The new DVR isn't going so well. I chose the motherboard, in large part, because it has HDMI output and onboard RAID. And while it cheerfully let me set up a RAID-0 array in the BIOS, it's still recognized by the operating system as two separate disks rather than one large one. But there was no audio going out through the HDMI connector, and it kept spontaneously shutting down at apparently random intervals.

The case, which arrived yesterday, came with a PCI riser card so that adapter cards can fit horizontally into the short case - but the bottom "slot" is too low to actually permit a card, so I had to choose between wireless Ethernet and the video capture card. And then, out of the blue, the riser card started sparking and emitting magic smoke... from the circuit traces leading to the PCI Express slot, which didn't even have a card in it. So I got rid of the riser and stuck the capture card in vertically (which of course prevents the cover from going on the case).

But then this morning, after waking up and discovering that it had shut down again, I started it up and tried to find something in the logs to explain what was going on... and it shut down after only a couple of minutes. I turned it on again, and it hadn't even finished booting when I smelled smoke again... a point on the motherboard's audio chip was emitting a bright red glow and lots of smoke. Good thing I couldn't put the cover on it, I guess.

So I get to RMA the motherboard, and wait a few more days for a replacement before continuing to fight with it. I hope Thermaltake will send me a replacement riser card, since they don't sell it on their Web site.

Why did I think this was a good idea, again?