New Haswell core i3 build

[spanner]

just finished a new HTPC Cable card build and thought I would post how it went

System parts

1. Intel Core i3-4130 Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 54W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4400 BX80646I34130
2. ASUS H87M-PRO LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 uATX Intel Motherboard
3. 2 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model BLS8G3D1609DS1S00
4.  SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
5.  SILVERSTONE Black Aluminum / Steel ML04B Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
6. ASUS Black Blu-ray Drive SATA Model BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS - OEM
7.  Western Digital WD Green WD20EZRX 2TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

First off the build went very smooth it booted right up recognized the SSD and I installed win 7 ultimate 64 bit. After doing all the updates I moved my Infinitv 4 into the new build from my old computer. I installed the ceton infinitv installer and ran the digital cable advisor tool in WMC. Then went to run tv setup

First glitch: try as I might the guide info would not download until I corrected the system date and time. My Bad.

Playready installed but doing its update during setup continued to fail. After finding help here and other places I found I needed to delete and reinstall windows DRM

Finished setup and went to live tv and found that video would play for about one minute with an odd audio loop on all channels ending with a video file format error message. Again with help online I found that the device audio properties in windows needs to be set at stereo and set to 5.1 in WMC.
Now all channels including premium are playing without error messages.

The 29/59 frame rate bug. It showed up as I new it might from mixed reviews of the Haswell chip (also was an issue with my old build). The flickering screen, unwatchable on some channels was fixed by turning off the dynamic contrast setting in the intel control panel.

Total media theater 6 and powerdvd 10 are playing my blu-ray disks and rips perfectly with the appropriate loss-less audio over HDMI

Installed all five extenders and so far very pleased with performance playback and picture Quality

[holidayboy]

Nice I'm trying really hard to find a way to justify a new build myself! Shiny shiny.

[milli260876]

Me too.. Was hoping for more power saving from the haswell chips tho....

[milli260876]

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i5/I ... 4670T.html

had my eye on this for a while £180 tho.. Ouch!!

[CBRworm]

Do your menus scroll smoothly - like recorded TV lists?

I recently built a Haswell based Win7 HTPC using an i5-4570s. This was to replace an i5-750 w/ ATI HD6670. The main reason for the upgrade was to save power. The old system idled in WMC at over 130 watts, the new one is less than 80. Both are with the same 3 hard drives. A 4Tb Hitachi 7K4000, a 3TB Hitachi 7K3000 and a Micron C300 128GB os drive.

The old system performed perfectly for years. The new one, scrolling is slow through the menus - particularly recorded TV (I have over 1,000 shows recorded, so the list is long). Instead of scrolling side to side smoothly, it stumbles and jerks. CPU utilization remains low, iGPU clock speeds remain in the middle of the range. I suspect there is something that needs to be optimized - I don't know if it is a power saving feature, maybe I have too high of a C-state enabled? It is a fresh install with only the built in CODECs and the proper drivers for the ASUS Z87 board, but just for a sanity check I put the old image in temporarily and loaded the req'd drivers and had the same issue. I also tried putting in a 4770 to see if it performed any better, it was the same. CPU utilization, even with a couple extenders and 3 shows recording is less than 25% most of the time.

Have you run into anything like that? Has anyone done any optimizations for Haswell iGPU solutions?

The other problem I am running into with the new build is that occasionally (once a week or so) the IR receiver stops working - most frequently while fast-forwarding. The receiver LED still lights up, but I have to unplug and reconnect it to get it to accept IR commands. My wife finds this particularly annoying. She does not like having to use a keyboard to watch TV.

I must say, I enjoy the significantly lower heat output of the new system.

[spanner]

Do your menus scroll smoothly - like recorded TV lists?

I recently built a Haswell based Win7 HTPC using an i5-4570s. This was to replace an i5-750 w/ ATI HD6670. The main reason for the upgrade was to save power. The old system idled in WMC at over 130 watts, the new one is less than 80. Both are with the same 3 hard drives. A 4Tb Hitachi 7K4000, a 3TB Hitachi 7K3000 and a Micron C300 128GB os drive.

The old system performed perfectly for years. The new one, scrolling is slow through the menus - particularly recorded TV (I have over 1,000 shows recorded, so the list is long). Instead of scrolling side to side smoothly, it stumbles and jerks. CPU utilization remains low, iGPU clock speeds remain in the middle of the range. I suspect there is something that needs to be optimized - I don't know if it is a power saving feature, maybe I have too high of a C-state enabled? It is a fresh install with only the built in CODECs and the proper drivers for the ASUS Z87 board, but just for a sanity check I put the old image in temporarily and loaded the req'd drivers and had the same issue. I also tried putting in a 4770 to see if it performed any better, it was the same. CPU utilization, even with a couple extenders and 3 shows recording is less than 25% most of the time.

Have you run into anything like that? Has anyone done any optimizations for Haswell iGPU solutions?

The other problem I am running into with the new build is that occasionally (once a week or so) the IR receiver stops working - most frequently while fast-forwarding. The receiver LED still lights up, but I have to unplug and reconnect it to get it to accept IR commands. My wife finds this particularly annoying. She does not like having to use a keyboard to watch TV.

I must say, I enjoy the significantly lower heat output of the new system.

I have been using mine about 4 days now, and will keep a watch for those issues. I have not noticed the scrolling problem in recorded TV, but i have less than 10 recordings and usually delete most shows after watching. I do have thousands of mp3 and pictures and those all scroll very smoothly and load remarkably quick compared to my old build. So far audio, picture quality, scrolling have been great, but 4 days is not much of a test. My remote IR works great, but i do have a IR keyboard that has had to be reconnected several times now.

[Shackleford]

I have noticed some lag on my menu with my i3 4130t. I don't have a ton of stuff but it doesn't always do it either. Might be driver related.