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Full Version: Suttering problem when PC is left on for too long, perfect xbmc build
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Currently I have a asrock 330HT machine which is running xbmc all the time. After some 2-3 days the performance of xbmc decreases significantly. Accessing the movies category can sometimes take up to 3-4 seconds. Rebooting fixes the problem, however this can sometimes be pretty tedious. The PC is running windows 7 64 bit, but initially had 32 bit, I reinstalled with 64 bit to see if there was any improvement on this matter, but unfortunately not. I'm wondering if someone has this same problem? maybe it's an unavoidable problem or something? if the PC is left on for like a period of 5 days then you can see slight stutter in 1080p playback which is a huge annoyance

Seeing how the 330ht was such a success, I'm also considering getting a better dedicated HTPC. The cons for the 330ht was first of all that it needed a reboot once in a while, it was kinda noisy, especially if you used the DVD drive and that navigating the menus wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped it would be. Looking at Asrock's other products I see they've released new models and the one that caught my attention is the 137B which comes with a intel i3 370m processor and a blu ray drive. My question is, will the smoothness navigation improve as well as the time it takes to access a category (like movies, tv shows, music, etc) with this model? Does anyone know how much sound this one makes while using the drive? I read a review about it that used a noise level detector on this specific model and concluded that while using the drive it emitted 30db at its noisiest. Is this particularly noisy? does anyone know exactly how noisy the 300HT is? The asrock site claims that it is something like 25db or something, but I don't know if that's true, that their later models INCREASED in noise.

Second option is to build a HTPC using separate parts ordered from the glorious internet, but having only built one PC in the past, and most of the parts were from a recommendation, I'm not 100% sure I'm doing it right.
The parts that I chose are:
  • Silverstone SST-GD04
  • Asus P7H55-M PRO
  • Intel Core i3 530
  • Corsair XMS3 DDR3-1600 CL9 2x2 GB
  • LG CH08
  • Corsair TX 650W
This build uses the silverstone SST-G04 chassis which, from what I read, can only fit a micro atx, so I got the Asus P7H55-M PRO, which is a micro atx and can fit intel LGA1156 CPUs which the i3 530 is, and can also fit ddr3 RAM, etc etc, my question here is, though, (and I've done a little searching) will the PSU and the blu ray drive fit the chassis? is this a good overall build? I've omitted including a graphics card because I think the motherboard has an onboard video card that handles 1080p. Will this HTPC make a lot of noise when running and does the blu ray drive make a lot of noise? Will this build play 3D movies (not very important)?

So basically
1. My xbmc is slow and 1080p playback stutters when the PC is left on for too long (2+ days). What can I do to fix this?
2. My ideal HTPC is one that plays perfect 1080p films, navigation through menus is absolutely super smooth and loading is as close to instantaneous as possible, and is relatively silent (also while optical drive is being used)
2a. should I buy a newer asrock model? or
2b. should I build a HTPC using the above parts? or perhaps you can recommend a good build

I know this forum isn't really meant to discuss building of PCs and related things, but I feel this is the only forum that would really know the answer.

Thanks in advance

EDIT: I know it says that general discussion shouldn't include help or support topics, but my main topic would be the recommendation of a new HTPC and I wouldn't consider that help or support. I do apologize if it is though.
Sounds like something is going on on your system that is causing it. On my box (an Acer Aspire Revo 3610), I can go weeks without a reboot, and those are generally caused because I'll update SAB/SickBeard/whatever and want to reboot to give things a fresh start.
This is a known long standing issue with sleep and XBMC. A reboot is NOT needed.. simply closing XBMC and restarting it clears it up.

There was a few threads on it but i think many of us have just learned to deal with it.
akuzura Wrote:Currently I have a asrock 330HT machine which is running xbmc all the time. After some 2-3 days the performance of xbmc decreases significantly. Accessing the movies category can sometimes take up to 3-4 seconds. Rebooting fixes the problem, however this can sometimes be pretty tedious. The PC is running windows 7 64 bit, but initially had 32 bit, I reinstalled with 64 bit to see if there was any improvement on this matter, but unfortunately not. I'm wondering if someone has this same problem? maybe it's an unavoidable problem or something? if the PC is left on for like a period of 5 days then you can see slight stutter in 1080p playback which is a huge annoyance

I have the same issue, but also without solution Sad
Dont want to be an expert, but can it be windows 7 ?
I know that windows can fill its memory in a few days, so the whole system is lagging.
Try the live cd for a few days to experiment
Had the same issue. Just yesterday thought of a solution. I cant believe I didnt think of this sooner.

Since my XBMC PC is also my media server, it's on 24/7.

I programed my harmony remote to exit XBMC when I turn my TV off and turn XBMC on whenever I turn my TV on. The TV takes a few seconds to turn on, so the whole process is seamless.
I have two dedicated XBMC media centers that experience this problem. They are both windows 7 x64. One of them stays on at all times with no screen saver or sleep function. The other one is set to sleep after 20 minutes of inactivity. Both of them have the same problem after random amounts of time. Both are running XBMC 10.0 with all windows updates applied.
cold_realms Wrote:This is a known long standing issue with sleep and XBMC. A reboot is NOT needed.. simply closing XBMC and restarting it clears it up.

There was a few threads on it but i think many of us have just learned to deal with it.

I never noticed the other threads on this, but as mentioned in this post, I just learned to deal with it by restarting XBMC. Interestingly, I only experience this on my Windows 7 build. I have a Revo 1600 with the Openelec install and it does not experience this problem at all. The Windows 7 build has all of the power management/sleep functions disabled, but it still has the stuttering problem.

It is funny but some people do not notice this issue because it can be somewhat subtle. I will come home and my wife will be watching a movie and the stuttering will be happening and she doesn't even notice it. I have to make her stop the movie and relaunch XBMC and the movie because it drives me crazy.
I don't know if it is related somewhat but in my XBMC on Linux all my randomly stuttering problems are gone to heaven after installing nvidia drivers 270.18
extension23 Wrote:It is funny but some people do not notice this issue because it can be somewhat subtle. I will come home and my wife will be watching a movie and the stuttering will be happening and she doesn't even notice it. I have to make her stop the movie and relaunch XBMC and the movie because it drives me crazy.

Same issue here. I will start playing a movie and then explain to people that it's stuttering slightly and XBMC needs to be restarted. Restart XBMC and it is fine for a long time. I've never had the stuttering start happening during playback. It only seems to happen after an extended period of non-use when you go to play a video.

I hope this gets resolved soon. It's makes XBMC look very bad when you have to restart it to get a movie working for a room full of guests.
asrock 330ht, ubuntu 10.10, running xbmc standalone session: no problems. I have had uptimes of more than a week with no problems like the mentioned.
PatrickVogeli Wrote:asrock 330ht, ubuntu 10.10, running xbmc standalone session: no problems. I have had uptimes of more than a week with no problems like the mentioned.

Dharma? Which Nvidia driver? NFS? SMB? Typical media?
PatrickVogeli Wrote:asrock 330ht, ubuntu 10.10, running xbmc standalone session: no problems. I have had uptimes of more than a week with no problems like the mentioned.

I have only experienced this issue on my Windows builds. The linux/openelec builds do not exhibit this behavior.
This happens on my C2Q-based HTPC as well. XBMC is set to Windowed mode and does not use hardware acceleration. The stuttering isn't that bad and is only really noticeable on scenes with decent movement such as scenes with panning. I usually just restart XBMC and it works fine.

I'm wondering if this will occur if you leave XBMC on and that instance of the application has not played a file yet.
mr.sparkle Wrote:Dharma? Which Nvidia driver? NFS? SMB? Typical media?
XBMC dharma, nvidia driver I believe it's 260 (the one that comes standard with ubuntu 10.10), media is either locally stored or on a 2TB usb external drive. Typical media includes ~700MB avi files (mpeg4, cpu decoded) and HD mkv's (mostly 1080p, but some 720p also. H.264).
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