Building new system... setup hints?

[davin]

Hey, folks. I decided to finally jump in the deep end and build an HTPC. After a few weeks of research, I chose SageTV as the software. Here's the list of hardware I'll be using:

MSI K7N2GM2-LSR microATX motherboard
(TV out will be provided by nForce2 IGP chipset on motherboard)
Sempron 2200+
512MB RAM
2 x PVR-150MCE capture boards
160GB Samsung SATA HD
Samsung DVD-ROM
Firefly remote
USB-UIRT
WinXP Home OS

I have std digital cable through Time Warner with a Sci Atl Explorer3250 box. The USB-UIRT will be used to control my TV, the box, and perhaps my stereo receiver. I plan on running the cable box signal into one of the PVR-150s and the analog cable signal into the other.

I know I'll be doing a lot of tuning and tweaking over the next few weeks (or months, or years ) to get things working perfectly, but I was wondering if anyone could point out any gotchas related to setup of a new system with the above hardware that I should look out for. Basically I'm looking for the best "out-of-the-box" initial setup experience as possible.

Thanks in advance... I've been lurking for awhile and it seems like this is a very friendly, helpful forums with lotsa knowledgeable folks. I look forward to contributing more in the future once I move past being a newb.

[mdmint]

Hmmm, no replies yet. My first concern or wonder is what type of TV you plan on outputting standard VGA signal to. As far as I could determine that mobo doesn't even have composite TV out let alone SVideo or component. Do you already have the 160GB SATA HD? If that's going to be your only HD won't provide much video storage. A bit less than 50hrs Standard DVD Quality for example. You'd want to split it to a maybe 10G OS/Sage software partition default small clusters and the rest large NTFS 64k cluster partition. Good-luck.

[davin]

Here's a link to the mobo info. It does have both composite and s-video TV-out:

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...2-LSR&class=mb

I will be driving a standard def Sony WEGA CRT with the svideo output.

As for the hard disk, I plan on doing exactly what you recommended... 10GB OS partition and the rest a large-cluster video partition. Down the road if I feel that I need more space I'll just throw another drive in there.

Thanks for the comments!

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by davin

Here's a link to the mobo info. It does have both composite and s-video TV-out:

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...2-LSR&class=mb

I will be driving a standard def Sony WEGA CRT with the svideo output.

Cool, my bad. I checked the mobo out at 2 reseller websites (NewEgg and another). Neither mentioned the TV out header and external TV out bracket.

[TopJo]

I have that mobo and it has been great.
Two 150 is a good idea.
Don't make my mistake and get 150(retail) because the hauppauge remote has problems with the nforce chipset.