The One about the HTPC

So I built the HTPC a few months back and have been monkeying with it since then, trying to figure out just where it fits in my entertainment scheme. Overall, I really love it. It's fast, super quiet, and handles all the video I can throw at it. Sadly, a big ol' wrench has been thrown in the works in the form of some problem between my video capture card and my motherboard. I've been wrestling with tech support at both Hauppauge and ECS for over two months now, and I still have found no resolution. I know the video card works because I installed it on my desktop PC and it showed up just fine. When I plug it in to the HTPC, however, it shows up as an unrecognized PCI card, and the drivers won't install because they NEED to see a Hauppauge product before anything can happen.

I don't have another half-height PCI card to try in the HTPC motherboard, but what I've gleaned from my troubleshooting thus far is this:

1. It's not the card's fault since it works in my desktop.
2. It's probably not a bad PCI slot in the mobo because the slot recognizes the card, just not correctly.
3. I updated the BIOS to the latest version, so it's not a known issue that I'm seeing just because I have an earlier version of the board.
4. The most likely solution at this stage, barring meddlesome circuit gnomes, is that there's a hardware compatibility issue between the PCIe-1x card and the PCIe-16x slot. I've never heard of any issues like this, but I don't really know what else it could be.

My plan now, as pitiful as it is, is to continue to plead with ECS and Hauppauge and hope that the tech gods (or a beneficent CSR, I'm not picky) have mercy on me and I find someone who can solve my problem. It's the one thing standing between me and the HTPC I planned to have 3 months ago, not to mention the fact that it's also the one thing that really pushes the PC from mere living room computer into true HTPC-dom.

Oh, and I had planned to write a long post detailing the assembly of this machine along with informative pictures and effervescent wit, but I lost my camera a while back and have recently given it up as gone forever. Alas, it was not meant to be. I blame the gnomes.