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On 2006-06-08 20:53, mrenne wrote:


I wasn't going to try and "unpack" the drivers (expect maybe the NIC and Intel drivers)  I was thinking of just dropping on the EXEs, etc. and call them out one by one.  This way I'd have 'em in one spot in case Sony drops them in the future. 

I will be looking at Vista and the Vista advisor claims only the RAID driver is an issue.  I'm guessing Intel will have a new driver or the current driver may work as well.  Now that I've got the RAID thing figured out I could do the dual boot if I had another hard drive.  Looks like one would slip in fairly easy if I can figure out all the cages and how they come out.


I don't have any idea on the changer cataloging command or what ports it may need for your firewall.  I am behind a router with lots of switches but did not have to open anything up.  There was a option for downloading information in the MCE setup, but that's all I did.

My very first DVD (the day I got the machine) got stuck and would not eject.  I had to take the changer apart to get it out.  Sony was not much help as you have experienced.  I had so many problems with the changer ... I've been scared of it.  It has been flawless since the plain MCE install.


I'm glad you're using nVidia's decoder.  I've been thinking about buying it.  I really like their other stuff.  I may take advantage of their trial version to test it against WINDVD.  Also, I believe there are some additional functions they provide in MCE from the driver, but have not figured those out yet.  I don't know if they come separate from the drivers.

I'd like a dual-tuner card (don't know why I need one -- I do have a dual tuner DVR 6412 from Comcast our cable folks) and maybe over the air HDTV.  I'm thinking more memory as well.

I'm hooked up via HDMI, are you?  Have not tried the component side since Sony "claimed" it only ran at 480p.  I said I was surpised they didn't have a VGA out for diagnosis and they said "We wouldn't go back to old stuff like that".  I said VGA would beat 480p, she didn't sound amused.  They also suggested all the rebooting and crashing was probably caused by my TV and I might want to replace it.  I have a Panasonic 60" LCD (which is basically a big laptop screen) and I was impressed to find out it was not rebooting computers.  Clever monitor for sure.

I am enjoying the box for the first time.  I must say it is very, very quiet.  Not to mention stylin'.

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mrenne,

That would be a good idea for the drivers, and like you said they would at least be on the DVD for future installs.  But it would be even sweeter to incorporate them so the installs and reboots would not be necessary.

I am sure that I will be loading some Vista too when it comes out.  I have played with the beta and from the descriptions of the MCE one it sounds very cool.  I always enjoy being the first one on the new OS's.

I had found the ports before doing a Google but where I fail is creating the Rule that ISA needs to let the traffic through.  I am just not that ISA friendly.  I have a Vonage account that has not worked for over a year now because I cannot get the ports opened up correctly.  So I just have it forward to my cell phone.

I never had a problem with the changer but did have one with the DVD on the MCE itself.  The disk would not insert very easily and even harder to get out.  I found that the drive was lower than the slot that the disk has to go thru.  I had to take it apart and align them.

I am happy with the NVIDIA decoder, the reason that I think I like it the best is I don't like installing extra software, IE: Sony style, if I have something that works, such as Windows Media Player with JUST a codec, I am all over it.  The performance of it is very good as well.  It gets pretty high regards over on the HTPC News Forum.  That is a pretty informative site for HTPC's but not many have the DLS.  They are more into building their own.  Which I had thought about until I found this one.  Did you have to use the Sony main board drivers for the onboard sound and the HiDef audio driver, or did you find something else?  Because I am not real happy with the drivers.  I am hooked up via SPDIF and my Sony STR-DA9000ES will not auto sense the changes.  My old MCE had better drivers that when I changed a DVD to DTS, my receiver would auto sense and change to DTS.  It seems as if the HiDef driver is the culprit.  When you change it to AC3 it locks the signal at that and will not change it.  My receiver picks it up as 5.1 and that is it.

I too have the Dual Tuner DVR 6412 from Comcast, that being my cable company as well.  I currently do not have the cable going to my MCE, it was way too buggy before with the Sony build.  I might try it again now that it seems that it is working a WHOLE lot better.

I am not hooked up via HDMI because my receiver will not play nicely with it.  I had posted my problem here in a different forum and did not get much of a response.  I was not real happy about it because that is one of the reasons I bought the receiver that I did to only have ONE cable going to my InFocus ScreenPlay 61" not two.

Hell yeah, I guess I can finally throw away the box that it came in away.  I kept threatening to send the POS back.  I am soo glad that we were able to get this done!!!  It is a good looking unit and I didn't really want to get rid of it.  I was putting it through some tests last night and was very pleased.  Not one crash.  I mean changing between DVDs while watching one, have the DVD running and start music, worked just fine.

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hardRESET

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On 2006-07-27 02:02, econ0003 wrote:
It is possible to disable RAID and bypass using the RAID driver. There is a setting in the BIOS setup utility that allows you to do this. I can't remember if this setting is visible to the customer though.

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On 2006-07-31 15:54, econ0003 wrote:
If you want to view advanced settings in BIOS, google "oemdmi". First link should be zip download with oemdmi.exe.

Boot to DOS and run 'oemdmi.exe /ds', and write down the serial number (you will need to write it back when you are done changing advanced settings).

Then run 'oemdmi.exe /ss "EVAL"', this overwrites the serial number. All settings will be viewable when "EVAL" is written to the serial number field.

After you are done making your settings changes run 'oemdmi.exe /ss "your serial number here"' to write your serial number back.

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