[Cricket-RJ]

Just got one and I'm struggling to make it work on blu-ray 3D.

Tried Windvd 11 Pro, Power DVD 12 and 13 Ultra and other minor ones. Any of them could manage to work with hardware acceleration. Most of them allowed me to enter the disc menu and select 3D track, but once start playing, the previous hardware acceleration simply seems to disapear. Powerdvd 13 ultra (TRIAL) for instance, states that can't play that media since I don't have hardware acceleration.

In XBMC, the two BR that I've tried probably have BD-J menus, since they didn't allow me to get menus (Amazing Spiderman and Avatar). 2D Bluray plays beautifully with DTS-MA bitstream.

My Zotac has 8Gb (tried both 1 and 2Gb to GPU), 256 SSD, latest BIOS installed and Win 7 with SP1.

Does anyone here managed to get 3D 1080p smoothly? How?

[RamHawk]

Just a quick note / tip: On the Zotac AD12, the hard drive bracket screw that is closest to the RAM module can short against the RAM. I was helping a co-worker set up their new system when the Zbox would only perform POST beeps immediately. I saw the close proximity (they were touching) of the two items and knew the issue. Since the system was a SSD, I removed the screw and everything went smoothly.

Look at Kermee's pic (right above the Kinston dude's head). You can see how close they are. Not sure if this is causing other people problems or not. Once I saw this, I removed the screw in my unit as well. I didn't want it arching over if any dust started to build up inside.

[Freefallmerc]

Does anyone have their AD12 connected to N wireless? I have the WRT160N V2 router which has b/g/n wireless but no 5 GHZ so it is all 2.4 GHZ wifi. I currently had the wifi settings in the router set to mixed mode and I noticed if I bring up Windows Task Manager and click on Networking the Wireless Network Connection Link Speed is always 54 Mbps, never higher than this which would indicate it is only connecting at G speed. If I set the router wifi to Wireless N only then the AD12 will not connect to the network name, it almost immediately fails every time.

In device manager if I look under Network adapters I have "802.11n Wireless LAN Card" with Driver Provider Ralink Technology, Driver Date 2/18/2013 and Driver Version 5.0.21.0. How can I get it to connect faster than G speeds?

[CaptainStereo]

I'd like some Zotac veterans or those with an AD12 to try and help answer the following....

I want to run XBMC with Windows 7 so that I can have one device from which to view and listen to ripped movies, ripped music, locally stored pictures and videos, stream Netflix, Vudu, Amazon On Demand, YouTube, Hulu and so on. It must bitstream HD audio from my blu-ray rips.

Now I don't necessarily need the HTPC to be as small as the nano, but I do like that it is compact. But I want the best picture and sound quality I can muster. I have yet to read someone state definitively that getting a graphics card always results in better picture quality on blu-ray rips.

Is there another Zotac box I should be looking at given my goals? Thanks in advance!

[omarko]

can someone help pls?

I bought the Zotac AD12 with 8GB ram and 60GB SSD. Installed Windows and latest XBMC. All works well except, when I put the machine to sleep and then press the wake button, it does wake up and i am back where i ended however, the whole system is frozen.

This happens also when I am just in Windows, not running XBMC.

any ideas what the problem can be? I havent changed any bios settings and I am using latest BIOS.

thanks in advance.

[Brimstone]

Omarko - I feel your pain.The sleep function is an issue, not only with the Zotac units. I experienced similar issues with Intel and Nvidia,
This appears to be an issue with XBMC. My fix was to change from STANDBY to Shutdown.

[joelbaby]

SSDs don't always work with sleep mode.
You can upgrade ssd firmware sometimes.

[JustinBeaird]

how is the performance with a regular HDD

[toprunner2786]

Has anyone had any issues getting the zbox to boot from SD card? I installed openelec from a usb to the SD card, but now I can't get it to boot. I can't even see the SD card as a viable book drive in the bios. Has anyone been successful? I don't have a hdd installed, just the SD card.

[Freefallmerc]

Anyone have any issues with their AD12 after owning it for an extended period? I purchased this Jan 25 2013 and as of last night it is a paper weight. I vnc'd in while I was in my kitchen and opened XBMC and then exited the vnc. I took a few minutes gathering food and when I went out to the living room the computer was turned off, it doesn't light up and does not turn on or do anything. I unplugged the power, removed the ram and ssd, held the CMOS clear button and then reconnected everything. It won't do anything, it's completely dead I kept it on a shelf below my tv, it was completely in open air so I doubt it over heated.

I decided to go looking at Newegg reviews and lo and behold there are complaints about the RMA process

I really liked this thing right up until it died, very happy with the performance.

[cyberjam]

Anyone have any issues with their AD12 after owning it for an extended period? I purchased this Jan 25 2013 and as of last night it is a paper weight. I vnc'd in while I was in my kitchen and opened XBMC and then exited the vnc. I took a few minutes gathering food and when I went out to the living room the computer was turned off, it doesn't light up and does not turn on or do anything. I unplugged the power, removed the ram and ssd, held the CMOS clear button and then reconnected everything. It won't do anything, it's completely dead I kept it on a shelf below my tv, it was completely in open air so I doubt it over heated.

I decided to go looking at Newegg reviews and lo and behold there are complaints about the RMA process

I really liked this thing right up until it died, very happy with the performance.

I am really disappointed with Zotac's "ZBOX Nano AD12" product... I must have waited for all the reviews before getting them in February 2013 at Amazon.
I have the same exact issue now for the third time! I have purchased four units. Two of these four units kicked the bucket after 6 months of normal use (they ran few hours a day at two different locations). The ventilation was great at both sites. They were RMA-ed and I've got two new replacement units (not refurbished ones).

The most recent one was a warranty advance replacement for one of those bad ones, i.e. it was a new unit, and it also died a week ago after 4 month of running.

The symptoms are the same, the unit would not turn on at all. There is no power light and no activity.

There seems to be a serious issue with these units, worth a major recall/refund.
The units most likely overheat and burn out due to the bad thermal design, manufacturing process or due to the use of cheap semiconductors, or all of the above...

For now, while it is not too late, I'd advise all current users to try to add some active cooling to this unit by retrofitting fans or by keeping the unit in actively cooled space, such as a cabinet or specially designed box, i.e. keep the temperature around the unit lower that in the whole room.

Thanks,

CJ

P.S. Btw, ZBOX Nano AD10, which I purchased in 2011 works perfectly, no such issues (and I am knocking on the wood...)

[CaptainStereo]

FWIW to anyone searching the interwebs for reviews on this, I spent much of the last two days setting mine up as an OpenELEC XBMC box. My first piece of advice is make sure you have a wired USB keyboard. All the reviews I've read neglect to mention or assume that everyone just has a spare keyboard lying around for set-up. Fortunately, these are cheap. Two, when you insert the install stick, be at the ready to highlight and click "run openelec quick installer", otherwise it will default to running it off of the USB stick itself within about 5 seconds. I did this and only after tinkering for awhile did I realize that I actually hadn't installed in onto my Zotac's internal Kingston SSD. So I rebooted and ran the installer and 5 minutes later was done. The biggest thing you can do to increase performance is to change the frame buffer size from the default of 256mb to 1gb. 1080p is unplayable at 256, but is perfect at 1gb. I didn't try 512, but with a fast 4gb memory stick, I figured throw as much memory to this critical task as the system would allow. I also found the included remote garbage. But if you have a universal remote (I have a URC), one of the code sets for a Microsoft remote will do the trick. So I can now operate my entire system, XBMC HTPC included from a single universal remote. For when I need a keyboard or a visual interface, I use XBMC Touch on my iPad mini retina, which is fantastic. And I am in love with the 'reFocus BIG' skin, which isn't in the default repository but is easily found. I'm open for questions if I can help.

[ahow628]

Hi guys.

I've had an AD12 running since about early 2013. I used Mythbuntu on it (12.04 and more recently 14.04) and used it as a Mythtv frontend only. Myth has had some major UI glitches which made me start exploring.

I ended up installing OpenELEC 4.0.7 on it and the main issue I have is that the fan runs way louder than on Mythbuntu. I'm very happy with XBMC but the fan noise is not making me happy.

Anyone know if there is something I need to tweak to get the fan noise down?

Also, I wanted to share that I've purchased AD12s for two other people to be used as Windows desktops (basic emailing, internet, and cat videos stuff). I bought both from Amazon and both had an issue where the power button would not click. Basically, about half the time, it was like you held the button down to power off the PC - sometimes during boot, sometimes 5 minutes into trying to work. Ended up RMAing both with Amazon and the second one was fine in each case. These two purchases were a couple of months apart. Just thought that was weird.

Thanks!