New HTPC - Lenovo Q190

Gran Hermano

I'm looking to pick up a new HTPC, mainly for using with XBMC.
Has anyone any experience with the Lenovo Q190?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-VE74AUK-Ultra-Factor-Desktop/dp/B00AXYAXU0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362395322&sr=8-1

It seems to fit the bill on what I'm looking for - mainly local playback of video files and streaming of 720P+.

My one concern is that if I order the Celeron B887 version will it have enough grunt to do what I need. Is it worth the extra cash to upgrade to the i3 version? Both are running Win 8 with 4 GB RAM.

Any opinions?

shoutman

Hey,
First check out this thread on the XBMC forum http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=157563

Secondly, I've ordered the Q190 and it's due to arrive tomorrow. It will be my first time playing around with XBMC and I wont be doing any 3d with it. But I'll certainly give a review on how the install and playback went with the machine.

Gran Hermano

How you finding the q190? Mine shipped this morn so hope to spend some time over long weekend setting it up.

Leiva

Any views from those who purchased these?

shoutman

Leiva its worked perfect for me. I'd imagine for the purists the fan noise would be the only negative, but you can really only hear that when you aren't actually watching something, and as somebody said in another forum, if you were to put it in a cabinet then you wouldn't be able to hear it at all.

Great value imo. It comes with a wired mouse and keyboard, so that will be the first thing which i'll replace about it.

It has played every video quality i've thrown at it without a problem.

Leiva

shoutman wrote: »

Leiva its worked perfect for me. I'd imagine for the purists the fan noise would be the only negative, but you can really only hear that when you aren't actually watching something, and as somebody said in another forum, if you were to put it in a cabinet then you wouldn't be able to hear it at all.

Great value imo. It comes with a wired mouse and keyboard, so that will be the first thing which i'll replace about it.

It has played every video quality i've thrown at it without a problem.

Did you install XBMC and if so how is that going?
Did you try and Internet stream any large HD movies say from any of the movie addons available on XBMC ?

What spec did you buy and did it come with a BR Drive cause there is lots of confusion on line about which models comes with the BR Drive included.

Im not too upset with the fan noise if that's all i will have to worry about.

shoutman

Leiva wrote: »

Did you install XBMC and if so how is that going?
Did you try and Internet stream any large HD movies say from any of the movie addons available on XBMC ?

What spec did you buy and did it come with a BR Drive cause there is lots of confusion on line about which models comes with the BR Drive included.

Im not too upset with the fan noise if that's all i will have to worry about.

XBMC is running fine on it, i'm having problems with Movies showing up in the library, but I think thats down to my poor folder management skills as there is no problems with music or TV shows.

I have it setup using usenet, Coachpotato and Sickbeard, so as yet I havent streamed any large movies.

I have streamed some sports off the interent and it's handled it fine.

I got the basic windows 8 version (the same one that the op posted an amazon link to), so there is no optical drive on it.

Gran Hermano

I'm delighted with mine, have XBMC and Aeon Nox skin installed and cant fault it.
Streaming HD from the usual addons/repos works great provided the server at the other end is running well.

I havent even unpacked the mouse/keyboard it shipped with. I'm using a mini keypad/airmouse combo unit or
the following app on the Nexus 10 which works very well.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.leetzone.android.yatsewidgetfree

I cant say I've found fan noise an issue - certainly no louder than the xbox or Ps3.

Leiva

shoutman wrote: »

I have it setup using usenet, Coachpotato and Sickbeard, so as yet I havent streamed any large movies.

I have streamed some sports off the interent and it's handled it fine.

.

Would the likes of usenet/Coachpotato/sickbeard ruuning in the background hog XBMC on the Q190 system much? say if you just used it for XBMC and those apps running and downloading in the background- would it cause XBMC problems?

If not then I am ordered the 1TB 3i version this afternoon.

Cyrus

i built a shuttle xh61v based system for £250 with 4gig ram, 32gb ssd and a G550celeron processor. No fan noise at all and upgradeable. Snagged a 15 euro windows 8 licence to go with.

another option perhaps

shoutman

Leiva wrote: »

Would the likes of usenet/Coachpotato/sickbeard ruuning in the background hog XBMC on the Q190 system much? say if you just used it for XBMC and those apps running and downloading in the background- would it cause XBMC problems?

If not then I am ordered the 1TB 3i version this afternoon.

Hasn't caused me any problems at all.

Only problem I'm having is playing .mkv files through xmbc, it seems stuttery at times, no problem at all running them on vlc video player. Anybody got any suggestions?

Cyrus

shoutman wrote: »

Hasn't caused me any problems at all.

Only problem I'm having is playing .mkv files through xmbc, it seems stuttery at times, no problem at all running them on vlc video player. Anybody got any suggestions?

Check your audio settings and also if it's Intel on board video turn off hardware acceleration and dvxa

Leiva

OK mine arrived Monday from Amazon and I was a bit disappointed to see that there was no BR Drive included in the box.
I ordered the i3 1tb model .

Another thing I noticed was no keyboard or mouse in the box, but I did find that they had sent me the dearer model which included the Lenova multimedia remote - so happy out.

The difference in price between the model I received and the one I order was £90.

I checked the part number from the box label, and compared it to the part number/spec I ordered on the Amazon site and they matched.
The Amazon site has their part numbers mixed up and the model I ordered 'vs' the one I received match part numbers, but there is a higher spec in the box which included the Lenova multimedia remote.

I don't know if it's a once off thing or maybe they have both models mixed up and listed incorrectly across the board.

I ain't had time to really setup XBMC and configured other things, but my first impressions are pretty impressive and the fan noise really is no issue.

What I am looking for is tips for Hibernation and startup options in Win8.
Basically I would like to set it up with the lowest possible power consumption when not used, but also with a quick startup when needed.

Oh and if I was to run XBMC from a USB rather than installing a WIN8 version of XBMC would I still have all the power that the Q190 has to offer driving the XBMC, or am I just better off doing an XBMC win version install?

Gran Hermano

My advice would be to stick XBMC on top of Windows 8, if you're not happy with perfromance you can always look at openelec/xbmc booting from USB.

I'm happy with XBMC on top of Win 8 and havent seen the need to go down the openelec route. Likewise the default power management and standby are working fine for me - I can take it out of standby using an airmouse/keyboard.

Cyrus

Leiva wrote: »

OK mine arrived Monday from Amazon and I was a bit disappointed to see that there was no BR Drive included in the box.
I ordered the i3 1tb model .

Another thing I noticed was no keyboard or mouse in the box, but I did find that they had sent me the dearer model which included the Lenova multimedia remote - so happy out.

The difference in price between the model I received and the one I order was £90.

I checked the part number from the box label, and compared it to the part number/spec I ordered on the Amazon site and they matched.
The Amazon site has their part numbers mixed up and the model I ordered 'vs' the one I received match part numbers, but there is a higher spec in the box which included the Lenova multimedia remote.

I don't know if it's a once off thing or maybe they have both models mixed up and listed incorrectly across the board.

I ain't had time to really setup XBMC and configured other things, but my first impressions are pretty impressive and the fan noise really is no issue.

What I am looking for is tips for Hibernation and startup options in Win8.
Basically I would like to set it up with the lowest possible power consumption when not used, but also with a quick startup when needed.

Oh and if I was to run XBMC from a USB rather than installing a WIN8 version of XBMC would I still have all the power that the Q190 has to offer driving the XBMC, or am I just better off doing an XBMC win version install?

xbmc ontop of windows 8 and install xbmc launcher, sleep the system when you want to power down (suspend) dont bother with hibernate

Leiva

I installed XBMC (win version) but I am having trouble changing the skin from confluence.

A new skin downloads ok and says its enabled but when i select it in settings I get an error.

I have tried this with a couple of different skins but still getting the same result.

Cyrus

odd, are you sure they are the frodo version and not eden?

Leiva

Cyrus wrote: »

odd, are you sure they are the frodo version and not eden?

Yep Frodo 12.1

I thinking its more of a win8 problem than XBMC.
Gonna get my head into the user accounts on Win8 as I suspect it's a permissions issue.

Cyrus

Leiva wrote: »

Yep Frodo 12.1

I thinking its more of a win8 problem than XBMC.
Gonna get my head into the user accounts on Win8 as I suspect it's a permissions issue.

I've never had an issue with skins unless it was an old version of the skin

ims

Hi All,

I got mine few days ago from Amazon. I ordered VE71AUK model and it came with Blu-ray Drive.

I installed XBMC on top of Windows 8 but 1080p playback is disaster I switched rendering method to "Software" and disabled Dvxa acceleration but that didn't help much. During fast changing scene fps drops from 24 to 9 (average CPU usage 30%).

Can anyone please advise how to set Windows 8/XBMC on Q190 to get smooth 1080p video playback.

Thanks,
ims

Cyrus

Sound settings I'd say, set to analogue, 2.0 and wsapi and go from there

ims

Hi Cyrus,

I had audio output set to Analogue, 2.0 and wsapi set by default. Any other ideas what might be wrong?

Thanks for advise...

Cyrus

ims wrote: »

Hi Cyrus,

I had audio output set to Analogue, 2.0 and wsapi set by default. Any other ideas what might be wrong?

Thanks for advise...

Post up you're video and sound settings and also are you streaming from a network drive or local, if network wired or wireless

ims

Video Playback settings:
- Render Method: Software
- Allow Hardware Acceleration (DXVA2): disabled
- Adjust Display Refresh To Match Video: OFF
- Sync playback To Display: disabled
- Allowed Error In Aspect Ratio To Minimize Black Bars: None
- Display 4:3 Videos AS: Normal
- Activate Teletext: Enabled
- Scale Teletext To 4:3: Enabled

Video Output settings:
- Display Mode: FULL SCREEN 1
- Resolution: 1920x1080P
- Use A Fullscreen Window Rather Than True Fullscreen: Enabled
- Blank Other Displays: Disabled
- Vertical Blank Sync: Always Enabled

Audio Output settings:
- Audio Output: Analog
- Speaker Configuration: 2.0
- Boost Volume Level On Downmix: Enabled
- Output Stereo To All Speakers: Disabled
- Audio Output Device: WASAPI: HDMI - Philips FTV
- Play GUI Sounds: Only When Playback Stopped

Cyrus

Try disabling the full screen window see how you go

ims

I changed "Use A Fullscreen Window Rather Than True Fullscreen" option but that didn't improve anything

ims

Hi Cyrus,

I found solution for my issue. I followed this "How To Trouble Shoot Audio for XBMC on Windows" guide:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=146911

and video playback has been fixed when I did Step 6: delete guisettings.xml file. Unfortunately that re-set GUI settings but fixed the issue.

However issue occurred again when I changed "Render Method" and "Allow Hardware Acceleration (DXVA2)" from "Auto" and "Enabled" to "Software" and "Disabled". Switching back to "Auto" and "Enabled" didn't fix video playback so I had to delete guisettings.xml again and just do not change default "Render Method" and "Allow Hardware Acceleration (DXVA2)" settings.

I hope that no one else will have such issue but if yes then hopefully above will help.

Cyrus

ims wrote: »

Hi Cyrus,

I found solution for my issue. I followed this "How To Trouble Shoot Audio for XBMC on Windows" guide:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=146911

and video playback has been fixed when I did Step 6: delete guisettings.xml file. Unfortunately that re-set GUI settings but fixed the issue.

However issue occurred again when I changed "Render Method" and "Allow Hardware Acceleration (DXVA2)" from "Auto" and "Enabled" to "Software" and "Disabled". Switching back to "Auto" and "Enabled" didn't fix video playback so I had to delete guisettings.xml again and just do not change default "Render Method" and "Allow Hardware Acceleration (DXVA2)" settings.

I hope that no one else will have such issue but if yes then hopefully above will help.

Glad to hear it,still curious as to the issue as all deleting GUI settings does is reset everything to default, and the recommended playback setting for intel chips is software, but once it's working that's the main thing

Leiva

Leiva wrote: »

Yep Frodo 12.1

I thinking its more of a win8 problem than XBMC.
Gonna get my head into the user accounts on Win8 as I suspect it's a permissions issue.

sorted!

I had reckoned that having an windows account as "admin" would be OK but no.

I had to actually set XBMC.exe to run as administrator. It then allowed all files required be accessed by the skin.