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Reinstall Your OS

First off, it’s a good idea to start with a clean slate, over time you end up with all sorts of junk running on your machine, plus the debris of old or uninstalled applications. Wiping the slate clean is always a good idea.

Use the Correct Drivers

This may sound a little odd, but most of the time spent on loading the OS is drivers, having the correct ones for your hardware, even upgrading to the latest ones, can have an impact of how quickly the machine boots.

Check Your Device Boot Order

If you look in your BIOS (which you can usually get to by hitting Delete or F2 during boot), you will generally find a section listing the preferred boot order. This always used to be floppy disk drive, hard drive, CD-ROM, although few machines have a floppy drive any more. Check that hard drive is the first boot device.

Switch Off Auto-Discovery of Drives

Another setting in the BIOS will show you your drives (hard and optical). This is often set to auto-discover, use this to discover the drive in the BIOS and then set the drives as they are (remember to change it if you install a new drive), this will shave the time it takes to interrogate the drives.

Switch Off Automatic Memory Checks

As RAM is more robust these days, and there’s more of it, most machines seem to have abandoned the old memory checks, but if your machine is still doing this, disable it in the BIOS.

Pick a Simpler Theme

Each version of Windows is designed to look better, but all those extra gradients and shadows take time and effort to render, switch to the classic theme which is a lot less graphic intensive. To do that:

1. Right-click anywhere on the desktop and select Properties.

2. In the Display Properties box, go to the Themes tab and pick Windows Classic from the dropdown

3. Click OK.

Adjust XP for Best Performance

From a video by Jimmy Ruska:

Jimmy covers a number of tips in this video, first up is simply selecting XP’s built-in performance option.

Remove Unnecessary Windows Components

Windows installs a ton of applications and utilities you probably don’t want and will never use, to remove these:

1. Go to the Control Panel and select Add/Remove Programs

2. In the box that appears, select Add/Remove Windows Components

3. Untick the boxes of anything you don’t want or need (click on the item to see a description of what it is). If the Details box becomes available when you select and item, click it to see a sub-list of programs/services to see there is nothing you wish to keep.

4. Click Next

5. Click Finish

Disable the Indexing Services

From fastwindows.blogspot.com:

Indexing Services is a small little program that uses large amounts of RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your computer. It does this so that when you do a search for something on your computer, it will search faster by scanning the index lists. If you don’t search your computer often, or even if you do search often, this system service is completely unnecessary. To disable do the following:

1. Go to Start
2. Click Settings
3. Click Control Panel
4. Double-click Add/Remove Programs
5. Click the Add/Remove Window Components
6. Uncheck the Indexing services
7. Click Next

Speed-Up Folder Browsing

From fastwindows.blogspot.com:

You may have noticed that everytime you open my computer to browse folders that there is a slight delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers everytime you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing significantly:

1. Open My Computer
2. Click on Tools menu
3. Click on Folder Options
4. Click on the View tab.
5. Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box
6. Click Apply
7. Click Ok
8. Reboot your computer

Speed-Up Folder Access

From fastwindows.blogspot.com:

If you have a lot of folders and subdirectories on your computer, when you access a directory XP wastes a lot of time updating the time stamp showing the last access time for that directory and for ALL sub directories. To stop XP doing this you need to edit the registry. If you are uncomfortable doing this then please do not attempt.

1. Go to Start and then Run and type “regedit”
2. Click through the file system until you get to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem”
3. Right-click in a blank area of the window on the right and select ‘DWORD Value’
4. Create a new DWORD Value called ‘NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate’
5. Then Right click on the new value and select ‘Modify’
6. Change the Value Data to ‘1′
7. Click ‘OK’

Make Menus Load Faster

From fastwindows.blogspot.com:

This is one of my favourite tweaks as it makes a huge difference to how fast your machine will ‘feel’. What this tweak does is remove the slight delay between clicking on a menu and XP displaying the menu.

1. Go to Start then Run
2. Type ‘Regedit’ then click ‘Ok’
3. Find “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\”
4. Select “MenuShowDelay”
5. Right click and select “Modify’
6. Reduce the number to around “100?
7. This is the delay time before a menu is opened. You can set it to “0? but it can make windows really hard to use as menus will open if you just look at them - well move your mouse over them anyway. I tend to go for anywhere between 50-150 depending on my mood

Improve Swapfile Performance

From fastwindows.blogspot.com:

If you have more than 256MB of RAM this tweak will considerably improve your performance. It basically makes sure that your PC uses every last drop of memory (faster than swap file) before it starts using the swap file.

1. Go to Start then Run
2. Type “msconfig.exe” then ok
3. Click on the System.ini tab
4. Expand the 386enh tab by clicking on the plus sign
5. Click on new then in the blank box type”ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1?
6. Click OK
7. Restart PC

Disable Any Unnecessary Start-Up Programs

From a video by Jimmy Ruska:

Some applications automatically add themselves to the start-up list, sometimes by putting themselves into the “Startup” folder, which you can find on your Start Menu, simply delete the programs from the folder to stop them executing. Some applications add themselves at a lower level. Jimmy covers how to remove these using a built-in windows app called MSConfig in his second tip (and how to look-up what any unknown apps on Google).

Disable Any Unnecessary Services

From a video by Jimmy Ruska:

Some applications and hardware automatically adds services to your computer which start with the computer, Windows also includes and enables a lot of services by default, many of which you don’t need. You can disable these using the previous mentioned MSConfig, or if you type services.msc into the Run command it will bring up the Services module and allow you to set their status and see a bit more about them. I found Beemer World’s Optimize XP Services article useful to see what I should keep and what I could disable.

Disable Hardware Before You Shutdown

Some hardware runs a number of checks when you are loading, I found that disabling my wireless card before I shutdown meant I started up around seven seconds faster.

Applications

A useful application for identifying what is causing delays in your boot process is BootVis.

Once you have your machine booting quicker, you can improve the day-to-day handling by running lighter versions of popular applications, like Foxit PDF Reader, instead of Adobe’s 100Mb+ Acrobat Reader. You can find a good list of these apps over at mattbthompson.blogspot.com.

Hardware Round-up and Costs

A quick run through of the final hardware setup (new items in bold):

• ATX motherboard (Asus A7N8X-X Socket A/462 - £54 back in 2003)
• Sound card (from an even older machine)
• Processor (AMD “Barton” Athlon XP 2500+ 1.8Ghz - £66 back in 2003)
• RAM (512Mb Crucial 184-pin DIMM - £54 back in 2003)
• Graphics card (Asus Nvidia FX 6200 with TV-out - £24.67)
• TV Tuner (Hauppauge Nova T 500 Dual Tuner - £49.99)
• Remote (Microsoft MCE 2005 Remote and IR receiver - £19.96)
• Wireless Keyboard (Microsoft IR Media Keyboard - £23.48)
• DVI cable (£2.49)
• HTPC case (to fit ATX mobo) - Silverstone LC17 - £65.67
• Quiet CPU fan - Zalman CNPS7000B-CU - £17.63
• Large HDD - WD Caviar 400Gb - £54.64
• Case fans, one 92mm Antec TriCool, one 80mm Antec TriCool - £3.87 + £3.99 (didn’t need the 80mm)
• AnyDVD €49/£37
• Fanless PSU - Silverstone ST30NF £71.09
• ATX 24-pin to 20-pin converter cable £0.99
• 2 * Zalman Fanmate 2 fan controllers for case fans - 3.99 ea

Total spent (not including original hardware): £383.46 (plus postage, so probably around £420)

Suppliers Round-up

A quick round-up of the suppliers I used and how I found them.

Ebuyer - cheap prices, good service.

Amazon - not much needed to say, not always the cheapest, good service

Overclockers - I’ve used them before, cheap and great service.

Cablestar - a company I found which also sells on eBay, I have bought several sorts of cables from them, they have a good range a great prices

After Hours - they were the cheapest for my case, but aside from confirming my order I didn’t hear anything from them for a week, I had seen a couple of negative reviews and when I first contacted them I didn’t hear anything back, only when I requested to cancel my order did they respond, then I got my delivery confirmed.

Novatech - not the cheapest on many parts, but good service and quick delivery.

Micro Direct - cheapest place I found my fanless PSU, fast delivery, no problems (no confirmation it had been sent though).

Quiet PC - again, not the cheapest, although they stock a range of parts few other equal, good service.

Images

Conclusion

I was looking for a PVR which would give me expandability and easier access to my content, all in one place. It also had to match up to a shop bought PVR, it had to be easy to use, reliable, not draw too much power and, above all, be silent in operation. I’m reasonably happy. The machine still isn’t silent, with the CPU cooler and HDD still generating a bit of noise, and a fair racket when playing DVDs, but as the machine is located at my head height and about three feet from me that’s understandable, if it were in a normal living room environment you would have trouble telling it was on. I don’t find the software particularly easy to use, neither GB-PVR or Media Portal hit the mark for me and the pay-for packages lacked Freeview support (yes, there is a world outside the US). I’m also at a loss as to how I get the machine to sleep, then wake up if it’s set to record as a paid device would.

The package that started me thinking about building an HTPC again was Vista’s Media Centre, and the two packages I tried didn’t measure up. For example, when I installed a USB TV card Vista Media Centre automatically found it, downloaded TV channels and set it up, why don’t all of the packages work this way (I’m asking a lot I know)? Plus it has an in-built burn feature (not that I’ve tested it) for getting shows onto DVD.

Looking back at the hardware, I’m only disappointed by two parts: the keyboard, I’m not massively impressed, it works, but is less than ideal, the mouse takes a lot of getting used to and, in reality, getting a keyboard out all the time is awkward. A regular bluetooth or RF one would probably be better than IR. It was cheap and it does do the job though. The other part is the case. Don’t get me wrong, the case if well-built and works well, but it’s massive and is, therefore, somewhat ungainly. I think the disappointment was because I saw my built PVR as being the same size as a normal PVR, DVD player, etc. I’m happy enough to hang on to it though.

I did end up buying a lot more hardware than I thought, and spending a lot more money on the project. Looking back I could have bought a pre-built media centre solution for not much more and a PVR for much less, although finding a PVR that saved into a format I could easily burn may have been hard, plus I can play any media format and access the internet all from one machine. I am considering replacing the remaining original components a building a machine capable of running Vista and using Media Centre, although that would probably mean replacing the CPU cooler and graphics card as well.

The Software

I started by installing a copy of XP Pro I had lying around, once that was running I set about the PVR software.

I initially installed GB-PVR. It’s not open source, but is free, and seems to have a lot of support. It is actually designed as two pieces of software, a back-end recorder/scheduler and a front-end for controlling it and playback, they can be run on the same or separate machines (so you could have a media server somewhere running all the time and something like a Hauppauge MediaMVP controlling it, which GB-PVR has good support for). I had checked the transmitter used on my PVR so I could pick the TV transmitter to use and got on with setting up GB-PVR.

I have to say that it was far from the most intuitive setup I have ever done, and don’t get me wrong, I’m good with computers, well into expert, which means this would probably be bewildering for normal users. It found my hardware without issue, but whenever I tried to search for channels it found nothing. I checked everything twice, spent a long time using Google and hunting forums, no joy. I gave up and installed Media Portal.

I liked Media Portal better from the start and it was a bit easier to get my head around. Still no joy finding channels though. I installed the WinTV software that came the TV card and it found channels. So, no problem with the reception or hardware. I spent a long time searching online for help and in the end I found out about ScanChannelsBDA_UK (I have mirrored a copy here as I had to sign up to download a copy, the only place I found it online). That found channels, and from which transmitter it found them, turns out I was using the wrong one. Back into GB-PVR and it found the channels. I tried in Media Portal, still no joy. So I finished setting up GB-PVR and it was all working. I had to install a copy of PowerDVD I had lying around to get MPEG2 encoders/decoders though.

After a brief use I wasn’t happy with it. The TV picture seemed to jerk, like it was dropping frames, which made it difficult to watch. More than that though, the interface felt old and ugly, clunky to use. I thought I’d give Media Portal another try. I figured I would uninstall GB-PVR as it may be conflicting, I was right, that sorted the problem and I was OK to set Media Portal up. I was much happier with it from the start, still a few weird things in the interface, but it looked nicer and seemed to work better.

I spent the first week tweaking and changing settings. Initially I had a problem that the sound went weird when I tried to record, which I tracked down to the MPEG encoder I had chosen (Media Portal comes with some encoders and decoders, unlike GB-PVR). I added a plugin to launch external applications and added IE so you could easily launch a browser and surf the net. I also enabled the My Burner plugin so I could, I hoped, burn saved files straight to DVD (as I mentioned, part of my reason for disliking me current PVR was the work involved in doing this).

I played around with it for a few days, got it picking up my photos, music and ripped DVDs from the NAS, checked it was recording programmes, setup my Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) using XMLTV GUI (incidentally, easier to set this up to put the file, called tvguide.xml into the xmltv folder in the Media Portal programme folder). Setting up the TV channels and then matching them to the EPG was the most laborious process though. I also managed to get hold of some custom channel icons so many of my channels had the channel logos, making them easier to identify.

I installed a copy of SpeedFan to help control my fan speeds, which did make a difference in noise, but as I only had a CPU fan that could be controlled it meant the heat immediately rocketed up, it showed me it was possible though. I also noticed that my optical DVD ROM was way too loud when playing back (optical drives try and spin flat-out all the time, in reality anything over about 1.5x is wasted on playback). Media Portal does come with an option to control the spin speed of a drive, but it didn’t seem to work, although I have an old drive so it may work with newer ones. After much hunting I grabbed a trial copy of AnyDVD, which had the added benefit of making the drive region free and removing those seriously annoying piracy warnings you can’t skip.

I was happy that my hardware was capable of running the software and acting as a PVR, so I decided it was time to make it look and act more like a PVR than a PC.

Adding Hardware

First off was to find a case. I had a full-size ATX motherboard, so that limited my options, getting a sleek slimline case was out of the question, which was probably a good thing anyway, as I believe the old Athlons run very hot, so it would give more room for air circulation. The old machine survived using only three fans: one in the PSU, one on the graphics card and a CPU cooler, no case fans. I’d swapped the graphics card for a passively cooled one, putting the heat in the case up. There aren’t too many HTPC case manufacturers. The most popular seem to be Zalman, Antec and Silverstone. I liked the look, and the price, of the Silverstone LC13 or the Silverstone LC17. In the end I went for the latter, but it was fairly hard to find for sale in the UK. The LC17 is a huge case, with room for two optical drives stacked on top of each other, up to 6 3.5″ drives, a full-size PSU and a full-size ATX board, plus cooling fans.

Checking my old machine I identified the noisiest elements, which seemed to be overwhelmingly the CPU fan (with the graphics card fan gone, which was far noisier). For a replacement I looked for a Zalman flower, which seem to get great reviews and comes with a fan controller, although I was planning on using SpeedFan anyway. There are actually a variety of different models. I settled on the CNPS7000B-CU, fairly cheap, supports a range of CPUs (including the Socket A/462 my Athlon XP uses) and comes with all the mounting brackets.

I knew I needed a larger hard drive to store the recorded shows on. The board was only capable of PATA (parallel ATA) connections, which limited my choice. After much hunting and reading many reviews I settled on a 400Gb Western Digital Caviar.

Lastly I grabbed a few case fans, one 80mm and one 92mm, both Antec TriCools, which are bearing fans, so quiet, and come with three-setting fan controllers built in. The LC17 also comes with two 80mm fans mounted in the case.

The case was the last to arrive, but it was a fairly simple process to transfer all my components over. The CPU cooler just fit without touching the case, meaning the case fan I was going to mount there wouldn’t go. I mounted the 92mm fan, on it’s lowest setting (where it’s silent) to the front of the middle 3.5″ mounting rail. In the end I left the two Silverstone fans where they were, I only connected one, to a motherboard fan slot, thinking it would be controlled by SpeedFan.

I fitted both the HDDs, figuring to use the original 40 Gb as the OS/system disk and the new one for storage. I attached the CPU cooler directly to the motherboard, not using it’s fan controller.

When I fired up the machine I was expecting whisper-quiet. That’s not what I got. I spent some time starting and stopping the machine to find the noisy components. There seemed to be three culprits: the original 40 Gb HDD, the CPU fan and the two Silverstone case fans. I removed the IBM HDD, it was an old 7,200 RPM drive, hardly surprising it was noisy, then found that the WD drive was mounted using the wrong size screws, so it still had movement, I found the correct screws and bolted it in tight.

I attached the fan controller that came with the CPU cooler and set that to about as low as it would go, I also ordered a couple of Zalman Fanmate 2 controllers (which is what came with the CPU) for the case fans, and again, set them low (the noise from the case fans was more due to the amount of air they were shifting than any noise from the fans).

It meant reinstalling the OS and setting up all the software again, luckily I found out how to backup the Media Portal settings. After a few days waiting for parts and then several hours reinstalling everything I was back in business, but the machine was still too noisy (my aim was a machine you could barely hear when it was running). I checked the case again, the HDD was making a noise, where it was quiet/silent before. I figured my bolting down the drive hadn’t helped, so switched the screws back, giving the drive some play, and that dropped the noise.

As a side note, from what I read the quietest drives are 2.5″ laptop drives, mounted on rubber bungies to stop vibrations being transmitted into the case. This was designed as a low-cost project, so I didn’t want the premium of a 2.5″ drive.

It still wasn’t quiet enough for me though, there was still too much noise, enough that my ears gave a sigh of relief when I turned the machine off. Hunting through the case I found three sources: the CPU cooler, although quiet, was still not silent; the HDD was making some noise, though not much and the PSU, although quiet, was far from silent. I decided I could live with the first two. The PSU was an old one I had left over, although supposedly silent, it blatantly wasn’t. I hunted around and there were plenty of options for a ’semi-passive’ PSU (which means it runs fanless below a certain temperature, above that a big fan cuts in, typically bigger than 80mm so it can turn slow). I didn’t want semi-passive, that still left the possibility for noise, I wanted silent, which meant fanless. I had the case cooling to cope with the extra heat and the LC17 case has the PSU on it’s own, away from everything else, with a vent straight out of the case.

There aren’t many fanless PSUs, certainly not many at reasonable cost (and forget it if you have a powerful system, mine was all running from a 300w PSU). Many of those mentioned over at SilentPCReview.com just could not be found for sale. In the end I managed to get my hands on a Silverstone ST30NF, figuring it would go well with the case.

The presented a different problem, however, it comes with a 24-pin ATX cable, my board is an old one with a 20-pin socket, which meant buying a converter cable (24-pins are basically 20-pin adapters, with an additional four pins bolted on the side, many PSU manufacturers allow them to be detached, or let them hang separate so you can plug them in or not depending on your board).

You can find part three here

1. I keep filling up the hard disk

2. Even though I export the files, they take so long to convert and burn to DVD I rarely bother, so I have GBs of external HDD space taken up storing programmes I may burn to DVD at some point

I also have a NAS (network attached storage) with some ripped DVDs, my photos and music on which no one else can really access, so I was thinking of creating/buying something to allow the rest of the family access these things from the TV. As I realised my problems and the device I was thinking of could both be solved by a media centre PC I started researching the options.

I had an old PC lying around anyway, and getting rid of old PCs is always a chore (for my last two I contacted a local IT charity that specialises in taking old hardware and re-using it, but never heard back from them, in the end they went to a friend’s son), so it seemed to make sense to convert it. I was aiming to make this on the cheap, to show you didn’t need a top-notch machine, to test the concept ahead of possibly building a top-of-the-line machine using all-new parts. My initial research suggested it was probably powerful enough, despite it’s age. Part of this desire to build a media centre PC (or an HTPC as they’re more commonly known, which stands for Home Theatre PC) was having not long had a copy of Vista which comes with Vista Media Centre (on Home Premium and Ultimate only). It was a great app and whet my appetite, although I knew Vista would not run on my old machine, so I went looking for alternatives.

As it turns out, there are plenty of media centre apps out there, some free and some commercial. Early on I decided I wanted to stick with Windows, as much as I have have heard good things about MythTV, I just wanted ready to spend time learning a new OS and run Linux. I was fine with buying some software, I figured it would be better quality. So my research led me to the likes of BeyondTV and SageTV, as well as free software like GB-PVR and Media Portal. At this point I came across a realisation, while I had read a lot of sites, forums, posts and blogs regarding what people had done with their media centres and what they recommended, they were overwhelmingly US-centric and dealt with analogue TV. Being based in the UK, naturally I wanted Freeview (free to air digital TV), which very few of the projects I saw did, so the cards they used and, as it turned out, most of the software, did not mention or support digital cards. The good news is that both of the free options did, so I was down to GB-PVR and Media Portal for the software.

Initial Setup and Testing

I figured I’d start simple to test the water, keep most of the existing hardware and just supplement it with require components so I could see if the project was feasible. The hardware I started with was:

• Generic tower case
• ATX motherboard (Asus A7N8X-X Socket A/462 - £54 back in 2003)
• Quiet PSU (Zalman ZM300A-APF - £47 back in 2003)
• Sound card (from an even older machine)
• Processor (AMD “Barton” Athlon XP 2500+ 1.8Ghz - £66 back in 2003)
• RAM (512Mb Crucial 184-pin DIMM - £54 back in 2003)
• IBM Deskstar HDD (40Gb)

Checking the tuner card compatibility of both bits of software I settled on a Hauppauge Nova T 500 Dual Tuner (partly as Hauppauge seems to be used for many HTPC projects), to give me the option of recording two channels as with my existing PVR, I figured I could always add more later should I wish (most media centre software will support a number of cards, 11 is the highest number in any project I saw). The other benefit is this offer two tuners on one card, which means only one aerial lead and one PCI slot used. Freeview has the benefit of being transmitted in MPEG2, the same format used on DVDs, and the format most TV cards record in, so it saves having expensive hardware and load on the machine encoding the TV signals.

Next I needed a new graphics card as my existing one didn’t have a TV out. I figured I’d output to an HD TV, so something capable of supporting 720p or higher, with a DVI or HDMI output. I didn’t need anything too fancy, it wasn’t for games, so I settled on an XFX Geforce FX5700 Ultra 128MB with a DVI out as a cheap, capable card. Unfortunately, that went out of stock, so I changed to an Asus Nvidia FX 6200 (Nvidia seemed to edge out the ATI’s for cost and performance, plus my options were limited as I needed an AGP card).

I also wanted a remote and a wireless keyboard as I wanted this to be used by the family and they would want a remote. They keyboard would mean we could surf the internet or whatever from the couch too. I opted for the Microsoft MCE 2005 Remote and IR receiver, partly as it was quite cheap, partly because I figured it would have good support (both of the packages I would be using support it) and a Microsoft IR Media Keyboard, which makes use of the same IR receiver and looks pretty good, again, good value too. Worth noting is that the TV card came with a remote, which is also supported by both bits of software.

When they arrived I started putting it all together and that’s when the fun began.

Find part 2 here and part three here.

It’s a good set and they work well (although the headset can be uncomfortable for long use if you don’t get it sitting just right). I also got an iPod remote with built-in radio though and have been finding the radio better to listen to. The problem is you can’t use the bluetooth transmitter and the radio remote at the same time as they both use the iPod dock connector on the bottom. So, I decided to try and find a bluetooth transmitter than would work through a standard 3.5mm headphone socket, I have a pair of wireless RF headphones that do this, so it seemed likely. Well, there aren’t many on the market, but I eventually settled on the Jabra A120s as they were a company I knew (better known for bluetooth phone headsets) and I had seen a comment they worked with the S9s. I also ordered a Jabra BT320s, a bluetooth headphone set which allows you to use any ordinary set of heaphones, partly because it was on a deal if I bought both, partly because I figured if the A120s didn’t work with my S9 I could use it with this and partly because it meant I could use any set of headphones wirelessly.

When the A120s arrived I followed the instructions and tried to pair with my S9 headset, no joy, it just wouldn’t find it. The next day my BT320s arrived, I tried pairing with that, still no joy. I was hectic for a few days so waited for the weekend to try again. Reading the light sequences it appeared the A120s started searching, didn’t find my headphones, but paired with something. I spent an age downloading various bits of bluetooth sniffing software to try and see what it connected to, with no joy. I checked all the bluetooth devices in the house, they could see it, but were not paired with it (I figured something might be hijacking it). So, over to the Jabra support site to check up on the options, nothing in the FAQs, but I found a pairing guide for these two products. Well, that suggested a different way to pair, the manual suggests you press the on button for 1 second to get it to start flashing, this means it’s in pairing mode, these instructions say hold it until the light goes to solid blue (which indicates manual pairing mode according to the manual), but the guide mentions something about a code, how do you type that in on something with no number keys? I tried pressing the on/talk button four times, no joy. Even when I left it alone it would not pair and eventually one or other device would get bored and stop looking. I also tried the BT320s with the Motorola D650, but same result. They worked fine with my phone and PC though. In the end I even sent a support request to Jabra about it, something I don’t normally bother doing because experience has taught me most company’s take longer than an ice age to reply, if they do at all, and you end up dealing with some muppet who is about as useful as a chocolate teapot and never helps fix the problem.

There is a firmware update listed on the BT320s support page, I figured it was worth a go, but you need to connect it to a PC via USB and they use a micro USB port (which no one uses!) and finding a cable to buy was next to impossible. Searching for the cable I stumbled across two different sites with the same suggestion: plug the BT320s into it’s charger, three times, for 4 seconds each time. This was about switching on certain functionality in the BT320s, I thought it was worth a try, I then followed the earlier instruction about switching it into manual pairing and voila, it worked! I then tried it with the D650 and that also worked.

I still couldn’t get my S9 headset working, but I figured that was better than nothing, at least I could now use it. So I figured I’d write this up so if you’re having problems with the BT320s, try plugging it in three times for four seconds and hopefully that’ll sort your problems, a weird fix, but it works!

A number of years ago there were rumblings about how broadband would soon be supplied by our power companies. To connect to the internet, all you would need to do is plug in an adapter anywhere in your home/building and attach a cable to your PC. Genius idea, more money for the power company, they have to-the-door cabling to practically every home already, more competition in the marketplace, it made sense. That has slowly disappeared, although it gets mentioned again every so often (not heard of anyone actually doing it though).

A spin-off of this was internal home networking using your power circuits. This makes sense to most people because:

• a) Most people don’t have CAT-5 cabling through-out their home, and
• b) Everyone (well, almost) has power circuits that run into every room

So, the idea is simple, turn your power circuit into a network. That’s what these (and other) ‘plugs’ do. Even better, they use a standard called HomePlug, which is supported by a number of companies and allows inter-operation between devices. There are different versions, depending on the speed you need (ranging from 14mbps to 200mbps). Many people will be wondering why you would need this when wireless is so ubiquitous and easy to setup (and boy, is it not). Well, a number of reasons:

1. Wireless is notoriously flakey and is susceptible to interference from a range of sources
2. Wireless networks can be insecure
3. Wireless networks can be challenging to setup for ordinary users (hell, even for experienced ones sometimes)
4. Wireless networks are not very quick

A physical network answers all these downfalls, it’s more solid, less susceptible to interference, more secure (not totally, although you can encrypt the information sent over the power lines), simple to setup and, typically, faster (wireless N may push them, but as it hasn’t even been agreed yet, despite some manufacturers getting bored and producing ‘draft-N’ devices), the one big issue is that you need to put cabling in, but not is you use existing cabling you already have. The pack I had was the 85mbps version, though someone I know recently bought the 200mbps version to stream HDTV content to his TV (note these are ‘theoretical’ speeds), partly because wireless signals do not travel around his house well.

That’s where I see these devices really rocking, now that PCs are entering the living room and more and more content is being stored on PCs and network drives, but we want to break it free of the PC and access it on our TV, not crowd around a desktop or look over people’s shoulders at a laptop. Games consoles too are more likely to have a network connection now so they can download things over the internet and allow you to play other people. These sorts of applications need high-speed, reliable connections to work well.

The starter kit comes with two plugs (but you can buy additional ones to connect more devices/rooms) and boasts ‘one minute installation.’ They’re not wrong. Open the packet, dig out the plugs, plug one in to a wall socket near your modem/router, attach a network cable (supplied) and plug the other end into your modem/router, walk to where you want the other connection, plug in the second adapter, attach a network cable (supplied) and plug it into your computer and you’re done (there’s a little more if you to use encryption). That was it.

I tested by accessing some files and playing some of my (legally) ripped DVDs from a NAS drive, all worked fine. My friend has been able to stream HDTV via an Xbox 360 to his TV without problems and also found setup easy. At the moment the plan is to use these for connecting a media centre PC up under the TV so it can connect to the internet for surfing and downloading the Electronic Programme Guide (EPG).

You can also get things like wireless extenders to take wireless signals to places they otherwise cannot reach (the stated range of the power line adapters is 200 meters). The only problem is that you need a plug socket. I believe they will work in a power bar/extension lead but the further from the socket they are the lower the signal strength and speed, although this hasn’t been an issue.

The devices are a little pricey, the 14mbps kit is £62.02 (on Ebuyer), while the 85mbps kit is £89.54 and the 200mbps kit £132.30, but you can get cheaper ones from other vendors. I thought the idea sounded good when I heard it and I haven’t been proved wrong, roll on in-home power line networking, even if the power companies aren’t interested in supplying broadband.

First off, no, hang on a second, I should really start by saying that online is the place for discounts, buy online! That’s not to say that you should ignore in-store bargains, but generally I’ve found that even those ‘unmissable bargains’ can be beaten online, even if only with better specs than the version offered. I guess we should get the obvious things out the way:

eBay

Yes, love it or hate it (I don’t have an account) there’s plenty of cheap stuff on eBay, beware what you’re buying though, check the description carefully (don’t be one of those people who buys a box) and use your common sense (if it’s too good to be true, it is). I’ve just bought my first thing on eBay (someone bought it on my behalf, still not getting an account), a barcode scanner, review to come. I’d be less inclined to buy any significant hardware this way and most of the software listed is copies, so you may wish to avoid.

Amazon Marketplace

A better place to look than eBay for me, partly because it’s primarily used by businesses. As someone who has listed and sold hardware on it though, generally it offers some good prices and less (it appears) risky deals.

Cashback Schemes

Another fairly broad group. Quite a few companies run cashback services, wherein you sign-up and visit a website through their link and then get back a percentage of the transaction once it’s verified. I, personally, have only ever used Quidco, but it works like a charm and you can get anywhere from 1-20% back on your purchases, not bad for almost no effort. PayPay seem to have a scheme as well that I hadn’t heard about, check out www.paypal-offers.co.uk.

Here’s a few your may not have thought/heard of:

Student Discounts

Many software manufacturers (not too sure about hardware) offer discounts to people in education, and this often includes teachers and employees in the education sector (although sometimes on a different schemes). Take the current The Ultimate Steal scheme Microsoft is running. It is currently offering Office 2007 Ultimate for £38.95, a product that is currently listed on Amazon.co.uk for £461.98. That’s a saving of £423.03! Most schools, colleges and universities have information about how and where to buy academic copies of many apps, so well worth asking, or just plug it into Google and look for student or academic copies. Note that you often have to provide proof you are in education, although these rarely seem to be very strict and I certainly know of people getting friends and relatives in full-time education to buy a copy on their behalf.

Company Schemes

Software
In a similar vein to education discounts, some companies offer discounts to employees of corporations that sign up for their licenses. I have previously bought copies of various Office suites for around £15-20 using such a scheme (check if your workplace has any of these deals, typically it’ll only be large corporations signed up ongoing schemes). Even smaller companies may have things like MSDN licenses that allow you to buy licensed versions cheaper than retail. Lastly, some software companies allow you to use work software on a home PC (provided your not using them both at once), I think Adobe and Macromedia used to do this, not sure they still do.

Hardware
Something else to check is whether your company has any discount schemes with retailers. Many larger businesses negotiate or join schemes that offer their employees discount on a range of products, including computers and hardware. We saved 6% off a laptop with one of these schemes leading up to Christmas.

Upgrades

While buying brand new items is sometimes beneficial, it’s always good to check what savings can be had from upgrades. Some software vendors even offer free upgrades between certain versions (or even lifetime upgrades). If you have an old version of a piece of software it is worth checking if you are eligible for an upgrade package rather than the full thing. A copy of Vista Home Premium Edition, for example, costs £199.98 (on Amazon.co.uk), while the upgrade costs £99.98, a £100 saving.

While individual components can rarely be upgraded in a PC, you can often extend the useful life of a PC or laptop with simple upgrades. These are often very easy to install and cheap to do and can make your machine behave almost like new. Probably the most obvious is upgrading the RAM of a machine. This can be cheap and if you can change a plug you should be able to cope with changing RAM, on both desktop and laptop computers. Not sure what to buy, try Crucial.com, which has a way to find you RAM by brand, or using a downloadable tool (and has great prices too, and last time I looked you could get discount through Quidco!). Other upgrades worth thinking about are hard drives (go for an external if opening the case causes you palpitations), graphics cards and optical drives (DVD/HD-DVD drives). There are plenty of installations guides online, so I won’t repeat them here.

Also worth noting is simply doing a complete, fresh install of your OS can result in big performance improvements.

Shop Around

I’ve mentioned how and where I look for the best prices before, but even I find new places with better prices. Always remember to do you research on the stores first and, if you have never ordered from them before, use a credit card if you can as this offers you some protection (i.e. your money back) should it all go wrong.

OEM

Last, but by no means least, is OEM. OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer, essentially the people who build computer systems (Dell, HP, etc). They get special discount rates on software and hardware because they get things without all the bells and whistles a ‘retail’ part does, and also bulk discounts. For example, Microsoft OEM products do not come with support from Microsoft for the end user, you have to go back to the equipment supplier (i.e. Dell, HP, etc). The benefits are in the price though, they usually offer big discounts. Take the example of Vista Home Premium Edition above, as I stated, the retail version costs £199.98 (on Amazon.co.uk), while the upgrade costs £99.98. The OEM version, also listed on Amazon, costs £61.48, or £138.50 cheaper than retail and £38.50 cheaper than even the upgrade. This is a full, working version of the software, no catches. The same is often the case with hardware too, you’ll find things like screws and cables missing compared to a retail version, but if you’re upgrading you probably already have them.

• Windows Vista Starter (designed for ‘emerging’ markets, i.e. third-world/low-tech countries)
• Windows Vista Home Basic (aimed at budget home users)
• Windows Vista Home Premium (essentially the ’standard’ version for home users)
• Windows Vista Ultimate (has all of Vista’s features and some special add-ons)
• Windows Vista Business (for small businesses)
• Windows Vista Enterprise (only available to customers participating in Microsoft’s Software Assurance program)

All of these versions, except Starter, are available in 32- and 64-bit versions (you get both with Ultimate, although I think you need to request whichever one isn’t in the box). To cut through all that, Vista Home Premium will cover 99% of the consumer market.

I went with Vista because I was unhappy with OS X, my Mac will run Windows too and I saw a copy of Vista on a friend’s laptop and it looked good (it has a beautiful interface). I went with 64-bit version because:

1. My machine has 64-bit processors, it seemed a waste not to use them
2. 64-bit is where it’s going, so it’s a little future-proofing (although it’ll be some time before 64-bit is the norm I think)
3. I have 4Gb of RAM and the 32-bit version only supports a maximum of 2Gb
4. I read the 64-bit version is slightly quicker

There are several negatives of running 64-bit, mainly software support and drivers. Most applications built today are designed to run in 32-bit environments, Vista 64 doesn’t do a bad job running them, but some are a little clunky. Worse, anything written to run in lower bit environments (16, for example) won’t run at all. Some 32-bit apps even have 16-bit installers which can’t be run. Generally speaking this won’t affect most consumers, 32-bit will be fine. Alongside this is that the underlying code of Vista is significantly different to XP, so some apps won’t run under Vista until they have been updated and, despite being out a year now, many application providers are dragging their heels.

The other issue I have had is with drivers, mainly due to using the 64-bit version rather than anything else, it requires Microsoft signed drivers, which is expensive and time consuming. Some manufacturers just aren’t releasing new drivers for old kit, I still can’t use my HP DeskJet 1010 for example, all-in-all though, Vista has been great.

It’s far more responsive than my previous operating system (OS X Tiger), includes most of the same apps that Apple has done since Tiger (you can see a full list here) and very stable. There have been changes to many parts of the OS, some result in items being moved and/or renamed, there seems to be few areas unaffected. For the most part I like these new changes, although I’m not too keen on the way the start menu works now (for selecting apps that is), I’ve started using Launchy as an app launcher to save repeated clicking and hovering.

One of the main criticisms of Vista is that it’s resource hungry, Microsoft reckon you can run it on 512Mb of RAM, but I would say 1Gb RAM was the bare minimum just to run Vista (my machine uses around 900Mb just idling with no applications running) and 2Gb if you want to be able to use it too (it flies with four, but I rarely use anywhere near all the RAM, so it’s probably overkill). As I said, it uses a lot of RAM as standard, and that’s without smart fetch — pre-loading of your most-used apps — running, which I switched off because of all the disk thrashing. Smart fetch is another new feature that pre-loads your most used apps into RAM so when you start them they’re almost ready to run. Although it’s memory hungry, Vista will allow you to use a USB memory stick as additional RAM/smart fetch cache.

As I mentioned, there’s been some issues with my favourite 32-bit apps, Notepad++ doesn’t show up on the right-click menu as it does in XP, for example. I had to find another DVD player as neither of those I have ran (I think both have Vista versions available to purchase though, I’m just too cheap, I use AVS DVD player instead). Windows Explorer has been altered, and while it’s nice, it takes some getting used to when navigating around (especially switching between folders I find). The ability to add shortcuts to any folder is good though, and saves a lot of time and hassle if you store files in places outside your user folder (what was My Documents), or even in specific folders inside, making saving files often a simple two-click process.

I love the included media centre, in fact, it inspired me to build a media centre PC, more on that later, although the machine I’m using isn’t capable of supporting Vista (in this incarnation at least), Vista will replace Microsoft’s dedicated Windows Media Centre Edition (and is obviously to compete with Apple’s Front Row). Good integration, you can add a simple USB TV tuner and watch and record live TV, and with the addition of a Windows remote it makes using it very simple. I guess this is also part of Microsoft’s desire to make the PC the centre of entertainment in the household. If you have an Xbox 360 you can also use that as an extender to play content on your PC on your TV.

All in all I’ve been very pleased with Vista, I don’t know what all the complaining has been about. It really is a nice big step forward, but you need the hardware to handle it. The general rule for Microsoft’s OS’ is you wait until the first service pack is out before buying it. It’s due this month, and will be a big thing by the sounds of it. So now is probably a good time to look at it. I suspect most people won’t bother upgrading until the buy new hardware anyway, which will solve the problem of under-powered machines too. XP is a rock solid OS, it was the first one from Microsoft that really upped the game and didn’t have gaping holes (well, 2k was good too) and while there probably isn’t a need to upgrade to Vista, it is a step forward and definitely moves on from XP.

Note that the official development of the SRG Clean Archives has been taken up over here, and their version works with 2.3 as well (apparently). I had a plugin that worked and couldn’t be bothered downloading another version and modifying it when a couple of hacks to the code was all it took to get the one I’m happy with up and working.

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