ASUS S-presso SFF System Review Posted! - Page 5

kculpia · 6th Mar 2005, 10:56 AM

Just a followup if anyone is still reviewing this thread. This seems to be about the only place on the web that reviewed this appliance and has a discussion thread going.

1) Snowy TV picture with Instant-ON
I have finally got instant-on to work correctly. It required reinstallation AFTER windows XP. Do follow the directions per the manual, but if you get bad reception on the TV signal simply reinstall once you have your NTFS partition etc set up.

2) Loss of touch sensitive key on front panel
Touch sensitive keys are easily goofed up if you have trouble, pull the wire springs out a bit and replace the front panel. The remote will be non-responsive to the volume etc if this is messed up as well.

3) Front panel IEEE ports are hidden by black panel
I punched these out so I could see them behind the lower hidden door. The problem is that there are no hook-ups for this on the motherboard. At least none that I can find. The pins are there to hook up to an internal card in the future. But, beware, the tuner and hardware on this system are linked to instant on so if you add a sound card or AGP card you risk dropping the Instant-On feature. Would welcome any comments on this if you have experience with the hardware modifications. I really would like those front panel firewire ports active.

Basically, all is well and it just takes some experimentation. Key problems are resolved and this is a fairly good unit living up to the manufacturer's claims. DO adjust those wire springs on the touch sensitive unit tho if you are pulling off the front panel frequently they tend to get "squished."

apoll · 7th Mar 2005, 12:40 AM

Thank you very much for the great review and all the postings so far in the forum. I enjoyed reading through it during my time waiting for my S-presso.

I got it last Monday, Feb 28, and I did not in a moment regret my decision.

The Installation was a piece of cake. Thanks to Davids Trick with the frontcover I didn't break or scratch anything. Unfortunatly I did'nt deactivate the Cardreader, so that my HDD has now the letter I: and my DVD/CD-RW is G:.

For me the Instant-On works fine. I don't mind to turn on Windows for watching TV. I only need the Instant-On for DVD, CD and MP3. Did anyone of you find out, how to set the MP3 to the right folder from start? I always have to go from the top down to "My Music" until I can start listening.

I installed my ATI Radeon 9600 Pro in the AGP slot, but the sticker on the box didn't lie

. The Instant-On doesn't start anymore. So I'll sell my Radeon and stick with the internal Grafics for the moment. The games I play are not really high-end.

What my wife and I enjoy the most, is that it's really, really quiet.

My System contains:
P4 2,4 Ghz 800 FSB (Northwood)
1024 MB RAM (OEM) 333 DDR
80 Gb Maxtor Diamond Plus 9 (SATA)
Samsung Combi DVD/CDRW

As I said, I love my new Toy-Boy and my wife didn't complain

peaz · 7th Mar 2005, 01:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kculpia

I checked under hardware manager in the XP control panel.

There is no IEEE or 1394 bus port listed as I think there is a reason these were covered up.

I am a bit frustrated now as there is only 1 PCI slot occupied with the tuner.

Peaz - do you know anything about this? On your machine were these ports functional?

Maybe it is disabled with a jumper somewhere on the MB. But there is nothing on the box or in the promotional material about 1394 ports so I am thinking this was a deliberate omission.

Darn... that really sucks. Hmmm I find it weird that the Firewire port is 'disabled'. I'm sorry I can't really help out here as I didn't had the chance to really test out the machine extensively.

peaz · 7th Mar 2005, 01:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by apoll

Thank you very much for the great review and all the postings so far in the forum. I enjoyed reading through it during my time waiting for my S-presso.

I got it last Monday, Feb 28, and I did not in a moment regret my decision.

The Installation was a piece of cake. Thanks to Davids Trick with the frontcover I didn't break or scratch anything. Unfortunatly I did'nt deactivate the Cardreader, so that my HDD has now the letter I: and my DVD/CD-RW is G:.

For me the Instant-On works fine. I don't mind to turn on Windows for watching TV. I only need the Instant-On for DVD, CD and MP3. Did anyone of you find out, how to set the MP3 to the right folder from start? I always have to go from the top down to "My Music" until I can start listening.

I installed my ATI Radeon 9600 Pro in the AGP slot, but the sticker on the box didn't lie

. The Instant-On doesn't start anymore. So I'll sell my Radeon and stick with the internal Grafics for the moment. The games I play are not really high-end.

What my wife and I enjoy the most, is that it's really, really quiet.

My System contains:
P4 2,4 Ghz 800 FSB (Northwood)
1024 MB RAM (OEM) 333 DDR
80 Gb Maxtor Diamond Plus 9 (SATA)
Samsung Combi DVD/CDRW

As I said, I love my new Toy-Boy and my wife didn't complain

Glad you find your S-presso so enjoyable!

And glad that you enjoyed the review and the forums too

Hope you'll hang around a bit more and maybe check out our other and future reviews and articles too

Neil · 8th Mar 2005, 08:05 PM

Am about to buy an S-presso Media Centre, just arguing with ebuyer.com about the Gamer's edition they wrongly supplied me with, but I have a couple of queries.

I'm hoping to use the machine through my normal TV with Windows Media Centre 2005 as my operating system and have purchased a Hightech ATI Radeon 9550 AGP card because I thought it would be the only way I could get a "TV out" connection to hook the machine to my TV. I understand from your postings that there is a TV Out connection on the TV Card supplied with the S-presso. I am right in assuming that I can return the AGP card, especially given that merely installing it would disable the Instant-on feature?

I was also told before I decided to try and build a Media Centre machine that the display of the Windows desktop and other things is very poor on a TV compared with the picture on a monitor. I was advised that only TV or DVD pictures would look half decent. Can any of you who have installed Windows Media Centre on your S-presso confirm this and advise as to how bad it is, or if there are any ways of improving it? I don't really want a computer monitor in my living room, and it would seem to defeat the purpose of the machine if such was required.

Thanks for your help...

Neil

apoll · 8th Mar 2005, 09:01 PM

@ Neil
There is no TV-out on the TV Card! There is only a VGA-Out on the internal grafics. If you install the radeon 9550 the Instant-On will definitly not work. I tried this myself.
Maybe you'll be better served with the "Basic-Version" P112 with your AGP-Card and a TV-Card and Windows Media Center. Because if you have Windows Media Center you don't need the Asus Entertainment Software and probably the remote control won't work neither with Windows Media Center.

Neil · 8th Mar 2005, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peaz

Connection to a regular TV is via the TV Card provided with the S-presso.

Thanks for your reply, but I understood from peaz's post that the TV Card had an output to a TV. Is peaz wrong?

apoll · 9th Mar 2005, 02:52 AM

The TV-Card has 3 Inputs: TV-in, Radio-in (Antenna) and S-Video. The Audio out from the TV-Card is connected directly to the mainboard.
For me it also wouldn't make sense to connect a TV to a TV-Card. If you already have a TV, what do you need a TV-Card for? Also my limited Computer-Knowhow tells me, that Monitors, Flatscreens or TVs usually connect to the graphics card.
Sorry, but I don't think that you'll be able to connect a TV to the S-Presso including Instant-On. And I would say that paez is wrong in this point.

zy · 9th Mar 2005, 10:39 AM

usually internal graphics do not have TV-out

and.. if not mistaken .. tv cards have better output/input comapred to a VIVO graphic card

orion23 · 11th Mar 2005, 01:14 PM

Keep in mind that Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 and 2005 require at leat 64MB of video memory in order to run.
I don't think you can do this without installing a separate video card, which will kill the instant on!

6th Mar 2005, 10:56 AM	#41 (permalink)
kculpia Newbie Join Date: 2 Mar 2005 Posts: 13 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	Major Problems with S-Presso Resolved Just a followup if anyone is still reviewing this thread. This seems to be about the only place on the web that reviewed this appliance and has a discussion thread going. 1) Snowy TV picture with Instant-ON I have finally got instant-on to work correctly. It required reinstallation AFTER windows XP. Do follow the directions per the manual, but if you get bad reception on the TV signal simply reinstall once you have your NTFS partition etc set up. 2) Loss of touch sensitive key on front panel Touch sensitive keys are easily goofed up if you have trouble, pull the wire springs out a bit and replace the front panel. The remote will be non-responsive to the volume etc if this is messed up as well. 3) Front panel IEEE ports are hidden by black panel I punched these out so I could see them behind the lower hidden door. The problem is that there are no hook-ups for this on the motherboard. At least none that I can find. The pins are there to hook up to an internal card in the future. But, beware, the tuner and hardware on this system are linked to instant on so if you add a sound card or AGP card you risk dropping the Instant-On feature. Would welcome any comments on this if you have experience with the hardware modifications. I really would like those front panel firewire ports active. Basically, all is well and it just takes some experimentation. Key problems are resolved and this is a fairly good unit living up to the manufacturer's claims. DO adjust those wire springs on the touch sensitive unit tho if you are pulling off the front panel frequently they tend to get "squished."

7th Mar 2005, 12:40 AM	#42 (permalink)
apoll Newbie Join Date: 7 Mar 2005 Posts: 6 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	Excitement about S-Presso Thank you very much for the great review and all the postings so far in the forum. I enjoyed reading through it during my time waiting for my S-presso. I got it last Monday, Feb 28, and I did not in a moment regret my decision. The Installation was a piece of cake. Thanks to Davids Trick with the frontcover I didn't break or scratch anything. Unfortunatly I did'nt deactivate the Cardreader, so that my HDD has now the letter I: and my DVD/CD-RW is G:. For me the Instant-On works fine. I don't mind to turn on Windows for watching TV. I only need the Instant-On for DVD, CD and MP3. Did anyone of you find out, how to set the MP3 to the right folder from start? I always have to go from the top down to "My Music" until I can start listening. I installed my ATI Radeon 9600 Pro in the AGP slot, but the sticker on the box didn't lie . The Instant-On doesn't start anymore. So I'll sell my Radeon and stick with the internal Grafics for the moment. The games I play are not really high-end. What my wife and I enjoy the most, is that it's really, really quiet. My System contains: P4 2,4 Ghz 800 FSB (Northwood) 1024 MB RAM (OEM) 333 DDR 80 Gb Maxtor Diamond Plus 9 (SATA) Samsung Combi DVD/CDRW As I said, I love my new Toy-Boy and my wife didn't complain

9th Mar 2005, 10:39 AM	#49 (permalink)
zy Dead Join Date: 16 Dec 2002 Location: Buffalo NY / Penang MY Posts: 13,336 Reputation: 2158 Rep Power: 41	usually internal graphics do not have TV-out and.. if not mistaken .. tv cards have better output/input comapred to a VIVO graphic card __________________

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8th Mar 2005, 08:05 PM	#45 (permalink)
Neil Newbie Join Date: 17 Feb 2005 Posts: 5 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	Am about to buy an S-presso Media Centre, just arguing with ebuyer.com about the Gamer's edition they wrongly supplied me with, but I have a couple of queries. I'm hoping to use the machine through my normal TV with Windows Media Centre 2005 as my operating system and have purchased a Hightech ATI Radeon 9550 AGP card because I thought it would be the only way I could get a "TV out" connection to hook the machine to my TV. I understand from your postings that there is a TV Out connection on the TV Card supplied with the S-presso. I am right in assuming that I can return the AGP card, especially given that merely installing it would disable the Instant-on feature? I was also told before I decided to try and build a Media Centre machine that the display of the Windows desktop and other things is very poor on a TV compared with the picture on a monitor. I was advised that only TV or DVD pictures would look half decent. Can any of you who have installed Windows Media Centre on your S-presso confirm this and advise as to how bad it is, or if there are any ways of improving it? I don't really want a computer monitor in my living room, and it would seem to defeat the purpose of the machine if such was required. Thanks for your help... Neil

8th Mar 2005, 09:01 PM	#46 (permalink)
apoll Newbie Join Date: 7 Mar 2005 Posts: 6 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	@ Neil There is no TV-out on the TV Card! There is only a VGA-Out on the internal grafics. If you install the radeon 9550 the Instant-On will definitly not work. I tried this myself. Maybe you'll be better served with the "Basic-Version" P112 with your AGP-Card and a TV-Card and Windows Media Center. Because if you have Windows Media Center you don't need the Asus Entertainment Software and probably the remote control won't work neither with Windows Media Center.

9th Mar 2005, 02:52 AM	#48 (permalink)
apoll Newbie Join Date: 7 Mar 2005 Posts: 6 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	The TV-Card has 3 Inputs: TV-in, Radio-in (Antenna) and S-Video. The Audio out from the TV-Card is connected directly to the mainboard. For me it also wouldn't make sense to connect a TV to a TV-Card. If you already have a TV, what do you need a TV-Card for? Also my limited Computer-Knowhow tells me, that Monitors, Flatscreens or TVs usually connect to the graphics card. Sorry, but I don't think that you'll be able to connect a TV to the S-Presso including Instant-On. And I would say that paez is wrong in this point.

11th Mar 2005, 01:14 PM	#50 (permalink)
orion23 Newbie Join Date: 14 Feb 2005 Posts: 2 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	Keep in mind that Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 and 2005 require at leat 64MB of video memory in order to run. I don't think you can do this without installing a separate video card, which will kill the instant on!