All-In-Wonder or similar for Vista

[wii-ste]

My mobo only has 3 expansion slots - 2xPCI 1xPCI-E, which are all taken up at the moment. This causing problems as I'm having a nightmare keeping the video card cool. My plan was to buy an All-In-Wonder or similar (PCI-E) and remove the TV-turner card, therefore giving the graphics card more breathing space.

Unfortunately I have not been able to find any card similar to AIW that works with Vista's Media Centre.

Does anyone know of one of these cards (has to be PCI-E)?

I have been looking for weeks now.

 

[raybay]

What is your brand and model of computer, or the part number of the motheboard.
Are you having performance problems with the computer, or do you just have aworry that it is running too hot.
In a small computer with only three slots, you may be putting good after bad.

 

[wii-ste]

Am probably just paranoid to be honest, but I have had an All-In-Wonder in my last PC, that kept cool quite well.

 

[tipstir]

How about USB2 or PCI-E from www.hauppauge.com...

 

[Sharkfood]

Unfortunately, with the acquisition of ATI by AMD, the first thing that got the axe was their AIW product line. In some ways, this was good as ATI really didn't have sufficient resources to support this line as droves of AIW owners will attest.

Your only hope of you're stuck on an AIW product would be to hunt out old-stock AIW 1900's as these were the last of the mohican's from ATI/AIW line... and while ATI/AMD pledges to support these with WDM Drivers, Vista support and MMC support will be abysmal at best as they are discontinued products.

That being said, the above suggestions to split Video + Tuner are good ones. More importantly, the AIW's only support old-school VHF/UHF tuners and no support for HD OTA or other digital signals. More modern tuner cards have greater support and higher quality so you're still better off with one of these versus an integrated/all-in-one style card.

On temps and power- you're still better off with modern solutions. PCI or PCI-X based tuner cards, or even external tuners are going to be easy to cool versus being strapped near heat generating vram and gpu. Tuner really don't get that hot so your main concern will still stay the same- which is to keep the GPU/vram cool, which is easily done with case fans to generate airflow.

Good luck!