Archive for the ‘Add-ons’ Category

What are the best upgrades I need for my new Media Center PC to keep the CPU from spiking?

Monday, January 12th, 2009
skycorgan asked:


I have a Compaq Media Center PC with an Athlon 64 3500+ processor, 1 GB memory, 256MB shared video memory, and a 200GB hard drive. I installed an after market PVR-500 TV Tuner.

My CPU usage keeps spiking. Would either a memory upgrade, a new video card with dedicated memory, or both, help this problem? I am trying to do other tasks while it is recording television shows, but the CPU spiking is prohibiting that, making things very slow, and causing problems with the connection to the XBOX.

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Posted in Add-ons | 3 Comments »

how do I upgrade older computer to media center pc?

Friday, January 2nd, 2009
geri4gears asked:


I have a 3 year old dell and I want to add components to make it a media center pc. I want to use my tv as a monitor, record a few shows. Possibly play a pc game.
Do I need to purchase microsoft media center software or will software come with the video cards?
In addition I would like to use my tv as a monitor.

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Posted in Add-ons | 4 Comments »

Help my computer doesn’t recognize my cd/dvd rom or my dvd writer. whats wrong?

Friday, September 12th, 2008
sara asked:


I have an hp media center pc m385c that I bought in 2002 or so well the dvd writer it came with didn’t work so I bought an LG super multi dr gsa 4163b and installed it… all went well until this summer when I did a factory reset and tried to reinstall the driver for the LG… I don’t know what I did wrong but now neither my cd/dvd rom (which is what came standard with the comp) nor my LG dvd writer will even show up on the my devices manager or in my computer or even on a search for hardware… please help… i dont know if it was the factory reset or if I contracted a virus
Im using windows xp with service pack 2 should I be looking into that?

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Posted in Add-ons | 6 Comments »

New video card help?

Thursday, August 28th, 2008
BOLD asked:


I have an hp m8020n pavilion media center pc, and I was wondering what new video cards are compatible with my pc? And also plz tell whether I can attach the new vid card by myself.
Thank you

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Posted in Add-ons | 3 Comments »

I’m building my own computer but don’t have drivers for optical drive?

Monday, August 4th, 2008
Soon C asked:


im building my own computer and i want to use the optical drive in my pc that im using now but i don’t have drivers how do i get them? I have an HP 8020n media center pc but I’m not sure what brand of optical drive it is I think HP too not sure

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Posted in Add-ons | 4 Comments »

How good is a nividia geforce 7500LE graphics card and this pc?

Thursday, July 24th, 2008
numaan_ifthikhar asked:


also pls let me no how good this pc is for gaming and music ect because i am looking to buy a pc with theses specs

# Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6400
# 2 x 2.13GHz, 1GHz FSB, 2MB Cache
# Microsoft Windows XP Media Center
# 2GB DDR RAM
# 250GB Hard Disk Drive
# Dual Layer DVD Re-Writer Drive
# 512MB nVidia GeForce 7500LE Graphics
# 9-In-1 Media Card Reader
# 7 USB Connections

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Posted in Add-ons | 5 Comments »

I Can Not Find The MCE Browser On My PC When I Look For It. Please Help?

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
unnknown asked:


Ive Downloaded The ANPARK software many times but i can not find it anywhere on windows media center.

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Posted in Add-ons | 1 Comment »

Is it possible to get a power surge from a USB Media Player device?

Monday, April 28th, 2008
kisses_of_vanilla asked:


….and blow your motherboard? We bought a USB Media Player device on ebay, loaded a couple movies, then, later, hooked it back to the power, then to the USB cord (that was already plugged into the back of the pc) to transfer more movies and music.. there was a “POP” noise, and now the PC will not boot up at all, the only thing it does is start the fans up. (it’s an MSI MEGA 865 Deluxe PC)

I was told by the seller of the media player that there is NO way the media center could have blown up the PC…

Now I wanna know everyone else’s opinion on this.. I still say, It did indeed blow up the motherboard… as the PC hadn’t even been in use for 2 months when this happened..
PC had only been on about 1 hour. so overheating isn’t the issue.. and there was a POP when i plugged the media center in
the media player is made by ‘zentium’
this is where i got it

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-External-Portable-250GB-Media-Centre-Hard-Drive_W0QQitemZ290151187045QQihZ019QQcategoryZ16178QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

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Posted in Add-ons | 3 Comments »

How Do I Switch Graphics Cards on my Windows XP Media Center Addition?

Thursday, April 10th, 2008
cjra2700 asked:


I am planning on buying a GeForce 8800 GTS (mostly after finding out the game Crysis lagged every second when I tried to play it with my GeFroce 6100) The one thing I dont get is how to actually switch the graphic cards. I noticed 2 slots that seem big enough for graphic cards to get into, they were called: “SD/MMC/SM/MS/MS-PRO/xD” and “CF\MICRODRIVE” but what I didnt get was the fact there was no button to press to pop the other graphic card out. (If either of thoes slots is where the graphic cards are supposed to go) I do know alot of my pc hardware but I never fiddled with graphic cards before. So if anyone knows how to do it, please do tell =), thanks!

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Posted in Add-ons | 3 Comments »