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I'm coming to this thread a bit late, but am very interested to hear from guv about the combo of
Antec Fusion
E6600
ABIT F-I90HD
Is the case cooling adequate for an e6600?
Does it do 1080p well?(I have a Sony Bravia X).
Cooling seems fine - Im just using the standard cooler that came with the CPU. The fans in the case are quite - but not on setting 3....its louder than an Xbox 360. 2nd setting doesnt work on my case!!!
Cant tell you if 1080p works ok - My Panny is only 1080i ! But that seems fine. Have been playing with HD content, which it handles very well - even though its only using the onboard graphics.
However, installation of Vista on this machine was a nightmare. Building was a doddle - but the only way I managed to install, was without the SATA drivers and just used the "IDE Legacy" setting in the bios.
I did update the bios. Prior to doing so, the CPU in idle was about 39C, but unfortunately the new bios (which others have commented) screws the temperature reporting. Its now running at either 3C or 254C (Which I know it isn't!!!)
Getting the catayst drivers to install was the major hangup..... and caused me to reinstall several times - it finally worked using the IDE legacy setting. It also decreased the graphics recorded performance! I would recommend not using it - but using powerstrip instead.
I still have one device without a driver loaded. I have absolutely no idea what it is! (There is a reference to USB in the ID - but not convinced it does mean its "USB". (All usb ports work fine)
Ive just added a Hauppage Nova 500 DVB, but thats being a headache also! I bought it to be able to receive HD content. I know I can get it - but MCE wont support - and 2 third party setups have failed so far. Running a program within, shows I can pick it up - but I think its something to do with the Hauppage drivers thats causing the problem. Its ongoing - and annoyingly, Ive just learnt the BBC are stopping this test service on the 31 May 2007. (Great!!!) Hopefully, I will get it working before saturdays cup final!
Thanks guv. Very helpful. I'm interested in this board because of the on-board HDMI and the ability to do HD video.
Vista MC will do HDTV. Vista drivers for Hauppage Nova-T 500 are here.
To get Vista to see the SATA controller you may need to load drivers during the install process. If you get to the "where do you want to install Windows" page and there are no disks listed, click on the Load drivers button. The drivers will be on the motherboard CD.
Thanks guv. Very helpful. I'm interested in this board because of the on-board HDMI and the ability to do HD video.
Vista MC will do HDTV. Vista drivers for Hauppage Nova-T 500 are here.
To get Vista to see the SATA controller you may need to load drivers during the install process. If you get to the "where do you want to install Windows" page and there are no disks listed, click on the Load drivers button. The drivers will be on the motherboard CD.
Yes have the drivers for the hauppage and it is seen in Vista. Its the third party software thats not seeing it! It works in MCE - but that doesnt support HD.
I know how to install SATA - and have done so. However, when I used the SATA drivers, I couldnt then install the catalyst drivers once Vista was installed. The only way around this, was (I found) to not install SATA and use Legacy IDE. There probably is a slight sacrifice, but since my HDs still score 5.7 in the "Vista Experience" I think I can live with it!
I still have one device without a driver loaded. I have absolutely no idea what it is! (There is a reference to USB in the ID - but not convinced it does mean its "USB". (All usb ports work fine)
At last!
Ive finally found out what this was all about! The VFD driver for the antec case display! I had connected - just never bothered to load the driver. Works fine, though the display is a bit on the small side.
I know how to install SATA - and have done so. However, when I used the SATA drivers, I couldnt then install the catalyst drivers once Vista was installed. The only way around this, was (I found) to not install SATA and use Legacy IDE. There probably is a slight sacrifice, but since my HDs still score 5.7 in the "Vista Experience" I think I can live with it!
(penny drops) At first I didn't know what you meant by catalyst (having always used Nvidia), but I just worked it out.
Anyone else had this problem with SATA drivers and Catalyst?
Ive been trying to install Vista Ultimate - but unlike your 25minute install, this is taking yonks!
I dont want to use Raid, and have installed SATA drivers to get it to install. (Said there werent any usable drives!) Anyway - there seems to be lots of driver options (eg SB600, AHCI) but whilst they load, Im not completely sure they are correct (to get a decent speed)
The install seems to take about 2h30m and is driving me nuts!
Can you think of anything obvious for me to check?
PS Nice review!
From memory you only need the AHCI drivers for Vista, it's some new thing; for older OS's like MCE stick with the other drivers. You can get the information about this from the 'net but most manufacturers don't make it easy to find or understand.
Yes, use AHCI for Vista, BUT.... I have found that with two drives attached on some config's, Vista will not 'find a driver' during the 'what hard drive to install on' phase. The trick is to install with only ONE hard drive plugged in, and plug in other drives after the initial install is done... Bit of a Vista bug methinks.
Worth a try anyway...
Cheers
TiggerK
__________________ I believe life is all about Doing Things, not Having Things. (Except my MCE Box!)
Not really only Vista, I only plug in the OS drive for fresh formats under MCE 2005 as it kept wanting to use an old dodgy ide drive by first preference. It's (the iDE drive) since gone to the graveyard but it's become a habit to make sure the drive I want is the only one plugged in.
I have finally got a hold of one of these and I've installed it with an E6600 and a NovaT-500 dual tuner. I specifically wanted the HDMI output to use with my new Sony Bravia X running at 1080p, and was hoping to be able to do it without having to buy a video card.
Much to my dissappointment, it doesn't appear to be capable of doing HDTV at this level. With the drivers Vista installs, it can play the HD videos in the MC setup just fine, but when it comes to live TV or even recorded TV, the picture breaks up, stutters and pixelates.
I installed the latest version of Catalyst, and it stops the break-ups and pixelation, but playback is not smooth. It gets behind and drops frames every few seconds. At one point in my fiddling it would only give me a blank green screen when I tried to watch TV. Not sure exactly how that came about. It was late last night and I had to do a system restore to remove Catalyst altogether.
I tried running it at 720p, but it still had difficulties. Am I missing something? Is anyone else successfully using the on-board HDMI for HDTV?
I take it all back. After quite a bit of fiddling with the Catalyst Control Centre I now have it working smoothly. On the Catalyst default settings, it played SD channels but for HD channels (and recordings from HD channels) it just did a blank green screen - some sort of overlay issue perhaps?
I think the setting that made it all work was enabling the LCD Enhancer - don't ask me why.
How can you verify that the Abit F-I90H is outputing the HDCP signal....I can't get the HDMI to work on my Plasma Pioneer PDP-504.....I know the HDMI on my plasma works as I have had it plugged into a Apple TV unit with HDMI fine.
My board is still going very well after a couple of months, no issues. I am still only displaying on my old crappy CRT TV, not as lucky as some of you with high-end plasmas
Thanx to all the positive input in this thread, this is what makes reviews worthwhile.
Keep me posted of your long-term experiences, let us build a good database on this board.
Just to clairy, are you saying in order to enable HDCP I need to use the drivers specified by aBit or can I update to latest Catalyst 7.6 from ATI and still support HDCP....I can't seem to get it to work with HDMI with my Pioneer PDP-504 and I think its related to
