New XPC faults....need a little advice.

Post by **Sharp** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:39 pm

Hi all.

I have an uneasy feeling about a XPC kit I returned for a replacement, and I was just wondering what do you think of this.

There where two problems with the kit, the first being one of the DDR memory modules they sent me was faulty. When I turned on the PC I could see all sorts of red blocks on the screen. This I've seen before so I knew it was the RAM and so I put in 2 chips from my Studio PC just to get the XPC up and running.

Ok, that worked and I could now boot the XPC.

Installed Vista 64 with no problems and I could really feel the performance of the quad code CPU. At this point I thought I was home and dry... that is until I loaded up Nero8 HD in order to test DVD and Blu-Ray Video Playback.

With the default settings in Nero DVD playback was jerky. So I remembered there was an option within the program to use the Hardware Acceleration of the video card, so I enabled it.

My heart then sank as DVD playback was now riddled with digital distortion, large green bands and blocks. Trying Blu-Ray video was even worse. No matter what I did I could not get around this problem. Even tried different drivers.

I then loaded up my favourite Matrix screensaver and the performance of that was ridiculous.

So my conclusion was end the end that the on-board graphics was faulty. Would you agree ?.

I'm only worried because I have a replacement XPC on the way and I just don't know why but I have a bad feeling it's going to be the same.

Regards.
Sharp.

JonSolo · Post by **JonSolo** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:04 am

I would agree that the onboard video is at fault but I did not know that there was onboard video capable of cleanly decoding Blu-Ray. I have a 3rd party Nvidia in all three of my desktops and my laptop to be able to run Blu-Ray.

Jon

[edit- of course that would depend on what is built into your XPC]

Post by **Sharp** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 8:45 am

Thanks Jon.
I was just doubting myself because the PC performed normally and didn't crash. It was only when I needed the Hardware Acceleration of the graphics card did I get problems.

I would agree that the onboard video is at fault but I did not know that there was onboard video capable of cleanly decoding Blu-Ray.

Yeah, it's got the Intel G33/G31 Chip and it's supposed to support Blu-Ray with HDCP. I plan on using this as a HTPC, so I really need to have the video very smooth on it.

Regards.
Sharp.

RVNOak · Post by **RVNOak** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:55 pm

This is a total shot in the dark but it has happened on three out of five laptops I owned. Could it be that just the video card got hot? Especially Nvidia cards (and again I have only seen this behaviour on laptops). If there was a faulty fan or something. That's the best I can think of.

X-Trade · Post by **X-Trade** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 4:17 pm

i've seen jerky DVD playback before on my new laptop. seems to happen at resolutions over 1024x768, so maybe its just not optimised that way.
what resolution were you running at?

Post by **Sharp** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 8:10 pm

That's why I'm a little worried. I've read all the hype before for products only to find that they don't perform as advertised.

I was running at 1920X1080 (1080p) and really nothing else will be acceptable.

Here's a link to the G33 set.
http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/G33/index.htm

According to that, it supports full uncompressed 1080p HD.
How well it supports is my worry.

Regards.
Sharp.