Velocity Micro Vista MCE Bug Report

I’d be remiss if I didn’t make mention of two issues with the new dream pc.

First off, as others have been reporting, the onboard IR receiver that is the enabler for the MCE remote and keyboard was not functioning when I set up the machine. As a work-around, I borrowed an external eHome USB IR receiver from one of my other machines and plugged it into one of the rear USB ports (and I also contacted Velocity Micro). After an interchange of emails where I learned that VM was not pre-advised that MS would be installing the 64 bit version of Vista, and pointers from VM to “beta drivers”, I checked and investigated further and found that MS did install the drivers for this device, but that device manager reported them unsigned. You can press F8 on each boot as a work around for unsigned drivers, except in this case the included keyboard was an MCE keyboard that requires the IRtrans device to be operational (and as I recall it does not work until the GUI is booted anyway). Chris Morley tells me that he is chasing signed 64 bit IR drivers with a vengeance and will provide them ASAP.

The other problem that I have is that the two front USB ports are not working. I found that strange since the X in 1 Media Reader is working fine. I have not cracked open the case yet to investigate (and won’t until I return from CES), but this is not a showstopper.

I spoke with Chris Morley this morning. Great guy. And this is still a great machine.