I have been upgrading my XP MCE HTPC this weekend and have encountered an unexpected problem. Perhaps someone could point me in the right direction.
I am using an Asus P5n7A-VM motherboard with onboard nvidia 9300 graphics, Zalman HD160XT case, Hauppauge DVB-t & s cards. This motherboard has had good reviews and I expected that it would work well for me but I hadn't taken into account running 2 monitors - the Zalman case has a 7" LCD and I am connecting to a Panasonic plasma. When I tune into sat broadcast everything is good. When I use the terrestrial card the picture becomes jerky, audio out of sync, CPU usage goes from 5% to spikes of up to 60%. Seems like it isn't coping with decoding H264. If I disconnect the LCD monitor DVB-t is fine.
What are my options? Is it worth looking at hybrid SLI? Would this give me the performance boost that I need? Should I play it safe and go for a better stand alone graphics card? If so, what minimum spec? Hoping someone has had a similar experience and can offer advice. Thanks in advance.