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Thursday, April 1, 2010

To Do Crystal HD or Not to Do Crystal HD


To Do Crystal HD

Thanks to jfrakes, adding the Crystal HD card is possible.  I have done it with my system and found that there are some video improvements depending on the encoder used on the video.  You can see the most difference with a 1080p video.  Assuming you have your Crystal HD (BCM970012 or BCM970015) card you can now follow these steps which will enable your Crystal HD and void your warranty.


I'm not responsible if you try the following and fry your system.  It would be jfrakes fault ;-)  hahaha.

Steps:
1. Get Tools
2. Do Software/Bios modifications
3. Do Hardware modificatin
4. Do -To Not Do Crystal HD

Step 1 - Tools
Phoenix Bios Editor Pro (good luck finding it)
Players - (VLC and XBMC work best)
HD Videos - from Microsoft or free movie trailers

Required hardware components:
Screw driver set, knife or something hot, your hands, eyes, and patience.

Note: For XBMC you will need DirectX 9 runtime

Step 2 - Software/Bios modifications

You might want to modify your windows so it displays known files.  It will help you a lot.

In short:
1 - Install WinPhlash, navigate to where you installed it and copy the .wph file
2 - Open it with Phoenix Bios Editor
3 - Open Hxd and edit the mod_5100.rom located in the PBEP temp folder, save it.
4 - Edit something in Phoenix Bios Editor, then edit it out, and save as a new .wph file
5 - Open WinPhlash.exe and select your newly created .wph file, run it.
6 - Plug your Crystal HD card onto the slot
7 - Install Crystal HD drivers
8 - Run your video player and run an HD video

Step 3 - Hardware Modification
You will have to cut a chunk of plastic to get the Crystal HD.  There are two methods.
Method 1 - Remove all screws, and disassemble your S10-3T and get to that one SOB piece of plastic that you have to remove with hot knife.
Method 2 - Use a hot knife and just melt the plastic from close to the Mini PCI-E slot.  (If done improperly the plastic will melt to your motherboard)



To Not Do Crystal HD
You can see that doing these mod/hack is a lot of hassle.  Lot's of work and risk for one little piece to go wrong and you have destroyed your system forever.

These are some reasons why you should not add a Crystal HD card:
1.  Cost of getting the Crystal HD is about $50
2.  Lot's of hours spent on modification
3.  The Crystal HD is not supported "officially" by the S10-3T
4.  This hack voids your warranty
5.  There is a good chance of getting malware/viruses from trying to find Phoenix Bios Editor Pro
6.  Good chance of ruining your S10-3T's bios permanently
7.  Good chance of permanently breaking something during disassembling or assembling of your S10-3T
8.  Not all videos are encoded the same way, therefore the Crystal HD can be useless
9.  Removing your wifi card and now having to do some bios hacking because Lenovo likes to have a "white list" which means that you can only have supported hardware.  No you cannot put that wifi card onto the other slot.  This also requires you to create a new .wph file and flash your bios again
10.  Having to get a new wifi card that is a Mini PCI-E with USB Interface, or simply using a USB wifi dongle instead
10.  Static can ruin electronics easily so you better be grounded correctly
11.  No flash video improvements (yet)
12.  HD videos work just fine with the S10-3T by using the proper player and proper encoding of your videos (WHAT!?)

At the end I decided to removed the Crystal HD card.  This hack is simply not worth all of that hassle.  JFrakes must have "balls" to have done this mod in the first place.  This was no easy installation.  If you properly optimize your system, use the right video encoder, and use the right video player you can get really good results when playing HD Video.


An SSD would really help with those initial video lags, but they are a quite expensive.

Gear on the videos:
Lenovo S10-3T with 2GB RAM, and Windows 7 Home Premium
Broadcom Crystal HD - BCM970012
Acer Aspire One first generation



Posted by Jesse B Andersen at 11:15 AM
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11 comments:

  1. It's also important to mention you will need a new wifi card that will work in the 3G slot. Here is the one I added to the USB Whitelist to make it work. My updated posts on the original thread cover some of the issues I ran into.

    http://www.mini-box.com/802-11-b-g-Wireless-Lan-PCI-E

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  3. I'm running a similar configuration in my Acer Aspire 532h, but getting bad results. When playing through either WMP or MPC-HT, the Crystal HD card is producing very low frame rates, nearly unwatchable. (I know the card is active as I have the little Crystal HD taskbar notification app running).

    Are there further configuration changes that need to be done to MPC-HT? The only way I've seen quality video is to install an old version of Arcsoft TotalMedia (dl from the HP site). For some reason that software works great with the Crystal HD card.

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  4. @Jimmy
    Broadcom has released some new Crystal HD drivers that I recommend checking and downloading. They are in version 3.3.0 as of now and they have better codec support.

    Link - http://www.broadcom.com/support/crystal_hd/

    The software used for the videos does matter a lot. Try VLC and XBMC. Broadcom recommends WMP12 and a whole bunch of others but they "could" be getting paid to sponsor certain software (that's just me). Try different programs and see what you like.

    One more thing that changes things is the codec used on the video. You could have a 1080p video running that is not supported by Crystal HD, or the codec is supported but not "fully" supported or optimized. The codec is super important or else the Crystal HD is a waste of money. I have noticed that some types of encoding work better. So, if you find what works for you then convert videos from a main computer to that format. Videos should run a lot smoother.

    Note: Windows Media encoded formats kind of suck with the Crystal HD.

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  5. Hi Jesse,

    I was wondering if you know of any disassembly guide for the s10-3t. I've scoured the net and I can't seem to find one. I noticed you were able to do it here for the Crystal HD card, but your video doesn't show how you did it. Any tricks to it?

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  6. @JC
    The trick to disassembly on the S10-3T is patience. You gotta pay close observation to everything. I was taking so long to film that I just stopped. Maybe for a future post I'll do a full disassembly photoshoot.

    There were some pictures out there on the internet, but don't remember exactly where.

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  7. Boy-- you weren't kidding about patience. I had to get into the body of the computer quick because I had a spill, and the quicker you act on it the better your chance of saving the computer. But the number of screws you have to remove is massive. I followed the last part of your video where you're putting it back together-- and I just reversed it. If anyone else is attempting to disassemble it, let me just offer these pointers:
    1. Get about 6 or 7 ziplock bags. Each time you remove screws from a section, put them in a bag and label them. Keep the bags stacked in the order that you removed them (i.e., first bag on the bottom.) This will make putting it back together much easier.
    2. Keep some tweezers on hand- it helps to place a screw or remove a stubborn one.
    3. Don't drink anything near your laptop! ;)

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  8. I recently just added a Broadcom Crystal HD 70012 model. Got it off Ebay, flashed the hacked BIOS (whitelisted the Broadcom for the full-slot PCIe) and installed drivers 3.5, and it is working great. No case-mod necessary. This really makes a world of difference.

    Please see link for BIOS file and instructions. I used the Azurewave AW-VD904 card, as did the BIOS uploader.

    http://www.s10lenovo.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=4170

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  9. Jesse,

    Just wondering if by adding Crystal HD will it enable Bluray playback on S10-3t? And as well as to watch HD TV channels? Also one post above says he was able to do without case-mod (i.e. without opening the whole S10-3t and need to remove that plastic you mentioned, but he was just able to plug it in easily without any modifications), what is your opinion about 70012 card?

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  10. @Aaron
    The Crystal HD is not fully supported in the S10-3T. I doubt Bluray playback will work smoothly with the S10-3T.

    There are two ports in the S10-3T, one that is full PCI-E (what the Crystal HD needs) and then there's the PCI-E/USB port which is NOT what my Broadcom Crystal HD was. Also flashing the BIOS needs to be at the right spot. You could add the device to one port in the BIOS, that doesn't make it work in the other port. Maybe they have really figured out a way to make it work without removing the plastic pillar. I'm not going to explore it because it's a waste of time. Just watch standard definition and you'll survive, I swear you will survive. You can do up to 720p if you really wanted using VLC and no Crystal HD. Also I have seen HD video with my TV tuner and it works just fine. (I have done videos about it)

    The Crystal HD is good for high definition content and Flash, but it doesn't really execute well with the S10-3T. I tried it, and now I don't have it installed. I benefit more using my normal wifi card in one slot and use my TV tuner in the other slot.

    If you want Bluray playback and want a small system I would go for a Asus 1201N or a HP TM2.

    http://www.ionoverview.com/search/label/Asus%20Eee%20PC%201201N

    http://www.hptm2t.com

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  11. Thanks, Jesse

    Already 720p plays very perfect. I downloaded 720p and 1080p videos from the following link (found on your site somewhere)and they play well in WMP (720p perfect)

    http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

    Only 1080p hicks up at times.

    But I really enjoyed this S10-3t immensely even better than my Sony VAIO TT17GN/X which I paid a lot 2 years ago and ultimately sold it. it was nice and top at that time, 100% RGB screen, BD-RW and stuff, but I really never could work well on it, it remained more or less as a white elephant. I never comfortably or enthusiastically used it, never carried it along with me or never felt any bond with it. The black keyboard was 'good to look at' but hardly useful to actually do any productive work.

    Since I got S10-3t I take it with me everyday everywhere, and the most important point is I can actually work on it, be it email, office documents or anything without any stain on eyes or body. It is something I enjoyed after long trial and errors with different tablet/netbook combos over years starting with Sony VAIO UX180P (was too small and useless to work without docking)sold it and went for HP-Compaq TC100 (never used and sold after a while), followed by Fujitsu Stylistic ST5112, then HTC Shift (sold within days), then Fujitsu U2010 (Sold within a week) then OQO2+ I paid a premium to buy and later regret as it developed technical issues without support plus extremely useless to use it in anyway,and finally VAIO VGN-tt17GN/X which survived for 2 years as backup and occasional travel use not out of any liking!

    Moral of the story? Not necessarily high end or high spece'd or every new style and type of design and technology or high priced premium laptops or notebooks are really worth when it comes to real world day to day use. More often then less, so called un-conventional form-factors, technologies end up useless than anything else!

    Brave S10-3t!

    ReplyDelete

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