CyberPower

Jeff,

What is your current problem and configuration I didn't see the other
thread?

I had two problems. I would blame CyberPower for letting me choose an ATI
card. For the audio problem I would blame Hauppauge for releasing the bad
driver and CyberPower for not testing it enough. CyberPower is probably the
best choice for customizing, but if you do, then the chance of it working
out of the box is reduced. If you stick to the standard configuration I
can't see why it wouldn't work out of the box unless you have a faulty piece
of hardware.

It's too bad you've had such bad luck, but CyberPower is not using any
particularly bad hardware or software any more than HP or Gateway. All these
PCs are pretty standard mid 2002 hardware, other than the tuner cards, the
bugs have been worked out. As many detractors have said there's nothing new
here.

Jose

...

Based on my experience with CyberPower (detailed ad-
nauseum elsewhere in this newsgroup) the best thing you
can do when you get it is return it unopened for a refund.

Microsoft has had to intervene to get major problems I'm
having with them resolved, and frankly I'm still not
convinced it's going to work.

What I can tell you is that key people from Microsoft are
monitoring this newsgroup, and that you should detail any
problems you have with CyberPower in this forum. I've
been pleased with Microsoft's attempts to help resolve
the problem, but given my experiences with CyberPower so
far, I would not recommend buying anything from them,
particularly something as new as MCE which virtually
requires OEM support to get up and running.

I'll be interested if your system works out of the box,
because I haven't found anyone whose did so far.

Appreciate the input and will verify when I get home
tonight what my configuration is. The machine is a 2.8 GHz.

Frank

installations I always play TV

hyperthreading CPU and
would like to know if

changing the DVD player.
Hauppauge Tuner card.

Take it easy adding new software, always create a restore point first.

Come up with a quick little test suite. After installations I always play TV
make sure Rew/FF, Skip/Replay, and pause work, try music, pictures and then
select a scene from a DVD, while it is playing hit the live TV button.

If possible wait 24 hours between installations. Some problems especially
with recordings won't show up until you finally decide to view the shows
hours later.

If you do this it should evolve nicely. If something goes wrong you can
always uninstall the latest application and then restore to an earlier
restore point.

The Hauppauge seems to be one weak point:

If your CPU is less than 3.06 GHz then the currently working driver is:
1.14.20301.605, should come installed

If you have the 3.06 hyperthreading CPU the driver for that is 1.15... but
in my system (2.53 GHz) that same driver was causing choppy audio. That
driver came on the Recovery disk. There is a thread here by Jon Wagner that
talks about some problems he's having with the 3.06 hyperthreading CPU and
the Hauppauge driver.

I hope you didn't get a Radeon card, but if you did, I would like to know if
it works for you. I originally had one and had lock-up and video noise
problems. I got the card below instead because I wanted an Nvidia card with
a DVI output for my monitor. I had borrowed a Ti4200 from a friend and it
also worked, but at that point I was paranoid and was trying to make my
system as close to an HP as possible.
#
GAINWARD/CARDEXPERT GeForce 4 MX440 8X (GF4 Pro/600-8X
TV/DV (GF4 Pro/600-8X TV/DV)

I think it comes pre-installed with NVDVD. That worked the best for me. I
tried others and most had one problem or another but much of this testing
was while I had problems with the Radeon card. WinDVD is available on the
Recovery CD in a 3rd party folder. Be very careful changing the DVD player.
This is the decoder used for TV and will affect your ability to FF/Rew,
Pause etc.

I have installed all critical updates, and applicable recommended updates
without trouble. For drivers I have applied the latest from the board and
chip manufacturers without problems, other than the Hauppauge Tuner card.

...