Portable Workstation Update

Well it turns out the M350 case was not the right choice for the A8-3870K processor I bought. It ran hot and after 5-6 hours at idle it would pretty much overheat and lock up at 70C. I went to Frys and using some ad hoc engineering I was able to cram two 60mm fans into the case to assist in controlling the heat. While it help it could not stop the heat buildup loop.

I ended up buying a new Lian Li pc-q09fn case. I have always been a Lian Li fan but this case somewhat disappointed me. It does not have a PCI slot although there is space for one. This means this case is only useful for motherboards with integrated graphics. (I am sure one could dremmel a slot if needed). Bizarrely the front USB ports are connected to a USB cable extender that is suppose to pass through the case, out the back, and then plug into the external port instead of plugging directly into the internal USB pins. Ridiculous! I attempted to contact Lian Li but their support is non-existent.

The good thing is that the case is larger but it still fits in my ebag with my monitor. The case does come with a built in 300w power supply which means I don't have to worry about power consumption or lug around an external power supply. It is aluminum and is quite light weight. Perhaps if I had to pack the workstation everyday it would be cumbersome but for the limited times I have to travel this build has worked perfectly. I am looking forward to upgrading to the new AMD Trinity APU's later this summer :)

HD HomeRun Prime Quirk

Last December I created a HTPC using a HD Prime tuner and CableCard for watching TV. Tonight after a long day at work I wanted to sit down and watch HBO and to my dismay Windows Media Center (WMC) would not display any premium channels. Other channels worked fine. I was not sure if it was related to an automated Verizon Fios setup box reset command I used for another set top box or that I was updating my contract and my account may be in limbo. After reinstalling the HD prime software HBO would play for 5 seconds and then display an activation required message. I followed the activation steps but it ended with a message stating "Your Computer is not Digital Cable Ready" On the HDPrime management page in the logs I saw entries ending with " access = unspecified" I was thinking I would need to contact SilconDust support but then I started up my workstation running windows 8 customer preview and HBO played fine in WMC so I knew it was machine specific and not a problem with the tuner.

After reading this post it turned me on to WMC Digital Cable Advisor which can be access in WMC at Extras->Extras Gallery->DCA. After running it and going through the wizard I was able to watch HBO again. Yeah!!!!