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Feb 27, 2012

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3T - TV And FM Tuner (Avermedia A317 Demo, Installation, and TV Antenna Mod)

Avermedia A317


Gear: S10-3T, AverMedia A317.

Earlier on I had ordered a YUAN MC872 which is absolutely useless in America, so I ordered a new TV tuner and I'm glad it works fine. The TV tuner that I ordered is the Avermedia A317.


Many PCI-E devices were rejected by the S10-3T because of the "whitelist". Basically a whitelist enables only certain devices to be used with the system, everything is rejected. The A317 was in the whitelist so there was no requirement for bios hacking. [There are now various bios versions with whitelist removed. I heard rumors that the latest official bios update removed the whitelist, although I cannot confirm it]

Why would you want a TV tuner?
  • View and record local HD video with your computer.
  • Program recording entire seasons of a TV show.
  • Listen and record FM radio stations.
  • Allows your S10-3T to be a portable TV.

These supported TV tuners for the S10-3T.
Avermedia A316, A317, A328
YUAN MC163M, MC907

There may be more officially supported ones, I recommend downloading the latest drivers and check the .txt file with the list.
S10-3T Official Drivers


Setup And Installation



I wanted to do the setup in under 10 minutes but it did not happen. The one step that took the longest was the Windows Media Center setup (1, 2, 3). It could technically be done, but trial and error methods take time.

Drivers
The drivers from Lenovo's website for the A317 did NOT work. They have XP and Win 7 drivers, and both failed. I did eventually find drivers at ftp://ftp.aver.com/Bravo/ (user: beta, pass: betatest) [the login no longer works which is a terrible thing].

Software
Windows Media Center for video
CyberLink PowerCinema for Radio (it can also do video)

The easiest way to get a TV tuner working with the S10-3T is via a USB TV Tuner, which is simply plugged and requires a tiny bit of work. Some of these USB TV Tuners include remote controllers which makes the experience more pleasant.

Doing a bios update may enable more PCI-E cards to work, and the rumor is that it now removes the "whitelist". Check the Lenovo S10-3T drivers page.


TV Antenna Mod By Aaron


This is a cool external antenna mod by Aaron to increase the TV signal strength. Aaron shared these images and comments on the original S10-3T blog, and now I'll copy and paste them for your scrutiny.


Posted: August 30, 2010 12:30 AM
Received Aver Media A316 Mini PCI-e Hybrid TV Tuner card today and able to install without any problems, used driver found by Jesse here and it went smoothly in installation. I also got a heap of antennas (sort of foil types) (2 no) and more antenna connecting wires with it too. So now I have Analog, DVB-T and FM Radio. I missed screws to mount the card and managed to find only one screw instead of required two. Will this be an issue?

Haven't tested TV reception yet being indoors, but FM worked well with Power Cinema 6. Now wanting to unplug/unblock that TV antenna hole and connect external antenna if some guide exists. Searched but so far not anything well documented or reliable on how to unblock that TV antenna port and plug in external antennas.

Posted: August 30, 2010 5:30 PM
Jesse, I watched your Crystal HD dismanteling video very keenly to get any clue (almost frame by frame!) about that TV Antenna Port before I will be able to gather enough courage to dismantle my S10-3t. Just in case if you, did you find any possibilities to that TV Antenna Port thing / part while you dismantled it for Crystal HD?

I plan to dismantle it anyway and make half-PCIe slot to be available as full PCIe as well as unblock TV Antenna Port and find out if I can put in an internal BT module as well, so then I will have take care of hardware modifications part and then I will have to do software ones only in future if and when I decide to add Crystal HD or something.

BTW, any chance I get to know details about how Stephen Perrin did it? Any web links are greatly appreciated of available.

Posted: September 1, 2010 6:43 AM
OK, opened my S10-3t, removed that rubber plug from TV Port and now I can say it even can be very very carefully pierced too! To connect external antenna, have ordered UFL adapter. May be open it one more time when I get it. It is very scary in the beginning, requires a lot of patience! But I appreciate this S10-3t, very sturdy.

Posted: September 12, 2010 4:38 AM
Finally added TV antenna to antenna port. I needed to mind hand drilling and a bit plastic melting but USL-SMA antenna connector fitted in perfectly. I was able to watch and record all available HD, Encrypted HD, SD, and DAB channels perfectly. AverMedia A316 showed true performance with antenna add-on. Second dismanteling of S10-3t was piece of cake and it feels very easy to open and re-asemble the way Lenovo made it, very thoughtful and user friendly once you get used to it.

Posted: September 13, 2010 6:38 PM
The links to TV Antenna Port modification are below:
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/6135/imag0643.jpg
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/7377/imag0642.jpg
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6915/imag0640.jpg
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/4130/imag0638x.jpg


One thing that is worth checking is the amount of time elapsed between these comments. Modifications like these can take time and patience. Thank you Aaron for sharing your knowledge with the rest of us.


(97m)

6 comments:

  1. Can you post a link to the drivers you downloaded, or let us know where we can download this now that the FTP is unavailable?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sadly I cannot. I do not have the drivers anymore, do not remember the name of them, and do not know where you can find them. All I know is that they used to be in that FTP address. (2m)

      Delete
  2. Great tutorial! I just got the drivers from AVermedia. Would you like them to post on your site?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I currently try to refrain myself from hosting files of other companies. If you have links to the files then you can post it here in the comments.

      Delete
  3. Dell has good driver for this I am running windows 8 64 bit and got a good drive but does work in media center, haven't given up yet. here is link
    http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriverDetails?driverId=RN2C9

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete