Set it as low as possible. I do agree with you that this computer should make a good media server. As I asked before Do you have two hardrives? One for system and one for data? If not you would see an increase in performance by using this configuration. Also move the page file to the data drive and turn off the page file on your OS C:\ drive. 256MB should be enough video ram. How much do you have now? I always overload on video ram and ram. I am using the video on the motherboard. I'm sure that it is not that great. I have two hard drives but don't have the OS on one and the music on another. I did create partitions when I installed the OS. I should also mention that they are ATA and not SATA drives. Will the 5200 card run cooler than the 6600? The only video that I plan on using is on onscreen interface. I just want a music server. This machine is a few years old and if I ever go to use it as a full HTPC I will probably just build a better machine, so I don't necessairly want to get a card that is beyond what I need it for. I also want to avoid a fan because I don't want the noise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 What is your computers memory usage at peak as well? Have you tried to lowering your video resolution settings to see if the problem goes away? Set it as low as possible. I do agree with you that this computer should make a good media server. As I asked before Do you have two hardrives? One for system and one for data? If not you would see an increase in performance by using this configuration. Also move the page file to the data drive and turn off the page file on your OS C:\ drive. 256MB should be enough video ram. How much do you have now? I always overload on video ram and ram. I am using the video on the motherboard. I'm sure that it is not that great. I have two hard drives but don't have the OS on one and the music on another. I did create partitions when I installed the OS. I should also mention that they are ATA and not SATA drives. Will the 5200 card run cooler than the 6600? The only video that I plan on using is on onscreen interface. I just want a music server. This machine is a few years old and if I ever go to use it as a full HTPC I will probably just build a better machine, so I don't necessairly want to get a card that is beyond what I need it for. I also want to avoid a fan because I don't want the noise. On board video is generally not the best route to go. I do not know which will run cooler. Go for the 256mb card as I am sure it is better than what was offered on board several years ago 32mb perhaps. If it were my machine I would reformat and start over by installing the OS on your smallest drive and using your larger drive for data. Partitioning may help but remember it is the same drive and seek time does suffer. It may look like two drives but it ain't. Trust me I have set up many a MSSQL database server and this scenerio does help with performance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 Of course, it seems like everyone's milage varies, but I am using onboard video with an 800mhz processor and performance is fine. I can play 24/96 audio from my remote server without a hitch. I certainly would try to play video or do anything processor intensive...but it IS a music server. I am at a loss as to why video would impact audio. I've built a lot of audio workstations, recorders, and music servers and I've needed more processor power/RAM at times for editing, but video refresh has never been an issue. I certainly agree about separate drives. I keep ANYTHING I care about as far from Microsoft as possible. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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