I had mentioned previously that had gotten a new PC. This one is an HP
S3500T. I purchased it to take over the responsibilities that my server has had for not only housing the data of all my music, DVDs, and other videos, but being hooked up to the TV to watch and listen to them. This puts a strain on my server at times when there is a lot of things that it is trying to do during the day--one of which is to host this blog.
So, the first item of business was to wipe Vista off and put XP on. While finding drivers for everything was pretty much a breeze, I did have some trouble with the IR receiver for the remote control and the TV tuner card.
Chipset Driver -
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_630i_610i_winxp_16.08.html
Video Driver -
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_175.19_whql.html
Audio Driver -
http://waynehartman.com/downloads/WDM_R195.exe
TV Tuner Driver -
http://waynehartman.com/downloads/AverMedia m792 Drivers.zip
LAN Driver -
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericSoftwareDownloadIndex?cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&softwareitem=pv-42542-1&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
You'll notice that I don't have the IR receiver drivers listed. You actually already have the real driver installed, it's just that the INF files don't recognize it to be compatible (even though it is). So for that, you have to do a little INF hacking to get it to work. All you have to do is
follow the direction in this forum post and it will run perfectly in Windows XP. Just in case that link goes dead for whatever reason, I will post the directions on my site later.
The reason that I had so much trouble getting the TV Tuner driver is that AVermedia does not actually have the driver posted on its site. Appearently the card that goes inside the s3500t is an OEM only part, so HP provides access to the driver. Unfortunately, HP only provides a Vista driver and had inserted a procedure that checks your Windows version before installing it. If you don't have Vista, then it won't install the driver. Fortunately for us, however, their installer expands all the files into your temp directory before doing that check. Otherwise, I would have had to rip the installer apart to get at the files. Also fortunate for us, the driver is compatible with XP, so I have graciously posted the file for your use above.
With those drivers, you should be able to use all the hardware inside your box. For those not running Windows Media Center 2005, but want to take advantage of the multimedia and PVR hardware in your machine, here's a shameless plug for
MediaPortal, an open source media center application. It's free, it's better than Windows Media Center, and they've done a pretty darn good job, so pick it up.