How reliable is your HTPC?

A place to talk about GPUs/Motherboards/CPUs/Cases/Remotes, etc.
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sgbroimp

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How reliable is your HTPC?

#1

Post by sgbroimp » Fri Nov 20, 2020 4:42 pm

I got set up with my HTPC/WMC at the end of 2011. Before that the Comcast box and no real off air recording capability. So now, almost 9 years and, overall, I love the setup. In that time, however, I have one SSD failure (manufacturer’s bug supposedly) an Asrock H67M motherboard failure, two Seagate HDD (2TB) failures (one just now, one less than a year ago) and, Sunday, an OS system corruption. (I did move to RAID1 in 2015 to protect myself a bit) I am wondering about the experience of others? Similar or am I at the high end of the failure picture? I do run the unit 24/7/365, no sleep mode used. Input most appreciated!

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Scallica

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#2

Post by Scallica » Fri Nov 20, 2020 9:34 pm

I built my HTPC in 2009 and it still runs great. I have only had a few hard drive failures. There is no guarantee with electronics. Any part, made by any brand, can fail at anytime.

Regarding your setup, Asrock motherboards are not the best quality. I only use Gigabyte motherboards. Asus is a good brand too.
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sgbroimp

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#3

Post by sgbroimp » Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:58 pm

Very kind of you to provide this info and tip. Based on what you said, my failure rate is not out of line, 2 HDD's in 11 months yes, but very good experience for 8 years before, so law of averages I am in line or better vs. you and the SSD was near the "birth" of those so it went a heck of a long time I guess. As to your MB brand comment, I need to get a board for a rainy day spare so I can move quickly when this one goes. Do you know how I can be sure to get the right ASUS or Gigabyte boards (used or refirb I imagine) to replace my AsrockH67M, micro ATX? Processor is Core i3 2100 3.10 (2155 pin) with Intel 2000 Graphics? My tech says he can bench test, but need to have the right one for when the failure day comes or all is wasted!

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Scallica

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#4

Post by Scallica » Sat Nov 21, 2020 4:03 pm

sgbroimp wrote: Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:58 pm Do you know how I can be sure to get the right ASUS or Gigabyte boards (used or refirb I imagine) to replace my AsrockH67M, micro ATX? Processor is Core i3 2100 3.10 (2155 pin) with Intel 2000 Graphics?
I have this motherboard in my spare HTPC along with an i3-2100 processor; it works great.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Gigabyte-GA-H6 ... Sw-ktfuEQO
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sgbroimp

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#5

Post by sgbroimp » Sat Nov 21, 2020 7:08 pm

Scallica wrote: Sat Nov 21, 2020 4:03 pm
sgbroimp wrote: Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:58 pm Do you know how I can be sure to get the right ASUS or Gigabyte boards (used or refirb I imagine) to replace my AsrockH67M, micro ATX? Processor is Core i3 2100 3.10 (2155 pin) with Intel 2000 Graphics?
I have this motherboard in my spare HTPC along with an i3-2100 processor; it works great.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Gigabyte-GA-H6 ... Sw-ktfuEQO
Many thanks. That is exactly the kind of info I was looking for. Should I be comfortable buying a used one (of course open box or refirb better, but less likely I guess.) I like the fan. My Asrock H67M does not have one, though three in the case at least.

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#6

Post by stuartm » Sat Nov 21, 2020 7:58 pm

I built 3 HTPCs in 2010 all identical, Then upgraded them all in 2016, never had a failure yet with the exception of the onboard graphics stopped working on one after a lightning strike blew out or house transformer. I also recommend Gigabyte motherboards, never had a failure so far. Whenever I build a HTPC I always buy a 2nd motherboard as a spare. I also keep a spare power supply or 2 around as they are a possible point of failure. In addition, I always run speedfan to monitor case and cpu fans and have it set up to e-mail me if any failures are detected as mechanical pieces are more likely to fail than electrical. Also, both to conserve electricity and to enhance PC life I only run the HTPCs when in use watching or recording. Otherwise, they are always set to sleep when inactive. I use high reliability rated SSD's for system disks and laptop HDD's for recording disks. I also have event monitoring set up such that I get an e-mail if WMC detects a failed recording so I can catch disk problems ASAP.

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Scallica

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#7

Post by Scallica » Sat Nov 21, 2020 10:52 pm

sgbroimp wrote: Sat Nov 21, 2020 7:08 pm Should I be comfortable buying a used one (of course open box or refirb better, but less likely I guess.)
Yes. The i3-2100 processors and motherboard are 9 years old. Take what you can find ;)
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#8

Post by sgbroimp » Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:06 pm

Thanks much to both of you. Grateful for folks like you who know their stuff and are happy to share it.

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#9

Post by Mrbobb » Fri Mar 04, 2022 6:54 am

Born 2015, 4440 I5 Haswell, top-of-the-line back then now W11 telling me not good enough, the chutzpah. 2 4T RED drives, one for archive media, two for TV recordings and stuff I don't need to back up. Is online 24x7 but really on duty perhaps 2 hrs/day, the externally attached HDD are spinning 24x7, the driving mechanisms just can't make them spin down, and the RED drives are designed for file servers so I took the chance and they are still spinning, knock on wood. Running WMC W7, no plan to change, UPS protected, I say pretty solid.

I attribute the longevity to UPS, and box is really DEDICATED to HTPC duty, not for downloading strange stuff, have a pretty good back up scheme, and I have a six-sense if something is strange, at this point I quickly reload a last-known-to-be-good OS backup, I don't bother with virus scanners.

These days my HTPC primary task is of an over-powered DVR, the 4 CPU cores barely twitch, and idles at 38c and it's a fan-less box! Everything is online these days, so I don't know if there will be an HTPC-2 in this household.

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#10

Post by DavidinCT » Mon Apr 11, 2022 12:48 am

My system has always been fairly dependable. I sometimes tweak things that breaks things but, for the most part, it's completely hands off. I started on WMC back in Windows XP Media Center edition, Was in Vista with Cable cards (beta tester for Microsoft on Vista and Windows 7, I also has some really cooll beta hardware !!!), I have been doing this for a VERY long time now....

MSI motherboard, 45-6 year old i5 with 4 cores @ 2.9ghz. System has 16gb of memory (I had 8gb and someone offered me the same ram at the for like $40 so I said why not). The video card in it in is a GTX1050ti (eBay pickup for 4K videos before video cards skyrocketed).

System has been bullet proof for a long time now, I still have the "free" guide data running, last time I even looked at was last summer. Guide is 100% accurate 99.5% of the time. System is running at 4K @60hz and on Windows 8.1 (with a start menu program), I keep over 550 movies in the built in Movie Library, a good chunk of them are in 4K and with HDR or Dolby Vision, with the right tools they play flawlessly. I get very impressive 4K playback from WMC.

I can even use it for Video game Emulation.. I have Emulation Station setup, and it runs up to PS3 games with very little issues (lower end games).... I keep a wireless Xbox 360 controller, just for that... Oh and by way, you can get into Emuation Station DIRECTLY from WMC... You select, it starts, You grab your controller to play, Exit and WMC comes right back up...

Keep in mind my "bullet proof" system runs a lot of batch files that run commands to optimize the system, even sync the clock every day, reboots 2x times a week (3-4am), Daily guide updates, defrags of spinning discs every few weeks etc. This is just from years of doing a WMC machine that I figured out once Microsoft killed it(and they broke some things doing that), how to repair the system over time.

With out this type of maintenance time to time, I would bet I would have issues.
-Dave
Twitter @TheCoolDave

Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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#11

Post by BennyHillFan » Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:19 pm

My "philosophy" is a bit different. Rather than building a HTPC, or even general purpose PC, from scratch I like to start with gently-used or off-lease high-end business-grade PC's and then completely "refurbish" them to like-new condition. Completely disassemble, clean out every speck of dirt and dust (more than just blowing out with compressed air), new fans if necessary, almost always brand new HDDs/SSDs. I haven't built a PC from scratch since the 1990s.

Over the past 20 years or so, I have found doing this with Lenovo (Formerly IBM) ThinkCenters and Thinkstations and high-end HP Elitedesks and Z-series (formerly XW-series) workstations to be utterly reliable. I gave up on Dell in the early 2000's when it seemed like every used Dell had problems, but then this was the peak of the "Capacitor Plague" era which seemed to have hit Dell harder than most.

MAIN SYSTEM, in my "Media Room": Lenovo M93p desktop, i5-4570, Pinnacle PC-TV 800i TV Tuner (Over-the-air Atlanta-area channels), Win7 Pro with the Win7 Media Center, 4 GB ram, 120 GB SSD for the OS, 5 TB Seagate HDD for my Media collection. It's been running mostly 24/7 for at least 6 years now. Upgraded the D: drive from a 2 TB HDD to 5 TB HDD 3 or 4 years ago. Upgraded the original internal DVD drive to an LG UHD Blu-ray drive about 2 years ago.

Replacing this is on my "To Do" list. I don't trust mechanical HDDs for more than 5 years (43,800 hrs @ 24/7), and I need a larger case than the "mini" M93p so that I can use a mirrored PAIR of 5 TB (or larger) HDDs. Problem will be that anything much newer will lack the old-style PCI (not PCIe) slot that I need for the Pinnacle 800i TV tuner. I bought the Pinnacle card new in '09 when analog TV ended in the USA and it has been absolutely 100% bulletproof reliable since then.

SECOND System, in a bedroom: HP Elitedesk 800 G1 USDT (Ultra-slim Desktop), i7-4790s, no TV Tuner (nor slot for one), Win10 LTSC 2019, WMC 8.9, 128 GB SSD for the OS, 2 TB HDD for media, external LG slim UHD blu-ray.

As a PC, the HP 800G1 itself has been utterly reliable. But I've rebuilt that box I dunno how many times (and pulled out I dunno how many tufts of hair) over the past 4-5 years going back and forth between Win7+the "official" MC and finding the right combination of W10 + Unofficial WMC builds + right fixes/patches to fix various problems especially sound issues (Solved: use the sound driver from the HP website, not the one that automagically installs with W10) and VERY ESPECIALLY the well-known "Locks up on Full Screen" issue on W10 (Solved: W10 LTSC, build 1809, Gary's WMC 8.9 MSI, disable full-screen optimization. Easy-Peasy.) (W10 Pro 1803 was supposedly the last version where "disable full screen optimization" actually works, but it still works in the LTSC version of 1809.)

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#12

Post by BennyHillFan » Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:39 pm

FWIW, My "Philosophy" is based on 30+ years as an Industrial Engineer and Systems Analyst. I favor COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) over "Home Brew" on almost anything.

I buy a car from a well-known manufacturer because they know more about automobile manufacturing than I do. I buy a PC from HP or IBM (lenovo) because they know more about PC manufacturing than I do. They've built a gazillion of whatever unit, they've probably responded to countless "bug reports" and patched it in a way that *I*, as a homebrew HTPC enthusiast can't.

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#13

Post by sanjosanjo » Mon Dec 05, 2022 4:36 pm

DavidinCT wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 12:48 am System has been bullet proof for a long time now, I still have the "free" guide data running, last time I even looked at was last summer. Guide is 100% accurate 99.5% of the time. System is running at 4K @60hz and on Windows 8.1 (with a start menu program), I keep over 550 movies in the built in Movie Library, a good chunk of them are in 4K and with HDR or Dolby Vision, with the right tools they play flawlessly. I get very impressive 4K playback from WMC.
Could I ask you about two things in this part?

1)What is the "free" guide that you reference? I've been using https://www.schedulesdirect.org since Microsoft stopped providing the service, but it's not free.

2) Did you have any problems getting Win8.1 running with WMC? I'm still running Win7 and its been basically the same installation for 7 years. I use a HDHomeRun Prime tuner with a CableCard and I'm worried about changing anything because of the lack of DRM support for CableCard in newer software. I was even running 2013 firmware in the tuner until this weekend, despite the fact that they have continued to provide firmware updates. I reluctantly upgraded the firmware to troubleshoot a video issue, with the fear that the DRM wouldn't work in new firmware, but it did. (My video issue is probably due to a HDD issue).

And one other question, since you seem to know a lot about hardware:
I'm shopping for a replacement to my existing 3TB harddrive because the drive diagnostics are starting to show some erros. I'm trying to figure out which model/style of HDD is best for an HTPC. Each manufacturer has all the colored types for different applications. I'm curious what you use as your main "DVR drive" that buffers video (not the OS drive).

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