I dear say I never had issues with MS Updates in years on a various number of systems and various windows flavours. Rather, I had several issues due to updates not being installed. So, while I would try to reassure you on Win Updates, I am not going to question your fear that MS updates may break some of the system components, obviously our personal experiences may vary and generate different opinions.

Having said that: do SageTV or SlimCenter (I don't know them at all) use DirecX in some way? Or .NET? Or do they make any call to the OS DLLs or other OS components? I assume so. Then, should SageTV fail again, I suggest that you actually consider to run SageTV after another full (manual) system update.
On the same token: did you update video drivers and audio drivers? Drivers are the source of most windows system crashes.

SageTV is written in Java and some C I believe. It uses DirectX for video as well as BDA drivers for capture devices. SlimCenter is written in Perl and only touches minimal parts of the system.

I don't update drivers either. Everything was configured when the system was set up and that's it. Nothing should break when nothing is changed. If a new requirement is published for either Sage or Slim, then I evaluate and install the required component and any dependencies. None of the updates in the past year have required any system updates.

For me, this system is essentially an appliance, not a general purpose computer. Like running a DVD player or VCR. Something I don't want to update unless I absolutely have to.

Back a few years ago I can trace specifically my system troubles to the automatic Windows updates. The system became worse and worse until finally very unstable, strictly because of the updates that were put up by MS. I have no clue what part of them caused the issues as it was probably a combination and the way they were applied. But as I said, 99% of what's updated by MS has nothing to do with the requirements for the two programs I need to run 24/7 on that machine, so I don't risk installing them.

When I convert the system to a pure server (no video output) I will scale back some of the services as well, in addition to some of the eye candy features of the explorer UI. Unless of course I switch it all over to Linux when final/stable drivers are available for the new hardware I want to get.

Hmmm.. Charging a subscription ("service") to keep someone's OTA connection up and running. Interesting...

I will gladly get rid of my analogue cable, but I think I'll still need to hop on satellite since there's a lot of content that just isn't broadcast OTA. Depending on how the OTA experiments turn out however, it can hopefully affect which sat programming package I get. At least in theory. It totally depends on how Bell bundles/groups their channel offering.

Looks like I'm setting up a new system sooner rather than later. This afternoon my ASUS mobo kicked the bucket. As far as I can tell anyway.

My wife plugged a USB keyboard into the system which brought it down - display stayed up but it was definitely hung. No power to the USB ports as the keyboard would light up nor would the mouse.

I turned the system off at the power supply, waited a bit, turned it back on and then pressed the power button to boot it up. No display, just a voice error message (some ASUS boards have this) telling me that "System fail CPU test"

Tried unplugging all cards, memory and CPU and reseating everything. No luck. Tried a different CPU and same error. Tried a different video card. Same same.

That took maybe 30 to 45 minutes and was all the time I was going to spend.

The first unfortunate part is now I have to spend about CAD$400 on a CPU, mobo, ram and a $50 video card (need to get a plain PCI card as all I have right now are AGP boards). The biggest unfortunate part however is having to reinstall Windows. which is probably going to take the rest of the night if not half the day or longer tomorrow.

This is what I'm about to pick up in an hour or two:

Palit 128MB NVIDIA FX5200 video card (need the S-VIDEO right now) ($50)
Intel Core2Duo 2.66GHz (part E7300 socket LGA775, 1066Mhz FSB) ($155)
Asrock P43Twins1600 (Intel P43/ICH10) ($98)
Crucial Ballistix 2x 1GB DDR2 1066Mhz memory ($66)

No you don't need to spend so much time on this, follow the directions on this site and everything should just work. I used this method of installing starting with a P3 motherboard and upgrading the motherboard 4 times.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm#RI

It only failed because I decided I was going to try and get my network adapters to be numbered 1 and 2 instead of 13 and 14.

I probably should have waited until the morning to start putting this together.

Right now I've got the board in the case, the CPU and RAM installed and the PCI video card plugged in. PS connectors are also plugged in. System won't turn on at all. The CPU fan spun about 20 degrees at one point but that's it

Now I'll need to remove the mobo to make sure there isn't a short somewhere. Apart from that I can't think of anything else at the moment. Have tried two different ATX power supplies, both known to be working.

I'm impatient... Tested some thing a minute ago.

Removed mobo from case and sat it on anti-stat bag. Without any cards in, one of my PS will allow the CPU fan to spin up and stay spun up. The PS I was just using in this same case however will not spin up the fan.

If I put the PCI gfx card in, then neither PS will make the CPU fan spin. I've tried every PCI slot (there are only 3).

The issue right now is definitely the PCI gfx card - the mobo installed in the case wasn't shorted and it spins up fine with my two PCI TV tuner cards installed.

I tested the gfx card in my Shuttle system and it worked fine - system booted while outputting video.

What a hassle. I don't have a car during the day so I can't even go back to the store until the evening - at which point I'm stuck working on this at night again.

You shouldn't do that. Most antistatic bags are conductive.

It's not actually on a bag, but rather the anti-stat foam that came on the back of the mobo.

I just checked the power supply that wasn't doing anything with this mobo by shorting pins 14 and 15 (with nothing else connected to it) and it powers up.

So now it looks like I have a working mobo, 2 working PS (only one of which will power up the mobo) and a working video card that caused the mobo not to work. Arrrgh.

Same again. Some types of antistatic foam are conductive. The device has to be completely enclosed in a sealed bag or have all its connections shorted together to protect it. Putting the board on the foam/bag isn't doing anything helpful.

You might have a bios support issue with the motherboard. Check the cpu support list on the website for the motherboard maker. They usually say in a newer version of a bios is needed to make a cpu work. Also try doing a CMOS clear as the system could be set to boot video from something other than PCI.

Oh you could also have a video card voltage issue. Newer motherboards only work with 3.3 volt PCI devices.

PCI slots are keyed to prevent physical insertion of an incompatible voltage card. Non-issue.

Thanks for the feedback. tman, the bag (which I'm not using under the mobo) and foam are non-conductive.

The CPU support list claims that all BIOS revs of this mobo support my CPU (E7300 Wolfdale, 2.66 "Core 2 Duo")

I have so much stuff to do today that I'm starting to get overwhelmed. I need to leave this until I can visit the store again and have them test it all on their bench until they find a setup that works and I can leave with a functional set of parts.

Hmm. Yeah. Take it back to the store. Thats a very strange combination of problems.

Sigh, living in a big country has many advantages, one of them the number of TV stations. Here in Zagreb only stations with national coverage transmit OTA digital - a grand total of four...

So I took everything back and waited there while some tech tested this and that. To make a rather long story shorter, here are the highlights:

When then first connected it up, it worked fine and he was telling me there was no problem. He used a PS he had behind the counter for testing. He told me I needed a new power supply because even though the mobo claims it works with 20-pin ATX, I really needed a 24-pin.

Ok, I bought a new PS on the spot (430W Thermaltake) and told him I'd like to test it with that PS before leaving the store.

It didn't work. Same problem as my own PS. Fan on CPU won't spin up and neither will PS.

tested with his PS again and it was still working that way. His PS was a 460W older Thermaltake.

Next he tells me perhaps the components in the one I'd just bought aren't high enough quality. Goes and gets a 400W Crucial. Same story, won't work. he tried different combos of ram, etc... Finally tried a different mobo. But a completely different make/model. Doh.

In the end I took an ASUS P5-something-or-other mobo instead which has built-in video (less one PCI and one PCIe slot), and returned the graphics card. The new mobo was almost $30 cheaper than the previous one and the eVGA gfx card was about $69. That offset the $50 PS I had just bought and put a bit more money back in my pocket.

The only drawback to this setup is that until my SageTV extender comes in, I can't connect the computer to my TV. It has VGA out but the TV I'm using right now only has DVI, Component, S-Video and Composite. If the extender ends up with a long shipping time I'm going to have to borrow a PCIe card from one of my friends at AMD or something. For now I have a 20" monitor sitting on the coffee table in front of the TV.

The tip of doing a Repair Install for Windows worked beautifully. I simply had to delete a few ATI drivers and software after it was completed and then install all the drivers for the new components on the Mobo (chipset, VGA, LAN, audio).

I still have one unknown device listed but so far regardless of what I've found by Googling I can't for the life of me get it recognized. I don't even know what it is. I'll post about it later because I trust the info in here to a much greater degree.

That biz with the PSUs is bizarre.. what brand of motherboard was the original (failing) one again -- ASRock ?

For DVI-D out from the ASUS mobo -- if the new mobo has integrated Intel video, then one can get/use a tiny little PCIe card that has a single onboard chip and a DVI-D output. Uses practically no power -- just provides a DVI-D connector for the integrated Intel video.

But it does take up a PCIe slot.

EDIT: the search terms for this kind of adapter are ADD2 and SVDO.

Cheers

Here is an example of one of these cards. The one I have here is half that size (nearly all of the card is dead space regardless).

The repair install is really nice.

As for your unknown device try downloading Unknown Devices from http://www.halfdone.com/Development/UnknownDevices/ it should tell you what the device is.

The program didn't find the device, but did list a string to help me find out what it is.

ATK0110 ACPI Utility

I put the CD that came with the mobo into the CD drive and ran the Intel INF Update which apparently updated something so that device is no longer unrecognized. When I first set up the system I had misplaced the CD and thought it had stayed at the store, so I downloaded all the software updates from ASUS' site. Evidently, whatever they have up on the site is missing something to cover this one item.

Its some Asus specific chip that does the monitoring. Install whatever software they use to do hardware monitoring. It should be in there.

ATK = Asus Tech I guess.

I had a similar device on my Abit board and installing the monitoring software also installed the driver.

Bruno (and everyone else),

I stumbled across a keyboard recommendation for HTPC systems, and now that I've filled my own Christmas stocking, here's the scoop!

CAD$23 keyboard w/integrated touchpad mouse, no drivers required.
Wireless, of couse, with a tiny USB dongle and 30'+ range.

Walk-in and pick-up in South-Eastern Ontario and the lower BC mainland; otherwise order online with reasonable shipping costs ($7 within Canada).

-ml

That looks like a great HTPC keyboard. When I get mine back up and running, though, I'm probably going the separate keyboard and mouse route. Granted, it's not very convenient on a couch, and it's two things to keep track of, but I just hate trackpads with a passion.

I'm looking at this one for a keyboard. Again, not very practical for touch-typing, but for typing out a few words or a couple sentences at a time, it's okay with me.

I came across this one the other day. Also quite small, and it includes a trackpad (sorry, Matt, but your dislike of trackpads is freakish) and a protective cover.

Okay, yeah, it's like six times as expensive....

Trackpad > TrackPoint (tm) style pointer

I found this one was under my tree last year. The circular track pad seems odd, until you learn that continuous scrolling, horizontal and vertical, is done by circling the perimeter of the pad. Wither it goes horiz. of vert. depends on the start point of the circling motion.

I would have been happy with that playstation kbd but didn't find any confirmation, of it working problem free, when used with a PC.

Circuit City is much more expensive.

Ya, that still sounds bizarre as hell if you're talking about using a track pad to move a mouse cursor. If you're scrolling a list or page, I can see how that interface would be fine though.

I'm waiting now for my Sage HD Theater to be delivered, which I'll use connected to my TV and let my media server do what it does best, record and serve.

The only times I ever need a keyboard right now are after having done a remote login to the media machine. Getting it to output to the TV requires clicking the login ID and typing my password again. Now I won't even ever have to do that. The video output of the media computer can stay fixed to the remote connection when I need it.

Heh, yeah.. they don't exactly advertise it!

The combo board I'm recommending works perfectly without any special drivers or anything. The only quirk (for others, not me) is that it has no "windows keys". Rather, those two positions in the keyboard matrix have duplicates of the two mouse buttons.

Cheers

I knew I shouldn't have gotten an ASUS mobo. Every single one I've ever had has been a total pile of crap.

Last night, for the first time since I set up this new system, SageTV crashed on me. It didn't bring down the system. WHen I restarted however, Windows went to a blue screen (I don't know if it did it while booting or while shutting down because I wasn't at the display).

Restarting Windows (XP SP2) in SAFE mode brought the system up. Then I shut down, turned off the power and rebooted. System came up as it should and there were no errors in any of the system event logs.

Today I noticed the system wasn't on the network. I go downstairs and see that it's in a restart loop that always stops saying Windows didn't boot properly. No matter what option I pick, including safe mode without networking, the system just blanks the screen and restarts.

Booting from the Windows XP (SP2) DVD produces a "STOP 0x000000A5" error as detailed here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314830

The error says that my BIOS is not ACPI compliant and that I can boot and press F7 to omit installing support for ACPI or that I should update the BIOS from the manufacturer.

The first parameter on the error is "11" and this is what that page says about it:



This is why people are willing to spend extra on a Mac. Shit like this just doesn't happen.

So now I'm about to go look for a BIOS update that for some reason was not required for every boot of the system since last December. No new hardware and no new software has been installed recently.

Macs never have a hardware fault or get corrupted? I'm impressed.

Go check your memory.