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Knoppmyth stability vs the chipset
http://forum.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2519		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  mrice [ Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:52 am ]
Post subject:  Knoppmyth stability vs the chipset
I am running an Athlon XP 2400+ on a DFI KM400-MLV motherboard, PVR-350, 120G hard drive, 512Mb DDR. I installed KnoppMyth R4.4 about a month ago.

So I have the blinky-lights-lockup-at-bootup problem about 50% of the time, and I've got the random-crash-throughout-the-day problem and I've got the mythfrontend-crash-when-skipping-30seconds-everysooften problem.

I have been reading all the threads here I can find and after reading

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2416

I was convinced this was a problem with my via chipset. Then after reading

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1702

it appeared that sis chipsets are also trouble. Then after reading

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2238

Now it looks like nvidia chipsets are not trouble free either (although clearly the preferred chipset by most knoppmyth folk). At this point I am wondering, is there actually an issue with the chipsets or is it an issue with KnoppMyth?

Before reading that last post I was all set to buy a Chaintech 7NIF2 or possibly the MSI K7N2GM, both with nforce2 chipset. Now I'm not as sure.

Can somebody put some perspective on this whole issue of stability vs your chipset?

Also, does the recommendation in

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2398

still pertain to someone using R4.4 or is it no longer necessary to do the setterm thing?

Thanks for any advice.
Author:  Xsecrets [ Mon Sep 27, 2004 10:01 am ]
Post subject: 
well I've got the 7nif2 motherboard, and I have the nothing crashes ever non problem. I had a few issues with R4V4.x series, but not with R4V2 and not with the alpha of R5 yet. I think the majority of the problems were either some of the patches added to the kernel or most likely the removal of ACPI from the kernel.
Author:  tjc [ Mon Sep 27, 2004 12:12 pm ]
Post subject: 
My nforce2 based hardware has been rock solid ever since I upgraded the BIOS. The machine has run 24x7 since then and only gets shutdown for upgrades and extended power outages. It even seems to have survived the summer without aircondtioning just fine...
Author:  mrice [ Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:40 pm ]
Post subject:  restarting
Well, I still don't know if this is a problem with Knoppmyth or the chipset, but after debating between restarting the process with fedora core and following Jarod Wilson's how-to guide or trying an nforce2 mobo and sticking with knoppmyth, I've decided on the later mainly because of the much wider base of support for nforce2 (moo). I'll restart with R4V5.

So I plunked down my $$ at newegg and my 7nif2 should be here _hopefully_ by the weekend. I'll post a followup then.

In hindsight, of course, I should have bought a PVR-250 instead of the 350 because now I'll have one more decoder than I really need. I suppose using the PVR-350's output is still a better choice than the nvidia tv-out of the motherboard, if someone disagrees please tell me.
Author:  tjc [ Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: restarting
mrice wrote:
mainly because of the much wider base of support for nforce2 (moo).
Hey, herd/flock/school behaviour is a VERY successful response to environmental factors! (Mostly predation, however pack/pride/... behaviour in predators is successful for very similar or mirrored reasons) ;-) The nforce2 chipsets became popular for a number of similarly good reasons, and after certain point that generates a positive feedback loop.

mrice wrote:
In hindsight, of course, I should have bought a PVR-250 instead of the 350 because now I'll have one more decoder than I really need. I suppose using the PVR-350's output is still a better choice than the nvidia tv-out of the motherboard, if someone disagrees please tell me.
You should get better quality TV output (at least for MPEG2 recordings like the 250/350 records, and from DVDs) using the PVR-350.
Author:  mrice [ Sat Oct 02, 2004 5:16 pm ]
Post subject:  so far so good
Well I got the 7NIF2 motherboard on Thursday and so far so good. I started with a fresh install of KnoppMyth R4V5. I have everything back up and running on the system, including Myth, apache, drupal, and NFS and so far everything is working well.

Next is to figure out how to control my cable box from the Myth for recording the upper (digital) channels.

Now if only there was something worth recording on TV...
Author:  mrice [ Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:53 pm ]
Post subject:  All is well
Well everything works. I followed the how-to guide at

http://losdos.dyndns.org:8080/public/my ... _LIRC.html

To create a lirc module for controlling my digital cable box and then constructed an irblaster cable and connected it to the 7NIF2's COM2 port. My cable box is a SA Explorer 3100 which I couldn't find a conf file for at the lirc website, but I used the SA 8000 file and it appears to be compatible. Wala!
:D
Author:  mrice [ Fri Oct 08, 2004 6:56 am ]
Post subject: 
I wish I could say I made it through the first week with no problems, but now my mythtv has locked up (can't even ssh into it) three times. This is somewhat different than before my motherboard upgrade. In all three cases, it was during playback of recorded TV. Once while paused (would never "unpause") and twice while playing normally.

My only idea at this point is maybe a heat issue? I have taken one of the side panels off my Antec case to give it some more air and I will see if it does it again. Does anybody have experience with lockups during playback?

---
Chaintech 7NIF2
Knoppmyth R4V5 (Mythtv 0.16)
Athlon XP 2400+
512MB ram
120GB hd
PVR-350
Author:  Xsecrets [ Fri Oct 08, 2004 5:04 pm ]
Post subject: 
well obviously you need to check your logs, and you could look over on the wiki at the xmbmon howto to get it going so you can check to see how hot it's running.
Author:  mrice [ Sat Oct 09, 2004 10:42 am ]
Post subject:  bad to worse
Things have degenerated further. Now my frontend crashes (dumps out to fvwm) when I try to watch live TV, watch recorded TV, or listen to music.

I am trying to look in the logs but I'm not sure I know where to look. In /var/log/mythtv there only seems to be a log for the backend, which I have looked at and doesn't seem very enlightening. Can someone point me in the right place? I have read several posts that refer to "looking through the logs" but can't find more detailed help.

One obvious thing I checked is that my / and /myth filesystems aren't full, and they aren't.

Any help is appreciated.
Author:  Xsecrets [ Sat Oct 09, 2004 11:00 am ]
Post subject: 
check /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog and the other thing to help with frontend problems is to get an xterm and run the frontend from there and see what has been dumped to stdout and stderr (the xterm).
Author:  tjc [ Sat Oct 09, 2004 1:01 pm ]
Post subject: 
For frontend issues /home/mythtv/.xsession-errors can also be very informative.
Author:  mrice [ Sat Oct 09, 2004 4:00 pm ]
Post subject: 
Well I restarted the machine things worked for a while (like waiting for water to boil) but when it finally died it didn't dump out like it had, instead it simply went to a black screen and refuses to come out of it. But I can still ssh into it. In case it means anything to anyone, this time it died while trying to come out of a long (30minute) pause of a recorded show. In other cases (within the last few days) it seems like coming out of pause caused trouble also, so that may be significant.

I looked in each of the places mentioned and there were a couple odd things. The first one was in syslog and I don't know if this is a problem or not...

Code:
Oct  9 17:08:37 io kernel: saa7115[0]: decoder set picture bright=127 contrast=63 saturation=63 hue=0
Oct  9 17:08:37 io last message repeated 3 times
Oct  9 17:08:37 io kernel: saa7115[0]: decoder set size
Oct  9 17:08:37 io kernel: Hpsc: 0x00001, Hfsc: 0x00600
Oct  9 17:08:37 io kernel: Setting full NTSC height
Oct  9 17:08:37 io kernel: saa7115[0]: decoder disable output
Oct  9 17:08:37 io kernel: saa7115[0]: decoder enable output
Oct  9 17:08:53 io kernel: ivtv: ivtv_dec_timeout: lost IRQ; resetting...
Oct  9 17:09:00 io last message repeated 44 times


More interesting is the message that I found in .xsession-errors:

Code:
2004-10-09 17:08:28 Changing from None to None
2004-10-09 17:08:37 Using protocol version 13
Using the PVR-350 decoder/TV-out
2004-10-09 17:08:38 Changing from None to WatchingLiveTV
pthread_setschedparam: Operation not permitted
2004-10-09 17:08:39 Running as SUID root would allow some threads to run with realtime priority, improving video smoothness.
2004-10-09 17:09:00 Changing from WatchingLiveTV to None
2004-10-09 17:09:00 Changing from None to None
2004-10-09 17:09:02 Using protocol version 13


I noticed that the "operation not permitted" line was repeated earlier in the log. Is that something to be worried about?

Thanks again.

---
7NIF2, PVR-350, R4V5, 0.16...
Author:  mrice [ Sun Oct 10, 2004 9:32 am ]
Post subject: 
Ok, today when the frontend locked up I got more info from the logs, although I don't know what might cause these messages.

In /var/log/syslog and /var/log/messages I see this leading up to the crash:

Code:
Oct 10 11:06:23 io kernel: ivtv: Got DMA-done, but not expecting one
Oct 10 11:06:44 io kernel: ivtv: DMA read error. Result=0x00000002
Oct 10 11:14:12 io kernel: ivtv: DMAP not set
Oct 10 11:14:28 io last message repeated 12 times
Oct 10 11:15:07 io kernel: saa7115[0]: decoder set size
Oct 10 11:15:07 io kernel: Hpsc: 0x00001, Hfsc: 0x00600
Oct 10 11:15:07 io kernel: Setting full NTSC height
Oct 10 11:15:30 io kernel: ivtv: DMA read error. Result=0x00000002
Oct 10 11:15:33 io kernel: ivtv: DMA read error. Result=0x00000002
Oct 10 11:16:13 io kernel: ivtv: ivtv_dec_timeout: lost IRQ; resetting...
Oct 10 11:16:20 io last message repeated 49 times
Oct 10 11:16:22 io kernel: ivtv: 100 ms time out waiting for firmware
Oct 10 11:16:22 io kernel: ivtv: api call 0x00000001
Oct 10 11:16:22 io kernel: ivtv: COULDN'T START PLAYBACK -16
Oct 10 11:16:23 io kernel: ivtv: 100 ms time out waiting for firmware
Oct 10 11:16:23 io kernel: ivtv: api call 0x0000000d
Oct 10 11:16:23 io kernel: ivtv: DEC: error pausing
Oct 10 11:16:24 io kernel: ivtv: 100 ms time out waiting for firmware
Oct 10 11:16:24 io kernel: ivtv: api call 0x00000003
Oct 10 11:16:24 io kernel: ivtv: DEC: error changing speed
Oct 10 11:16:24 io kernel: ivtv: DEC: error in slow/fast mode


And in /home/mythtv/.xsession-errors I see this:

Code:
2004-10-10 11:14:34 Changing from WatchingPreRecorded to None
2004-10-10 11:14:34 Changing from None to None
2004-10-10 11:14:47 All Programs
2004-10-10 11:15:07 Using protocol version 13
Using the PVR-350 decoder/TV-out
2004-10-10 11:15:08 Changing from None to WatchingLiveTV
pthread_setschedparam: Operation not permitted
2004-10-10 11:15:09 Running as SUID root would allow some threads to run with realtime priority, improving video smoothness.
IVTV_IOC_S_SPEED: Resource temporarily unavailable
bad newframes: 1950 0 4 0
bad newframes: 1950 0 16 0
bad newframes: 1950 0 22 0
bad newframes: 1950 0 22 0
bad newframes: 1950 0 22 0
(this line repeats > 100 times and then the file ends)


I searched the forums for some of these error message but didn't come up with anything. It looks like this thread is similar. Maybe something hosed with ivtv?
Author:  mrice [ Sun Oct 10, 2004 12:44 pm ]
Post subject: 
I found cesman's note about repairing mysql tables and thought I would check that out. Sure enough, about 10 of the tables said they needed repair. So I did that and will see if the problems come back, although I'm not very optimistic since I can't see how that might be related to the dma and other errors shown in the logs.
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