NUC HTPC Setup

squonk

I'm currently assembling the pieces to build a NUC based HTPC.

I'm going with the following ocmponents:

HARDWARE
Wireless: INTEL 6235AN.HMWWB Centrino Advanced-N 6235 Wireless LAN Adaptor
NUC: D34010WYK3
RAM: Crucial 8GB DDR3 1600 MT/s CL11 SODIMM 204 Pin 1.35V/1.5V Memory
SSD: Crucial CT120M500SSD3 120GB M500 mSATA 6Gb/s Internal SSD
Remote: XBOX360 Remote - 6CK-00002

SOFTWARE
I'm going to go with OpenElec running XBMC.

Has anybody else already gotten a setup like this up and running? I do relaise that the spec is a bit overkill for the task at hand but I want to be sure that I have plenty of capacity available should I need or want to do additional things in the future.

Has anybody encountered issues with a similar setup?

captain_boycott

complete overkill! - I went with the lowly intel DN2820 NC (Bay Trail), running windows 7 and works a dream running xmbc, openvpn, utorrent, skype, etc . Runs cool, quiet and smooth with 720p content.

M5

Went for the 130 pound NUC on amazon myself, runs like a dream compared with my old Acer aspire revo. Startup times from standby and complete shut town are impressive also! Noise level also top notch!

squonk

Just an update on this for anyone who might be interested in doing the same sort of build.

I started out with Ubuntu which installed very well and all the hardware was supported out of the box. There was some tweaking involved because the IR driver doesn't work out of the box, so you need to add a line to load the drive on the startup script for the machine. Using LIRC then I got my 360 remote installed and working very well. Startup time was speedy as well and it was very convenient to switch the shell to XBMC so it started up from scratch. I wanted an appliance like solution but went with Ubuntu over OpenElec because I wanted to tweek Ubuntu to add some things, especially vpn connections.

I had a few problems though that ultimately proved very annoying.
1. Netflixbmc didn't behave itself. Although it installed OK and the infrastructure worked well, the popup browser window only occupied half the screen. I couldn't get it to use full screen no matter what I tried.
2. AC-3 and DTS worked well. I had no playback of DTS-HD audio however. Sound failed to work after it dropped out when asked to play a DTS HD file. I was using XBMC Frodo as well which didn't co operate with PulseAudio so I ended up uninstalling PulseAudio.
3. Playback got jerky after the machine resumed from sleep. I now know this can happen if XBMC isn't quit in some cases prior to sleep.
4. The remote could not be used to start the machine. This was quite a problem as I wanted an appliance-like solution.

I was faced with spending time trying to solve all these issues but I knew some, like the sound and the remote issue were either insurmountable or would await driver updates.

I bit the bullet and installed Windows 8.1. Intel really just support the NUC under Windows so, straight away, you have access to the latest drivers. One strange thing is that, after installing the latest IR driver, my 360 remote started to power up the NUC. Other people have had the same experience. I had to create a registry tweek to get the 360 remote recognised but, after that, the MCERemote plugin went a lot of the way to getting my remote working well with XBMC. It's not perfect though as I couldn't map the menu key to be the context menu. That is still a work in progress but, for now, mapping the guide key does the job equally well. Soundwise, DTS HD plays without an issue. Currently I've configured Windows to load XBMC as a shell rather than explorer at startup which works well but it appears that the WiFi isn't starting up so I'm going to look at XBMCLauncher instead as it'll be an improvement I think. Despite running Windows 8, the memory footprint isn't as bad as I thought. It's using about a gig. Ubuntu used about 500-600mb if I remember correctly. The drawback of Windows 8.1 is it's install size. A full install comes in at about 24GB so I thought it best to allocate 30GB for the Windows partition. That's a quarter of my HD space gone already. I don't have a figure fro Ubuntu to hand but it wasn't near as large.

While I haven't finished the project just yet, the main thing I've learned so far is that if you really want to get the absolute best out of your NUC, consider running Windows. The problems I had weren't really because of Linux but I think it was largely the drivers that let the side down. No doubt a year from now, Linux will be even more viable but for now, Windows proved the much faster, more straightforward and most complete and satisfactory install.

Johnboy1951

@squonk

Just wondered what happened to your intention of using Openelec as the OS on the NUC?

Did you try it?

squonk

No JohnBoy, I didn't. Based on things I'd read, OpenElec didn't sound like it was fully ready to suppor the Haswell series NUC. It'd say it'd have been OK, but additionally I also wanted to install a VPN client so I could watch Canadian netlix and it sounded like Ubuntu was a better fit for all of that.

In then end, the inability to turn on the machine on and off from my remote under LInux annoyed me. I'd have given OpenElect a try if I figured it could accomplish that but I decided to try Windows instead. If you have an older NUC without the integrated IR, then OpenElect/Ubuntu will be grand. I think the Haswell model NUCs are still just a bit too new to have proper drivers and support available.

Johnboy1951

The Haswell NUC is reported to be supported by Openelec 4.x

The IR might require a workaround, but apparently that is known.

The video problems on previous versions 3.2.x have been resolved it seems.

..... just in case you get the urge


http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Intel_NUC

squonk

The IR likely does require a workaround but there's a fundamental problem there still. Under Ubuntu 14.04LTS the workaround did the trick to get the IR functioning post startup but I was damned if I could get the remote to power on the machine.

I suspect that, having installed Windows now and gotten all the drivers up to date, that I might be able to turn on the machine under OpenElec. I suspect there might be some interaction between the driver and the BIOS going on under the hood. I suspect this because, I messed up the IR driver version I installed at one point, and the IR stopped botting. Reinstalling with the correct one fixed the issue. I suspect if I installed Linux again now I'd probably get a powering on machine and the Linux experience.

captain_boycott

Thanks for the update squonk.

I'm running the baytrail version NUC with Windows 7. Everything works and no performance issues, but I have a feeling I will not be able to stop myself and update to 8.1, just for the sake of it!

stooge

Hi sqounk,

Meant to reply to this thread earlier but I encountered a lot of the same issues as yourself.

Started with LINUX MINT as I mentioned to you before and was realetively happy with the speed of install and boot, however, I have run into issues with booting and drivers in addition to a fairly annoying problem running Teamviewer.

Flirting with the idea of creating a hackintosh as I have a snow leopard disk lying about but I have purchased 8.1 and ultimately plan to use that as the final install.

squonk

I toyed with the Hackintosh approach myself but decided against it based on reading some stuff on functionality with Haswell. It sounded like going down a more convoluted route than straight Ubuntu with a guarantee that not everything would work by the end. I also own a Mac Mini and just can't get it to output DTS HD MA. It'll do DTS alright but nothing higher. I've a suspician that this may be due in some part to the OS so I didn't want to end up back at that point either.

Where did you buy Win 8? What version did you go for and did you get any good deals? It's pricey for the Pro version.

stooge

squonk wrote: »

Where did you buy Win 8? What version did you go for and did you get any good deals? It's pricey for the Pro version.

I managed to get a student deal (through a relative) E59.99 for 8.1 Pro on the micosoft website. Pricey enough still but for overall media purposes I think it will be worth it.

squonk

That's a great deal really. The product is far more expensive over the counter. It actually amazes me how MS can charge so much for their OS's. If regular windows started at €29 and Pro was €59 as standard I think you'd find many more purchasing legitimate copies.

My install is coming on well now. I have two final things to do. First is to get a vpn client working from XBMC. I'm thinking I might accomplish it by using a script as there isn't the flexibility on Windows that you get under Linux which has an OpenVPN addon ready to go.

Another thing that Linux has is a WIFI picker plugin. You can connect/disconnect to wireless networks from within XBMC. I wouldn't mind that functionality right now as it'd make testing easier. I'm using XBMC Launcher to start XBMC as a replacement desktop. That works fine but WIFI isn't initialising correctly. It's connecting to the router but a correct IP address isn't being defined. I have no internet access because of this. A wired connection is fine. I've upped the XBMC load time in XBMC Launcher to 10 seconds to give the adapter time to come up. I might try and up that to 20 seconds in case the process isn't being properly completed before XBMC starts. Another option is to skip DHCP and manually assign an IP.

What grinds my gears is that a WIFI picker addon isn't available for windows. You get one for Linux but all I've found when looking for a windows alternative is XBMC types saying "But your OS should handle this". Well, mister, if you are going to provide addons for one OS then there should be some attempt to provide something for all your supported OSs. I should be able to do something via a script so if I go that route I'll post details.

Incidentally, for those using Netflixbmc, if you're using XBMCLauncher, disable the setting where XBMC takes full focus. Otherwise you have an issue where Chrome starts up but gets overlaid by XBMC after a few seconds so it's not much use. The downside is that you'll see any OS related messages but, if you're running XBMC as a replacement desktop, that shouldn't be an issue.