Asus AV/S Addon TV Out board

[Y]

I'm using an A7N8X-VM/400 and like many others here, I'm having a hard time
finding this board locally. After looking at various pictures of this board
on the net, and seeing some rediculous prices posted for it, 2 questions
come to mind:

1. Before I order one of these boards, can anyone confirm that the quality
is worth it? How does playing a good DVD look on the TV via the AV/S board?

2. Does anyone have any Canadian sources for this board?

3. It looks quite simple to build, for anyone with some experience in
electronics: does anyone have a circuit diagram? A couple of really macro
hi-res pictures of top and bottom would do as well (I don't think they'd use
more than 2-layers on this PCB).

TIA

Y

 

[Paul]

I'm using an A7N8X-VM/400 and like many others here, I'm having a hard time
finding this board locally. After looking at various pictures of this board
on the net, and seeing some rediculous prices posted for it, 2 questions
come to mind:

1. Before I order one of these boards, can anyone confirm that the quality
is worth it? How does playing a good DVD look on the TV via the AV/S board?

2. Does anyone have any Canadian sources for this board?

3. It looks quite simple to build, for anyone with some experience in
electronics: does anyone have a circuit diagram? A couple of really macro
hi-res pictures of top and bottom would do as well (I don't think they'd use
more than 2-layers on this PCB).

TIA

Y

A previous poster, David Shorthouse, was building an HTPC with
the A7N8X-VM and he had some fun finding the adapter. The email
address listed in his post, looks "de-spammable", so maybe
you could drop him a line and see if he thinks it was worth it.

http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=cBt3c.8575$Up2.2859@pd7tw1no

Newegg lists the thing, but beware that of the three pictures shown of
it, one is wrong (has extra connector). I'm only mentioning Newegg for
the picture of the device, because both you and I cannot buy from
them :-(

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-211&depa=0.
http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage.asp?image=13-131-211-03.JPG/13-131-211-02.JPG/13-131-211-04.jpg

I don't really remember how I figured out this was it. Maybe the
Asus part number was listed somewhere, other than DirectDial.
DirectDial has presence in Canada and USA, and for a Canadian customer,
there is no "border crossing" to worry about. DirectDial is a
middleman for a bunch of smaller companies, so your product will
come drop-shipped. I've made one purchase from them, and recommend
patience and persistence. (I purchased a processor from them, and
they silently stopped the order, because it was listed as "OEM".
They didn't bother to contact me, to explain what was going on, and
I had to beat the truth out of them by phone.)

Asus 90-C1OOBA-00XBY AV/S adapter (Hope this is the right one...)
http://www.directdial.com/vs/item/prod.asp?item=90-C1OOBA-00XBY

My opinion is TV out from computer video devices sucks, but that is
because I'm only interested in text-mode/desktop. Maybe a movie
actually looks wonderful on it. As I only have composite input on
the TV, colors are all over the map. (The only device that didn't
suck, was my old Nintendo YMMV.

Paul

 

[fred]

I'm using an A7N8X-VM/400 and like many others here, I'm having a hard time
finding this board locally. After looking at various pictures of this board
on the net, and seeing some rediculous prices posted for it, 2 questions
come to mind:

1. Before I order one of these boards, can anyone confirm that the quality
is worth it? How does playing a good DVD look on the TV via the AV/S board?

2. Does anyone have any Canadian sources for this board?

3. It looks quite simple to build, for anyone with some experience in
electronics: does anyone have a circuit diagram? A couple of really macro
hi-res pictures of top and bottom would do as well (I don't think they'd use
more than 2-layers on this PCB).

Fortunately my board came with one so I can give you some insight into
what they do:
1. Provide a mechanical fixing bracket for your composite (phono) and S-
video (minidin) connectors.
2. Nothing else . . . .

Well they do actually make a feeble attempts at meeting EMC specs by
having a simple RFI filter on each signal lead, but this is basically a
pass thro' board.

Here's the header pinout:
___
Y/C1 (S-Video) Pin2 |X #| Pin1 - GND
Y/C2 (S-Video) Pin4 |X X| Pin3 - NOPIN
Composite Video Pin6 |X X| Pin5 - GND
---
Pin numbering is the standard for this type of header, pin1 (#) has a
square pad.

I'm not using S-Video so I haven't bothered to work out which pin is
which on that interface, a pin switch if it doesn't work should solve
the problem.

If you just want composite, then I would make up a 2pin socket header to
a piece of screened cable with a phono socket on the end and just pop it
on the last 2 pins. Bring the cable out at a convenient point & connect
to that pigtail.

If you're interested, the RFI filter is just a chip ferrite inductor in
series with the signal plus a 100pF (ish) chip capacitor connected from
the output side of that to chassis ground. You can ignore this if you
are not experiencing interference problems.

Remember that this board (Nvidia driver) normally auto detects a TV
connection and whether you have a composite or S-Video connection at
startup. It will disable the TV out if none is found. This can be
overriden in the Nvidia setup, under troubleshooting I think.

HTH

 

[Y]

Thanks fred, for taking the time to write that out. It's exactly all the
info I needed.
It amazes me that I've seen this board priced as high as $27 US (+shipping).

Much obliged,

Y