[yee379]

just want to post my experience with my Asus P5N7A-VM board. most of the 'issues' are linux related, so i figured i should post it here rather than the end-users forum.

i'm using 8.10 ubuntu with the 64-bit 2.6.27-11-server kernel.

i do *not* run a window manager (compiz etc); i use have my /etc/rc.local script take me into X as my htpc user. .xsession file then starts up xbmc etc. i also have the script call suspend after xbmc exits.

the good:

- vdpau works great, i have approximately 5% load playing hidef atsc material on my cpus.
- boots quickly and nicely, xbmc and my nfs mounts works really well.
- looks great on my 52" lcd @ 1080

the bad:

- video tearing; i'm using the latest 180.51 drivers direct from nvidia. it's not /that/ noticeable, but it does get annoying if you're looking for it. i've tried various 'solutions' around the net and none of them seems to work (nvidia-settings with vsync on xvideo and opengl, composite disabled etc)

- the remote control functionality is sporadic. i have a sony branded windows mce remote (rm-mc10 with pcva-ir6u recv). lirc does recognise it and it does work - except when it doesn't! it appears to just pause from anything between a few seconds to minutes - irw doesn't record any input during this time and restarting the lircd service seems to stop everything from using the lirc_mce kernel mod (ie the thing just dies).

- i can't suspend reliably. it works fine once or if i'm lucky twice without issues, but then it will come back up with a flickery screen (i have it on the vga). and if i suspend again after that, it doesn't really suspend at all (the monitor turns off but the cpu fan's are still spinning). only a cold restart by unplugging the psu will get the system up again.

i can deal with tearing for now, but the last two problems really bugs me!

[cewan]

I have the same board. I haven't tried vdpau yet though, will probably try it when the stable release comes out.
About your two last points:
* Remote is working fine for me, I am using Philips Windows MCE remote.
* Suspend is a bit shaky for me, hangs after resume maybe every tenth time. No idea why though. When this happens I have to press the reset button on the box.

[yee379]

I have the same board. I haven't tried vdpau yet though, will probably try it when the stable release comes out.
About your two last points:
* Remote is working fine for me, I am using Philips Windows MCE remote.
* Suspend is a bit shaky for me, hangs after resume maybe every tenth time. No idea why though. When this happens I have to press the reset button on the box.

i have no complains about vdpau works great and appears to accelerate everything i throw at it.

hmm.. thanks for the remote info; i guess ebay isn't the best place to buy computer parts!

nice to hear that i'm not the only person with problems with suspend on this board; everyone else says it's fine. i've heard that a hackintosh might work better with suspend.. then i can also run plex

[Zeppstar]

I tried this board and had no end of issues with usb devices. It was doing the same as you decribed(sometimes yes and sometimes no). Both my IR device and wireless keyboard/mouse would behave very erratically.

I assumed it was a faulty mother board and returned it but now Im starting to think it may be a board issue with certain usb devices as you descibed exactly the same issues I had. Sometimes I wonder if this board justifies the cost though. I recently got a mATX gigabyte board and a 9500GT 512MB card and it was 2/3rds of the cost of this asus board.

Go figure.

Apart from that.. I didnt have tearing issue. VDPAU was fine/good. I was using 32bit Intrepid / with 185.xx nvidia drivers and alsa 1.0.19

[yee379]

I tried this board and had no end of issues with usb devices. It was doing the same as you decribed(sometimes yes and sometimes no). Both my IR device and wireless keyboard/mouse would behave very erratically.

I assumed it was a faulty mother board and returned it but now Im starting to think it may be a board issue with certain usb devices as you descibed exactly the same issues I had. Sometimes I wonder if this board justifies the cost though. I recently got a mATX gigabyte board and a 9500GT 512MB card and it was 2/3rds of the cost of this asus board.

Go figure.

Apart from that.. I didnt have tearing issue. VDPAU was fine/good. I was using 32bit Intrepid / with 185.xx nvidia drivers and alsa 1.0.19

i've never had any issues with the keyboard nor mouse. however, i'm slowly beginning to suspect that the interaction with xbmc and lirc is causing my remote control problems - there is no delay when i run irw without xbmc running... although it /could/ also be due to my intel speedstep settings...?

after hearing about your experience with nvidia's 185 driver, i tried it. it is certainly better than the 180 versions but i can still see a bit of tearing although i'm very pedantic about these things!

i wanted to resist getting a separate video graphic card setup because my initial idea was to stick it in very slim htpc case; so built in graphics was important to me. but yeah, it is a tad expensive.