continued from part 3
The PCI and PCI Express systems are at the heart of personal computer design. The system makes it relatively easy to slot an expansion card into the personal computer console and add extra functionality to the machine.
One of the reasons Need A Nerd recommends the Gigabyte S-Series GA-G41M-ES2H motherboard for building a media centre personal computer is it comes with three standard PCI slots and one faster PCI Express slot.
PCI stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect. PCI slots are a standard white and PCI Express slots are a standard black. It is not unheard of for some motherboard manufacturers to use non-standard colours. The PCI and PCI Express slots on the Gigabyte motherboard accept a whole range of PCI and PCI Express cards, sometimes known as daughterboards.
PCI and PCI Express slots are most commonly used to improve the personal computer's motherboard's ability to process graphics, but since the Gigabyte motherboard's built in graphics card
is more than adequate for a personal computer with media centre capabilities, we'll not be putting a graphics card into the machine we are building.
What we will put in, however, is a digital television tuner in one of the
PCI slots and a wireless broadband card in a neighbouring PCI slot.
Both cards are PCI only, which means they will not fit or work in the PCI Express slots.
Need A Nerd's tuner of choice is a Hauppauge! WinTV-NOVA-TD-500.
It's a dual tuner, which means it can receive two digital television signals from Freeview broadcasters at once.
The viewer can watch one channel while recording another via its own proprietary software or Windows Media Center which comes pre-installed with most versions of Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7, and its immediate predecessor, Windows Vista.
There will be no more squabbling over whether to record Sunday Theatre on TV1 or Doctor Who on Prime!
The Hauppauge! WinTV-NOVA-TD-500 comes with a remote control which looks and feels like a standard television or video recorder remote with some added functionality. There's a green Power button, a red Record button and white Play, Stop, Pause, Fast Forward, Rewind, Replay and Skip buttons, all using the standard symbols. There are also rocker switches for Volume and Channel settings and a Mute button. Not so orthodox are four arrow keys, which allow navigation around menus in whichever software is running, and an OK key to select the options. A picture of a house, labelled Go, launches Windows Media Center. Four other buttons, TV, Videos, Music and Pictures, opens the relevant sub folders from the Documents folder in Windows Media Center. The Guide, Radio and Prev. Ch buttons speak for themselves, as do the 10 numeric buttons.
The tuner and remote come with their own infrared receiver cable which is essential for turning the personal computer into a digital television.
An installation CD-ROM contains Haupauge's WinTV 7 software, which I am told is a good alternative to Windows Media Center.
A cheaper but less functional alternative, Need A Nerd recommends, is the Hauppauge! WinTV-PVR-150, which has a single tuner, while a Hauppauge! WinTV-HVR-2250 Dual Tuner mimics MySky and allows the viewer to watch and record up to four channels.
Before fitting the card I put on an anti-static wrist band and attached it to a metal part of the console to earth me using the crocodile clip. The wrist-band protects the digital television tuner and the already installed motherboard, central processor unit, cooling fan and memory, from any anti-static discharge inadvertently created.
Like all the other components previously installed, except for the cooling fan, the tuner comes wrapped in anti-static packaging designed to protect it from static electricity damage while in transit from the factory.
I removed the tuner card from its bag being careful not to touch the gold connectors that allow it to communicate with the central processor unit via one of the motherboard's PCI slots.
Like a lot of the other components, the tuner card is keyed to the motherboard's PCI slot which means it can only be inserted into the slot one way. If it doesn't slot in easily it is advisable not to force it but remove it and try again.
Once the tuner card was slotted in I secured its fastening tab to the console using a mounting screw. I installed the TP-LINK TL-WN851N Wireless N PCI Adapter in exactly the same way as I had installed the digital television tuner, immediately screwing in the two wireless antenna on the outside of the console. Once they were in I positioned one vertically and the other horizontally to take full advantage of any wireless signal the media centre picks up.
Provided a wireless broadband router - like the Thomson1F7D4D favoured by Telecom - is installed and placed within range of the media centre Ethernet cables are not necessary.
Once the PCI cards were in it was time to connect the console's dozen cables to the motherboard. The cables, which were all labelled, include main power, the console's light emitting diodes (LEDs) and USB connections, so it was important to get the right cable in the right dock. A misplaced cable could prevent the machine from powering on when the lid is closed, or, even worse, fry the motherboard the first time the switch is flicked.
Fortunately the console's cables are well labelled, as is the motherboard, so connecting takes a matter of carefully considered minutes.
source:waikato-times end
