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PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:47 pm 
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My system died yesterday. It has a 7N1F2 motherboard with an Athlon CPU and a PVR-250. Single PATA hard drive and it is the backend and frontend.

It won't boot. The fans come on and POST never runs. I connected a monitor to the VGA port and there is no video there either. A replacement power supply didn't help. The CPU and memory run fine on an old system I have. So it looks like the motherboard is bad. I can't use the motherboard from the old computer because it has a VIA chipset.

I use the onboard S-video output to drive the TV.

I have Comcast analog. Since analog cable will go away and more QAM is encrypted I am not sure about building up a new system so I would like to keep this one going for a while.

I don't see anyone selling 7N1F2 boards when I searched.

How much latitude do I have in a replacement motherboard that would work with the current install I have on the hard drive?

Any suggestions appreciated.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:12 pm 
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I think the relevant stuff would get detected at boot by udev? I dunno for sure. If worse comes to worse, you can always use rsync to transfer your current system to another HDD. See this post for more.

Does your board have a PC speaker and if so, does it usually beep (when it worked)? You said it didn't POST but I wanted to make sure. Most boards usually beeps once after the POST to indicated all is well. There may be debug codes to help you pin-point problems on your board too. For example, three beeps might mean bad memory, four might mean no video card, etc. Anyway, if you don't have a PC speaker hooked-up you might wanna buy one/steal one and try it. Just google the model of your MB and POST codes or beep codes to find the list of what pattern means what.

Buying an older MB is tough both in the fact that they are 1) rare and 2) pricey in comparison to modern ones - you can get a brand new P45-based board for under $100 but that starts the whole slippery hardware slope doesn't it? New CPU, new SATAII HDD, new PS, etc.

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 6:40 pm 
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About six months ago I put a new client together - new motherboard etc. I would have expected it to "just work" but it didn't. I was running an older R5E50 knoppmyth and it's kernel ethernet driver would not work with the newer on board ethernet. And since I boot my clients over the network, I kind of was hosed!

So, just keep in mind that if your kernel is on the older side and you get new hardware you might run into something similar.

So perhaps since your MB is toast, it might be a good idea to start fresh and go with R6. :)


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:10 pm 
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graysky wrote:

Does your board have a PC speaker and if so, does it usually beep (when it worked)? You said it didn't POST but I wanted to make sure. Most boards usually beeps once after the POST to indicated all is well. There may be debug codes to help you pin-point problems on your board too.



There is a speaker in the case and it should still be working because I heard the POST completion beep the last time I rebooted it. I don't hear any beep codes. The fans turn on and the only sign of life is the HDD goes solid red after a few minutes even with the HDD and optical drive cables unplugged.

Thanks for the rsync link.

The closest I can come to my board is a Asus A7N266-VM for $33 on ebay which means I can use the old CPU and memory and just need to find an AGP video card with an S-video output.

I wouldn't mind building a new box considering the value I got from this one but it sure looks like unencrypted content will be rare.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:17 pm 
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djb61230 wrote:
About six months ago I put a new client together - new motherboard etc. I would have expected it to "just work" but it didn't. I was running an older R5E50 knoppmyth and it's kernel ethernet driver would not work with the newer on board ethernet. And since I boot my clients over the network, I kind of was hosed!

So, just keep in mind that if your kernel is on the older side and you get new hardware you might run into something similar.

So perhaps since your MB is toast, it might be a good idea to start fresh and go with R6. :)


Thats why I was thinking it might just make sense to find an older vintage board. I can get a Asus A7N266-VM which is a similar generation as mine on ebay.

I haven't been following trends but recent reading makes it look like the only way to do a DVR in the future will be to rent it from the provider. Do you think it is a good idea to build a new box up considering the declining availability of unencrypted content?


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 9:25 pm 
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Well for now the "analog hole" is there to record HD using the HD-PVR, at least here in the USA. At some point if they degrade component-out to 480p then more hardware will be needed to break out the bits from HDMI.

The mythtv HD-PVR wiki page has links to such products:

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/HD-PVR

See the "Possible Countermeasures" section. Hopefully it will be a few years before component is shut off.


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PostPosted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 8:24 am 
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George wrote:
I have Comcast analog. Since analog cable will go away and more QAM is encrypted I am not sure about building up a new system so I would like to keep this one going for a while.


I am also using Comcast and my experience is that they are now transmitting SD digital versions of all "expanded basic" channels "in the clear". I have seen many other Comcast user's report the same thing. The great unknown is if they will re-encrypt them at some point.

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 2:08 pm 
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An update.

I picked up a socket A nforce board (FIC K7MNF-64). I couldn't find a 7N1F2 anywhere.

Since I am using the S-video out I added a MX4000 AGP video card. It boots and tells me "eth0 no such device" and then runs mythtv login and starts blinking video and reports:

INIT: Id "C7" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes.

So any suggestions appreciated on how to fix are appreciated. I know I can do a new install but would like to retain the recordings and recorded programs database.

As an aside I had a spare hard drive so I installed R6 on it. It works fine with the exception I haven't figured out how to set the s-video output resolution.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 3:48 pm 
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That respawning too fast error is covered in tjc's hints and tips thread. Basically, you're using the wrong nvidia drivers. 440MX needs the old 96.x.x series.

Hmmm... can you copy over your /myth/backup to your R6 install, then do an R6 install ON TOP of that R6 install using the upgrade option? That will take care of your db. Then you just need to copy over the /myth/tv and /myth/video etc. etc. from your other box.

The res of the svideo output should be set in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf so long as you only have the svideo plugged into the card (i.e. no monitor). This is how my MBE is setup.

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:35 pm 
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Thanks for the reply. I haven't made a backup in some time.

It would seem I need to change to the old video driver in order to run a backup. I have no idea how to do that. Is there any other way to do a backup?

Would booting up on a R6 install CD with the old R5 hard drive connected and telling it to upgrade work?

Thanks


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:12 pm 
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Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 6:05 pm
Posts: 51
I have an update. The replacement motherboard I used has an onboard video but no Svideo. I added the video card to get the Svideo.

I pulled the video card and connected a monitor to the onboard VGA and connected the old hard drive. The system booted and the Myth GUI loaded. I did a backup. Then I realized that the hard drive I used for the R6 install is smaller than the existing hard drive. I need to order another bigger hard drive or install the correct video driver on the old system.

Any suggestions appreciated.


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