Dead motherboard - thoughts on ASRock replacement?

[wodger]

My NPVR's motherboard gave up tonight after months of overheating (and neglect). Had a bit of a look around and found this combo. Maybe I'll buy the kit from trademe or maybe I'll get the parts separately from somewhere like Paradigm PCs.

Currently everything is in the garage under the lounge floor so fan noise isn't an issue (but evidently heat can be .. and it seems I didn't have enough fans - I got five years out of the kit though and it was about 3-4 years old when I got it). Thinking I might end up putting the system in a nice black HTPC case (to match my receiver) under the telly someday.

Wondered what you good folk thought of this hardware? One thing that appeals to me about it is the HDMI out, apparently including audio. My signature is out of date, I now have a 55" samsung LED telly with HDMI, obviously.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing....=698343458

Very fast upgrade kit at an awesome price with latest Haswell Gen4 Pentium G3220 CPU, Asrock H81M motherboard with Crossfire support, SATA3, 4 x USB3, and HDMI output together with 4gb DDR3 1600mhz ram


GST invoice is provided

1 year RTB warranty

Intel Haswell Gen4 Pentium G3220 CPU
3.0ghz x 2, 3mb cache, 22nm
Very fast latest model cpu with built in HD graphics
Comes with heatsink and fan


4gb DDR3 1600mhz High Performance Ram


Asrock H81M Socket 1150 Motherboard


The most high-end H81 mATX that supports 2 front USB 3.0 ports, CrossFireX™ and Home Cloud

*A-Style : Home Cloud
*Supports 4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 / i5 / i3 / Xeon® / Pentium® / Celeron® in LGA1150 Package
*100% All Solid Capacitor design
*4 Power Phase Design
*Supports Dual Channel DDR3 1600
*2 x PCIe 2.0 x16, 2 x PCI
*Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™ and CrossFireX™
*Multi VGA Output Options : D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI
*Qualcomm Atheros Gigabit LAN
*7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec)
*2 x SATA3, 2 x SATA2, 4 x USB 3.0 (2 Front, 2 Rear). 8 x USB 2.0
*Supports A-Tuning, XFast 555, Easy Driver Installer, FAN-Tastic Tuning, USB Key

[Graham]

I have

http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-...27&dl=1#ov

with built in AMD graphics. I use HDMI to drive a television.

I was never able to get the AMD HDMI to send a signal to the TV when the system woke after a sleep. I downloaded assorted programs that were supposed to fix the problem by re-initialising the HDMI (or whatever) but could never get a good result.

I now have a Nvidia graphics card to drive the TV.

I just googled "amd hdmi wake no signal" (without the quotes) and the Internet has something to say about it.

[bgowland]

My NPVR's motherboard gave up tonight after months of overheating (and neglect).

Are you sure it's the mobo and not the PSU?

[mikeh49]

There is some pretty good info on hardware here, at least in my opinion:

http://assassinhtpcblog.com/hardwareguide/

You're proposed system is in the V10 sportscar category of the guide.

[lsu jonno]

If I was building a mid-powered HTPC today I'd go with this guy:

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-DN2820FYKH-C...1998669-20

Drop 2-4 GB of RAM in it and the cheapest SSD I could find and be out for $200-$230 or so.

[wodger]

Are you sure it's the mobo and not the PSU?

Yeah, I have a power supply tester and it tests fine. I think the mobo was a bit fragile anyway as the system has been randomly rebooting for weeks. I thought it was the psu but now i think heat was the cause.

And now i think I might have damaged something unplugging the power supply as the mobo seemed fine, then I unplugged everything to test the PSU, plugged it back in and the system wouldn't power up.

I'll get it all down and test it more thoroughly before I go much further. However I have the wife's permission to replace it and get a decent htpc case. So ... What would you do

[wodger]

I have

http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-...27&dl=1#ov

with built in AMD graphics. I use HDMI to drive a television.

I was never able to get the AMD HDMI to send a signal to the TV when the system woke after a sleep. I downloaded assorted programs that were supposed to fix the problem by re-initialising the HDMI (or whatever) but could never get a good result.

I now have a Nvidia graphics card to drive the TV.

I just googled "amd hdmi wake no signal" (without the quotes) and the Internet has something to say about it.

Good to know. I have a pci-e graphics card I can use. Hopefully won't have to.

[wodger]

There is some pretty good info on hardware here, at least in my opinion:

http://assassinhtpcblog.com/hardwareguide/

You're proposed system is in the V10 sportscar category of the guide.

I just can't believe how cheap everything is now. <$100 each for mobo and CPU. Crazy.

Thanks for the link BTW. Very helpful.

[wodger]

If I was building a mid-powered HTPC today I'd go with this guy:

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-DN2820FYKH-C...1998669-20

Drop 2-4 GB of RAM in it and the cheapest SSD I could find and be out for $200-$230 or so.

I need to be able to reuse my PCI tuners and add an extra hard drive or two in the future. Plus I see the word celeron and I shudder!

[stustunz]

Get the most efficient CPU/ less heat plus the price of power in NZ with the pc going 24/7 it's worth the little extra you might pay