Had my new media pc for a fortnight and its all going wrong!

[DKennedy]

Hi computer geniuses, I have just had a media pc delivered that was "set up" by the suppier for me, as I am totally niave about computers.

It is running windows 7, 64bit.

Ive had it for 2 weeks and it has developed a couple of glitches.

1) the audiophile soundcard (asus essence stx as recommended here) i specified isnt being "recognised" (sorry, best i can do as a technical description). I had to restart the other day just to be able to open the interface but since then, although it is specified as default device it doesnt seem to be "controlling" the sound. The graphics on the interface dont respond to the music (from spotify or windows media centre tv), although when i "test speakers", it jumps up and down like a good'un. The sound is also very flat and no-where near as good as during the first week i was using it.

2) The display is just that little bit bigger than my TV making the desk top, task bar and the contoll-y bits (really sorry about that one) at the top of the windows disappear when maximised. I have found the slide for the screen resolution but the increments are much too wide. It is either annoyingly just too big or much, much too small. Is there a way of controlling the size in smaller increments manually?

Please help with this as the sound i remember from the first week was lovely and the size issue is starting to really wear. Ive spent quite a lot on this, mainly for the music and I should be enjoying it to the full.

Thanks in advance guys.

DK

 

[cram]

2) What video card are you using? Could be overscan issues. So you will need to find the overscan setting and play around with them

 

[Anonymous]

It seems that the hardware setup is wrong. Any indications if you look at the list of devices in the Device Manager? Part of Control Panel > System I think.

Ad 1: Have you disabled the onboard sound card in the bios at startup so that it can be ignored by Windows? Or disabled it in the Windows Device Manager?

Ad 2. Is your screen listed properly in the Device Manager? Usually this goes automatic, and you do not have to change the display settings.

It may help to remove the devices from the list and via Add Hardware (or automatic) detect it again and install the drivers again. No guarantees here though.. Good luck.

 

[cram]

If the supplier has set it up for you and you've paid for that service - give them a call.

 

[Anonymous]

Pete 10 made good suggestions re soundcard. One other thing - you don't have something like an external DAC connected via USB do you? This can take away control from the soundcard when powered up. Also I found using WASAPI plugin for Foobar causes issues as I switch from soundcard to USB DAC. You have to manually switch off WASAPI in the Foobar interface. If you are not using such a SW interface for music then it can't be anything like this of course.

As for the screen you should be able to adjust the desktop size through your graphics card control software. If you right mouseclick on your desktop and look at the menu that opens up. Mine is nvidia and once I open that then there is a resize desktop feature where you slide some bars until you see the four corner arrow heads positioned right in the corners. Accept and come out of the programme and you desktop will be spot on.

Good luck.

 

[DKennedy]

cheers pete, the disabling all the other "sound devices" has worked a treat, quick q, will i have to do this on a regular basis (say after windows updates) or will it be ok from now on? Im intrigued by "bios start up" suggestion but not knowlegdable enough to go through it without having my hand held.

 

[DKennedy]

thanks SOM, pete suggestion has worked. good luck to yerself.

 

[DKennedy]

It would be a last option as I was sure sure that other people here could help and I didnt want the call centre nightmare.

thanks again for all the support here, the sound is now lovely on "going underground" :0)

 

[DKennedy]

hi Cram, I mentioned your suggestion about "overscan" to a more knowledgeable friend this morning and his eyes lit up (he had been helping with the set up)...if you are about this evening could you tell me how to access this info ?

 

[mattjax05]

Re the Video issue have you tried adjusting the settings on the TV? When I connect my pc to tv the tv defaults to 16:9 which causes the image to expand thus losing the edges. I have to manually change the aspect ratio from 16:9 to 'just scan'

Hope this helps.

Matt

 

[DKennedy]

hi matt, Problem is when I connect through hdmi i lose the ability to set aspect ratio (it is ok in vga but quality is lost).

Ive been googling the "overscan" issue and it seems to be a common one on a number of tech forums and they all have solutions. I now just have to get my mate to translate about 80% of the words!

 

[cram]

Do you know what make of video card it is? If ATI then you need to go into the catalyst software (right click on the icon near your clock) - Desktop & Displays - Scaling Options

 

[DKennedy]

I think its intel (intel graphics and display in control panel) There is an option for vertical and horizontal scaling which I just tried but going down to 80% only gives a tiny difference, the "start button" (? said i was a doofus!) is only about 40% revealed doing this, which seems a bit of a drastic step for such a small gain.

 

[DKennedy]

LOL, i just took it down to 40% vertical and horizontal and everyone on TV is weirdly elongated!

 

[cram]

other things to check:

- your PC is connected to your TV have you set the resolution of the PC to be the same as the native resolution of the TV

- does your TV have a 1:1 pixel setting and if so is this turned on/off

 

[Anonymous]

DKennedy:cheers pete, the disabling all the other "sound devices" has worked a treat, quick q, will i have to do this on a regular basis (say after windows updates) or will it be ok from now on? Im intrigued by "bios start up" suggestion but not knowlegdable enough to go through it without having my hand held.

Disabled should stay disabled, You might have disabled more options than strictly needed, but you can always enable them again.

Re: bios: that is the screen you can access at startup by pressing F2 or something. Indeed, enough settings there to completely mess up your pc! But there is probably an option on the onboard sound card, enabled/disabled. Once disabled in the bios, Windows never finds out about its existence.

Re: the monitor, I never used hdmi from a pc, but I think it could be the combination of the settings of the pc and tv, like cram suggests. If possible, & ideally: check the manual of the tv on what the real pixel resolution vertical is, and then on the pc select a mode that is suitable for this. So if the monitor's screen is 738 select that on the pc's hdmi setting, or lower, 720 or something. Then set the tv on 1:1 pixel mapping (it can be called several different things in the tv world unfortunately, so some trial and error with the display setting of the tv is needed), so select no stretching out. You may see a black box around the displayed area, some people hate that, but this should give you the sharpest image, as no scaling up/down of fonts is needed.

 

[DKennedy]

arrrghh...thanks for all the replys and help guys. I have a tech-y mate looking into the resolution issue for now because what i really need is to sort out the sound card issue (its the reason i bought a media pc).

Sorry pete10, the fix worked last night but now it is only working for spotify! media centre and media player is coming through the speakers which are not being being controlled by the soundcard . When i turn the volumn up and down in the soundcard interface, the volumn goes up and down in the "speakers" interface found in the control panel (where i turned the other sound devices off) but there is no graphics in the sound card interface.

could you please give me a quick run through on the bios set up?

 

[DKennedy]

is one allowed to swear on this forum because this is getting f'king stupid.

Ive just noticed (id only watched unfamiliar films so far) that the display appears to be a fish-eye lens, things are tiny in the centre of the sceen and streched horizontal as they approach the edges (more in the horizontal than vertical). quite alarmingly so!

 

[DKennedy]

errata: the fish eye problem only appears to be a problem in media centre! my bad.

 

[cram]

Run the Windows Media Center setup wizard. It's in the General section of the settings menu. WMC can operate using difference screen res and refresh rate to your desktop

 

[DKennedy]

cheers cram, it was muching about with this that caused the fish eye thing in the first place

What refresh rate do you recommend (25,29 or 30hz)?

 

[cram]

depends what media you are likely to be playing. In general

PAL DVD: 50Mhz

NTSC DVD: 60Mhz

Bluray 24.mhz (or 23.something or other if you hae that option)

 

[DKennedy]

I was worried you might say that as my mate recommended 60. Unfortunately, my options are as listed above and 30 (the max) quite possibly caused the fish eye lens effect.

 

[cram]

then 25. But that suggest that there is something up with the configuration. Be very surprised if your TV didn't support at least 50mhz. What make/model is it

 

[Anonymous]

What i would suggest for ur sound is not just disabling the other sound devices - but uninstalling them in device manager, restart and then going into the bios and switching off the onboard sound.

Then boot back up - uninstall your asus sound card in device mgr - restart your pc - and reinstall the asus sound card driver from scratch.