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Seeking recommendations for mini/low powered PC for WMC

Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:10 pm
by docmattman
I've tried several different virtualization systems to run WMC. All of them seem to have the same problem. Live TV plays fine, but recorded TV stutters during playback:

viewtopic.php?p=133383#p133383
viewtopic.php?p=133493#p133493

It seems to me that I won't be able to run WMC properly inside a virtual machine. So now, I'm looking for recommendations for a mini pc (preferably fanless) that can run WMC. It shouldn't need to be super powerful, as all the playback will be done from Linksys extenders. Ideally something cheap and lower powered.

Anyone have any suggestions for this?

Re: Seeking recommendations for mini/low powered PC for WMC

Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:19 pm
by Rickt1962

Re: Seeking recommendations for mini/low powered PC for WMC

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 5:44 pm
by Rodo
I built an intel i5, cube PC, from shuttle a while back for my WMC PC (windows 7 pro). It has a fan but it is very quite. I'm very picky when it comes to noise. Shuttle also has fanless computers and new stuff now. I've bought (and build) most of my computers from their cube line because they are quite. It's been a while since I've built a computer though (3 years maybe). This is not an endorsement but you may want to look at them ... https://us.shuttle.com. Don't get the idea that their stuff is cheap though. The cube line is a full feature computer ... with the same price tag ... just little noise. BTW watch out for Western Digital Black HDDs ...they're noisy, the blue and green are good. Hope that helps.

Re: Seeking recommendations for mini/low powered PC for WMC

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 7:14 pm
by docmattman
Thanks. I've tried a couple cheap mini pcs from Amazon. However, they came with Windows 10 preinstalled and had UEFI boot enabled, so I wasn't able to get Windows 7 to install on them and ultimately ended up returning them. Just trying to find one that will allow for a Windows 7 install these days seems tough.

Re: Seeking recommendations for mini/low powered PC for WMC

Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 3:50 pm
by Rickt1962
docmattman wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 7:14 pm Thanks. I've tried a couple cheap mini pcs from Amazon. However, they came with Windows 10 preinstalled and had UEFI boot enabled, so I wasn't able to get Windows 7 to install on them and ultimately ended up returning them. Just trying to find one that will allow for a Windows 7 install these days seems tough.
This is Fanless and will run Windows 7 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VB ... UTF8&psc=1

Re: Seeking recommendations for mini/low powered PC for WMC

Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 4:36 pm
by joeer77
If you want Windows 7, you are going to have to pick or build a PC with 6th generation or older CPUs. Windows 7 not supported in 7th gen and newer Core i3/i5/i7 processors FYI. Intel and Microsoft got together to shut down a perfectly fine operating system:
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3 ... april.html

Re: Seeking recommendations for mini/low powered PC for WMC

Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 2:24 pm
by DavidinCT
joeer77 wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2019 4:36 pm If you want Windows 7, you are going to have to pick or build a PC with 6th generation or older CPUs. Windows 7 not supported in 7th gen and newer Core i3/i5/i7 processors FYI. Intel and Microsoft got together to shut down a perfectly fine operating system:
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3 ... april.html
If you do some google searches, there is some ways around it. Although Windows 7 could be tricked to install on a newer CPU, it might not be optimized for that CPU...

With that being said, Windows 7 Media Center was released when Single core CPUs were the norm (aka 2009), so a 3-4 year old i5/i7, as long as it has a decent video card that has HDMI out, it will work great.

My main CPU is a 2015 i5 that is a quad core i5. I upgraded the video card to a 1050ti... I can run games at amazing quality, and I run WMC in 4K, with many movies in 4K with HD audio... Never even a blip.. works flawless. I though about an upgrade but, there is no point. It runs everything I dump at it flawlessly...