I’m currently running a J1800 Celeron based system as my primary HTPC. It’s served me well for the last 3 years, but has taken to randomly rebooting pretty frequently (once or twice a day) and I’ve been completely unable to figure out why – window’s event viewer shows a kernel power fault, but the details just say it didn’t shut down cleanly. Memory tests have passed, the SSD is clean, and the system will suddenly reboot even when it’s just idle, and this has been getting worse.
So, as I’m becoming ever more convinced there’s a hardware fault, and it’s an “all in one” sort of mini-itx board (Biostar NH1800) I’m starting to think I’d be better off just replacing it entirely.
My requirements are pretty simple and low-key: I need to play regular 1080p video, and run Netflix. I’m not concerned about OS, so long as I can still get HD video from Netflix.
I’m hoping for something of a comparable price range – that is, under $200CDN – but I’ve not been watching the market so closely over the last year or so and want to be sure I’m not missing any really good options.
Any suggestions?
I’ve read through wrxtacy’s great thread here: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252916 but he doesn’t really cover my use case above – specifically, running Netflix as well as regular 1080p without hd audio, as this rules out most odroid/raspi setups. I’m somewhat reluctant to use random Android boxes (as much as I love Android!) unless there’s a manufacturer offering actual OS updates and of course with HD netflix (damn you, Hardkernel!)