Linux [mini-ITX] AMD Fusion APU HTPC (A6-3500)
#1
So, for a long time I have been using an old AMD C-50 base netbook solely as a XBMC platform, running Linux. I faced few problems with 1080p videos and decided, considering that it is after all a very low-spec netbook, to upgrade to something that can handle 1080p videos as well as Youtube 1080p in browser. My first option was Acer Revo RL70, very nice platform for the price of US $300-$350. I even ordered but later cancelled it as came to conclusion that I can build one myself and it will be at least twice as powerful at the same price, though have to mention that not as compact and stylish.

My target price was $350 and this is what I came up with:

- ASRock A75M-ITX Motherboard (AMD A75 Hudson D3 Chipset Supports Native 5 x SATA3, 4 x USB 3.0 Ports, Dual Channel 2400+(OC), 7.1 CH HD Audio with THX TruStudio)
- AMD APU A6-3500 with HD 6530D (CPU - 2.4GHz/2.1GHz, 3 cores, 65W; GPU – 320 shaders, 444MHz, UVD3; FSB/Memeory 1866Mhz)
- Ice Hammer IH-3080WV CPU Cooler, 20db
- Geil Evo Corsa PC3-14900 1866MHz Cl9 2x2GB
- WD Caviar Green (WD7500AZRX 750GB) IntelliPower SATA 6.0Gb/s, 64MB Cache
- Winsis WT-02, Mini-ITX, 200W (http://winsis.com/viewproc.asp?id=230)

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After checking out ASRock, Gigabyte, Asus & MSI I went with ASRock as found the reviews on it good and the price was awesome. No WiFi (as in case of Revo RL70) but no worries for me there as I have a WiFi Repeater with an ethernet port next to the XBMC HTPC (that’s now how I call this system). I found that A6-3500 was the sweetspot between the faster A8-3800 and lower A4-3400, all APUs rated at 65W. The WD 750 SATA-6 would be enough for me as I also have a USB 3.0 WD 500Gb external hard drive, besides I can always swap for a bigger one, and the price for Green series fit my budget. For HTPC, even if not considering the price factor, I find SSD as an overkill. As per the mini-ITX case, well not the best but I really wanted to get all from one shop and they didn’t have enough models to choose from, though there was one sleek model from InWin but it had only 65W PSU. Still as you will notice from the pic it looks ok. Besides it has good ventilation and I also removed the CD/DVD cage from the case as have a DVD player and PS3 for Blue-Ray. As per the CPU fan even at 2000rpm and rated 20db I found it little too noisy so used the resistor (was eating dirt in spare parts box, from Zalman) and dropped the speed to 1000RPMRPM. I wish the PSU fan was also little more quiter or even whole setup faneless (dream on) but still it is now acceptably quite. One thing to notice, I had to cut the radiator on one of the memory sticks as I was unable to attach the CPU cooler.

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Straight out I partitioned the hard drive (if interested this is how it looks – 35GB NTFS [for Windows to test and compare], 1GB Swap, 8GB for /, 5GB for /otheros [to test newer releases/distros] and the rest 700Gb as /home. I went with the XBMCFreak edition and without a hitch (thanks XBMCFreak dev), instead of installing Ubuntu Gnome Remix 12.04 (yes, I do not like Unity UI) and XBMC via repo. I have all 1080p videos flying with very low CPU usage, at about 20% on average (file size about 20GB), and about 7-10% for 720p. Dolby Digital and DTS with AAC are all working fine via Pass-through set to S/PDif in XBMC.

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O/C: Well, I have been heavily involved in overclocking everything I have, custom flashing all that I can, increasing horsepower in rides, etc … not this time as I want it to be cool & quite (as AMD says). As tomshardware.com noted - "overclocking Llano is like slapping an intake on a Ford Fiesta. You’re not buying the thing for its potential on the track". For a side-note this APU does actually have some potential to squeeze out extra juice.

Connections: HTPC->HDMI->LG 50" Plasma; HTPC->S/PDif (Optical TosLink)->Samsung 5.1 DVD Receiver/Player; Samsung 5.1->HDMI->LG.

Next thing, once I am home I will try installing latest AMD 12.6 drivers to see the difference, and hope will not face any problems. So, if you have any questions or recommendations I will be glad to help and to hear.

And the best thing - all this came to about $325 (10,200 Russian Rubles) and compared to Revo RL70 I have USB 3.0, a big plus for me. eSATA port and ability to upgrade to a little higher specs. I am very glad that I went with the custom built HTPC and it is Linux 99.9% friendly.

Now I can relax and enjoy watching the content while researching for a sub-$2000 thin Ivy-Bridge 13" notebook! BTW, if you are not in a hurry to built one today watch out for new “Trinity” based APUs in coming months ... I wonder if they will be compatible with the current FM1 socket(UPDATE: nops, unfortunately they are FM2 socket(!).

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... and remember - Open Source is Good For You and for the World!
Hardware|Software: AMD A6-3500, ASRock A75M-ITX, 8GB DDR3-1866, WD Green 2TB | Linux (Kodibuntu)
Hardware|Software: HiMedia Q10 Pro with WD Red 2TB, Samsung KS8000/Denon X1300W/ 5.1.2 | Latest custom firmware

Open Source is Good for You & for the World
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#2
Very nice write up and pictures of your build.
When I read about how you had to cut the fin on the ram,..I have often wondered why they have to make those fins so big.
Its almost like they make it so it "looks" cool,...instead of making it practical to builders.

While I like and recommend the Acer Revo RL70-UR10P, I love how you tried (and succeeded) in building your own for almost the same price.

I think this will inspire those who might be hesitant to build their own,...but at the very least,..they can always fall-back on a very practical pre-built system like the REVO
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#3
Agreed -- nice build, pictures and post.

If the PSU bothers you, you can always replace it with a picoPSU.
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#4
Nice build. It looks right at home in your entertainment center.
HTPC: i5 3570K || Noctua NH-L12 || ASRock Z77E-ITX || 8GB Samsung Eco || Intel 330 120GB || Lian Li PC-Q09 ||
Main Desktop: i7 2600k @ 4.8Ghz || Epic 180 on Epic T1000 TIM || Asus Z68 Deluxe || 16GB Ripjaws @ 2133 ||
|| Maingear Shift || EVGA 8800GTS 640MB || OWC Mecury Electra 3G || 320GB, 2x500GB, 1.5Tb, 2x2TB ||
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#5
This strikes me as an overkill for
(2012-07-24, 09:50)EazyVG Wrote: something that can handle 1080p videos as well as Youtube 1080p
I hope the noise doesn't bother you, but you could've get away with something twice as small and virtually inaudible. I'm talking about a fanless E-450 mobo and an external PSU. Look at what that guy did (eSATA and USB3.0 are both there). Granted, the cost would be the same for a less powerful PC, but as long as it can do what is expected of it (i.e. not choking up on blu-ray-sized files) somebody who's looking to build their own XBMC HTPC might as well invest in a smaller, less power demanding form factor.
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#6
(2012-07-24, 13:54)GortWillSaveUs Wrote: Very nice write up and pictures of your build.
When I read about how you had to cut the fin on the ram,..I have often wondered why they have to make those fins so big.
Its almost like they make it so it "looks" cool,...instead of making it practical to builders.

(2012-07-24, 22:34)Dougie Fresh Wrote: Agreed -- nice build, pictures and post.

If the PSU bothers you, you can always replace it with a picoPSU.

(2012-07-24, 22:41)SSDD Wrote: Nice build. It looks right at home in your entertainment center.

Thanks all for the props on the setup.

(2012-07-25, 14:06)byaka Wrote: This strikes me as an overkill for
(2012-07-24, 09:50)EazyVG Wrote: something that can handle 1080p videos as well as Youtube 1080p
I hope the noise doesn't bother you, but you could've get away with something twice as small and virtually inaudible. I'm talking about a fanless E-450 mobo and an external PSU. Look at what that guy did (eSATA and USB3.0 are both there). Granted, the cost would be the same for a less powerful PC, but as long as it can do what is expected of it (i.e. not choking up on blu-ray-sized files) somebody who's looking to build their own XBMC HTPC might as well invest in a smaller, less power demanding form factor.

I did look at the embedded E-450 options but as you noted for nearly same price I ended having nearly twice powerful setup. As per the noise, sitting away about 2-3 meters from TV I can barely hear the noise not speaking that once I notch the volume by 2 3 only on TV or receiver I do not hear any noise, so very much acceptable. Also, as noted previously by me I have some space to upgrade in future to A8 (unfortunately not Trinity as they will be FM2 socket), if need be like ... 3D Blue-Ray Smile

Now what I found out is that I am completely unable to install Windows 7:

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I tried disabling all that I can (audio, usb 3, etc) in BIOS, setting IDE instead of AHCI mode, and what not. I also tried to load drivers (W7 x64 AHCI, RAID) in Windows 7 setup (where you choose which partition to install) but to no avail. As per the instructions for Win7 we do not even need to load external drivers. Everytime after copying files and rebooting the system it gets stuck with the above notification. Anyone faced this problem? I have read people succesfully being able to install Win7 ... any hints or tips. Mainly I need Windows just to compare the performance difference between the OSs and maybe some experiments as Linux is the main platform.
Hardware|Software: AMD A6-3500, ASRock A75M-ITX, 8GB DDR3-1866, WD Green 2TB | Linux (Kodibuntu)
Hardware|Software: HiMedia Q10 Pro with WD Red 2TB, Samsung KS8000/Denon X1300W/ 5.1.2 | Latest custom firmware

Open Source is Good for You & for the World
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#7
When you get to that error, hit Shift+10 and then in the command prompt window look at X:\Windows\Panther\setuperr.log and see if it gives you any clues.
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#8
Take a look at this thread: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Foru...2499424c5b
Were you using a Enterprise Version of Windows?
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#9
Try yanking one of the memory sticks.
I've had to do this a few times on motherboards that just support dual channel as opposed to boards that require it in order to get windows installed.
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#10
FWIW, this CPU and motherboard are what I used for the E-i5 A6-3500 barebones and I haven't had this issue reported. I don't use the RAM you've selected which is the only real difference. Therefore, know this isn't usual behavior for the APU/motherboard you have.

If you still have the issue after moving the RAM around, if you have some different RAM to test, try that. I'd also think about the Windows image you're using -- it could be corrupt.
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#11
(2012-07-25, 17:20)Dougie Fresh Wrote: When you get to that error, hit Shift+10 and then in the command prompt window look at X:\Windows\Panther\setuperr.log and see if it gives you any clues.

Will do that tomorrow post the output. Thanks.

(2012-07-25, 18:46)GortWillSaveUs Wrote: Take a look at this thread: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Foru...2499424c5b
Were you using a Enterprise Version of Windows?

(2012-07-25, 19:32)Nitrogen_Widget Wrote: Try yanking one of the memory sticks.
I've had to do this a few times on motherboards that just support dual channel as opposed to boards that require it in order to get windows installed.

(2012-07-25, 19:43)Dougie Fresh Wrote: FWIW, this CPU and motherboard are what I used for the E-i5 A6-3500 barebones and I haven't had this issue reported. I don't use the RAM you've selected which is the only real difference. Therefore, know this isn't usual behavior for the APU/motherboard you have.

If you still have the issue after moving the RAM around, if you have some different RAM to test, try that. I'd also think about the Windows image you're using -- it could be corrupt.


Hmm, interesting, I will most definitely try it out, besides I also have a single DDR3 1866 4GB lying around. This is first for me in my nearly 20 years of assembling computers ... thanks Smile BTW, that ei-5 case is awesome.

XBMCbuntu/XBMCFreak & AMD 12.6 Drivers: As per updating the AMD/ATI graphics driver in xbmcfreak edition, I noticed that I cannot completely remove the fglrx drivers (which is 8.96 with default installed, i think making it 12.2 version) without uninstalling the xbmc and xbmc-bin packages. So, any one tried updating successfully the drivers to 12.6 in xbmcfreak edition ... just wanna be on a safer side as do not want to cripple the already nicely configured system/xbmc :p
Hardware|Software: AMD A6-3500, ASRock A75M-ITX, 8GB DDR3-1866, WD Green 2TB | Linux (Kodibuntu)
Hardware|Software: HiMedia Q10 Pro with WD Red 2TB, Samsung KS8000/Denon X1300W/ 5.1.2 | Latest custom firmware

Open Source is Good for You & for the World
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#12
Ok, I know I mentioned Linux as topic but is getting more Windows specific - tried today with different combinations of RAM sticks, Geil 2x2, separately also separately the 4GB stick but to no avail. Tried switching the Sata port to which HDD is connected, also tried hooking up to the monitor instead of TV, result is no go, same notification. This is simply ridiculous and kind of funny. Will try tomorrow downloading Windows with latest SP package integrated and even then if it is not gonna help, I am out of clues. Will simply remove the partition and run completely on Linux which has been the target + Gnome 3 on top with necessary apps.

Anyways, this has come out to be an excellent setup and hope XBMC along with AMD drivers will continue to evolve and look forward to XBMCFreak continuing doing his awesome releases with the support for AMD Fusion platform.
Hardware|Software: AMD A6-3500, ASRock A75M-ITX, 8GB DDR3-1866, WD Green 2TB | Linux (Kodibuntu)
Hardware|Software: HiMedia Q10 Pro with WD Red 2TB, Samsung KS8000/Denon X1300W/ 5.1.2 | Latest custom firmware

Open Source is Good for You & for the World
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[mini-ITX] AMD Fusion APU HTPC (A6-3500)1