Media center computer with win 7 or 8 It has Vista

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
7,065
Location
Arlington, Washington
I was thinking of making a media center computer out of this computer I got from my sister. I have other computers for other stuff. So this would be for music to play on my stereo and TV recording, pictures etc.
Any thoughts on the specs and what you have found to work well? It thinking of Win 8 with added media center, or win 7, but I heard it won't record non digital signals. Maybe a 1 or 2 TB HD. I don't really think I'll be saving recordings for the most part.
I have dish network right now.

I would like to keep the cost reasonable as well. Thanks



Specifications
Part Number: 1015011RGateway GT5657E Desktop Computer
Model: GT5657E

The following table provides the specifications for the Gateway® GT5657E desktop computer.

Feature Specification
Processor
AMD Athlon™64 X2 4200+, 64-bit dual core processor

Operates at 2.2 GHz
2 x 512 KB L2 cache
2000 MHz system bus

Chipset NVIDIA® GeForce® 6150SE
Memory
Installed: 3072 MB DDR2, 667 MHz, (PC2-5300) dual channel memory (two 1024 MB and two 512 MB modules)
Expandable to: 4 GB (4 DDR2 DIMM slots)
Hard Drive
320 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA II hard drive
Support for up to two hard drives
Optical Drive DVD ±RW, 16X super multi-format dual layer drive (up to 8.5GB)

Write max: 16X DVD±R, 8X DVD-R DL, 8X DVD+R DL, 8X DVD+RW, 8X DVD-RW, 12X DVD-RAM, 48X CD-R, 40X CD-RW
Read max: 16X DVD-ROM, 8X DVD-ROM DL, 48X CD-ROM

Media Card Reader 15-in-1 high speed digital media manager supporting the following:

Compact Flash (CF) I, II
IBM Microdrive™ (MD)
SmartMedia Card (SMC)
Memory Stick™ (MS)
Memory Stick Duo (MS Duo)
Memory Stick PRO (MS PRO)
Memory Stick PRO Duo (MS PRO Duo)
Secure Digital™ (SD)
Mini Secure Digital (MiniSD)
Multi Media Card (MMC)
RS Multi Media Card (RS-MMC) (need adapter)
Multi Media Plus Card (MMC Plus)
Multi Media Mobile Card (MMC Mobile)
xD-Picture Card (xD)

Video
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE integrated graphics
Up to 128 MB of shared video memory
Audio Integrated 8-Channel (7.1) High Definition Audio
Network Support Integrated 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN
Modem 56K ITU V.92 ready Fax/Modem with RJ-11 ports
Power Supply 300 watt
Add-in Card Slots
One PCI Express ×16 (graphics interface)
One PCI Express ×1
Two PCI conventional
External Connectors
One PS/2 keyboard port
One PS/2 mouse port
One VGA monitor port
One Parallel port
One Serial port
Six USB ports (four rear, two front)
Two IEEE 1394a port (one rear, one front)
One RJ-45 Ethernet LAN port
Eight audio jacks (six rear, two front)
Drive Bays Five total:

Two external 5.25-inch
One external 3.5-inch (with a docking bay for optional Gateway 2.5-inch removable USB hard drive)
Two internal 3.5-inch (hard drive)

Physical Dimensions
(H × W × D) 15.6 × 7.2 × 16.1 inches
Weight (Unpackaged) Minimum 23.4 lbs. (varies with configuration)
Display Gateway FPD1976W 19-inch Black Wide LCD Performance Flat Panel Display
1440 × 900 (native resolution)
 
Are you going to add a TV tuner card to record television?

I have found that Windows 7 (32bit) works the best for a media center. If you're going to watch a lot of different video formats, I recommend installing the Shark007 Codec pack.

http://shark007.net/

I recommend 32 bit Windows as the encoder pack takes a bit more work to install/configure with 64 bit.

With the on-board graphics, I do not know how well the Media Center would play 1080HD. How do you plan to connect to a TV, VGA + headphone out?

Using a TV tuner card such as a Ceton InfiniTV requires an additional tuner box that connects via Coax and USB when used with certain cable providers (Time Warner Cable anyway).

A friend of mine uses a media center with these specs, and it works great.

AMD Athlon II X4, 4GB RAM, 1TB (for recordings), 80GB SSD (OS Drive), Ceton InfiniTV (w/TWC provided USB tuner), Radeon 5570 GPU and has network Drobo FS for videos.
 
Last edited:
For years now, I've been running Windows 7 Professional 32-Bit and using Windows Media Center as my DVR for over-the-air programming. My core system consists of Intel Dual-Core 3.0 GHZ, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD, and an AVerMedia PCIe Dual-Tuner TV tuner card. Works great! I've also been using Auslogics Disk Defrag to keep the HDD defraged; fragmentation tends to occur when recording and deleting shows.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top