My hardware setup is:
IWill KK266 motherboard with an Athlon 1.3Ghz CPU
512MB PC133 RAM
Ti4600 video card
I'm working with an 80gig drive, but am planning on on getting a 250-300 gigger
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card
PVR-500

I did a test setup this weekend on this setup, Knoppmyth installed perfectly, and things worked, EXCEPT everything would reboot about a minute after watching live TV via the tuner. From comments here, it sounds like this is a problem with my motherboard being a VIA chipset and being incompatible. Originally, when starting this project, I envisioned (if the test worked) getting the "latest and greatest" to put together a MythTV box. Well, I've got the itch to upgrade to a better development (read: gaming) rig, and thought if I could get Myth going on the setup above (my old desktop), I'd save some change and the woman would be more approving of just building one PC!

I kind of figured I could get a LC10 case (which looks like it supports ATX mobos), get a bigger hard drive, and move the components over and be set. Buuuuuut, if my motherboard doesn't work, that kind of blows that up. I'm wondering though, if I were to just replace the motherboard to something that IS compatible, and then use my existing CPU (and RAM maybe?), then it would still be bearable. It looks like for abotu 50 bucks I can get something nForce2 based like the EPoX 8RDA3I (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813123234). Would that work? An added bonus would be, a new board would have onboard ethernet (I'm using a PCI card now) and I'd probably use the onboard sound, too (the KK266 has onboard sound, too, but I never used it). It says it would work for the Athlon CPU, it accepts faster memory but maybe I could use the PC133 and it would just be the bottleneck? Hmmmm, or maybe I could keep my eyes open for a 2GB PC3200 deal, put half in the Myth setup and half in my future desktop?

I don't know....any ideas? Any suggested motherboards that are a bit older (ie, I don't really want to go out and get a new P4 or Athlon 64 CPU/motherboard/RAM just for MythTV). Any other thoughts? Would pretty much any board that takes an Athlon and doesn't have a VIA chipset (what else is there? Is nForce2 safe?) work? Thanks much!

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... areConfigs
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... Components
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... therBoards

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6321

I use a different (newer) VIA-based motherboard with two digital tuner cards, and no reboot problems, so "not VIA" isn't actually necessary.

My board is a GigaByte GA-7VM400-AM

_________________
| Nigel Pearson, nigel.pearson.au@gmail.com
| "Things you own end up owning you" - Tyler, Fight Club

Thanks for all the help everyone! I think I've decided on what I am going to do. I think I'm going to go with an nForce2 board, the
EPoX EP-8RDA31 PRO
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813123234
It's Socket A, so my old Athlon should work in it; I *think* my PC133 RAM will work, too (it's been a loooooong time since I've been in the pc building game), it'll just run as a bottleneck - I'll probably keep my eyes open for a deal on 1GB PC3200, but as it is, I'm right about at the $500 mark that I was aiming for when everything's said and done, and I'm trying to reuse my CPU and video card!

While I'm at it, I'm thinking I'm going to get the HTPC case, a Silverstone LC10: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811163033
with a corresponding power supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817163110

I think this should all work...shipping at newegg is killing me, but I guess those are the breaks. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!

The Silverstone case isn't going to help you $ goals any! Unless you've got a WAF issue the case/PS I'm using is probably cheaper and quieter. Not only that, you've probably got a good chance of finding it locally and saving the shipping.

Thanks, I'll check that out. I didn't pick the Silverstone specifically...I think I saw it mentioned somewhere and it was around 100 so I thought it would be ok. Really the only requirements case-wise I have is it needs to fix an ATX motherboard, ideally will blend in somewhat with my stereo eqipment, and the whole thing ideally will be fairly quiet. No need to be silent per se, but quiet enough. Thanks again!

Don't know about the blend in part... It's a ATX minitower. However if you can shove it behind the rack or the TV nobody should ever need to see it.

Heh, I just saw that. Yeah, I was aiming for a "home theater"-ish type of style.....maybe I'll go back through the sites and see if there are any cheapers HTPC cases. Are there any other recommended black, low profile HTPC cases that fit in with home theaters?

There is a serious premium for any ATX case with a flat "desktop" layout rather than a tower layout. Even for a cheap POS you're looking at double the price of a decent tower case. This probably has something to do with needing to make them sturdy enough that people can stack monitors or other stuff on that big tempting flat top and the more complicated cooling issues.

Right, even so, this is intended to go in the living room, with the other TV equipment. I really wanted something black, that could go on the bottom shelf of the entertainment center (nothing is going to sit on it, I have an empty spot where I just have DVDs stacked now). I was going with ATX since that is the form factor of my current motherboard...I guess I could look for a mini/micro-atx solution that's socket A (I'm really trying to reuse as much of my current hardware as I can). But then I'll probably run into issues with my Ti4600 fitting, plus I imagine those cases aren't that much cheaper.

All in all, I guess $100 ($~125 shipped) isn't that bad for a case that would fit in with the stereo equipment. It's more than I'd normally spend on a case, but I don't really want a tower somewhere in the living room, and there's not even a real good place to hide it, either. sigh....guess I'll keep digging through the sites tonight, see if I can find any other deals or compromises

You could do what I did (though for me it's only a cheap short term solution) nick an old desktop PC from work ... one they r getting rid of and spray it black. A few mods to the case to fit a quiet fan... job done
Oh, and my socket A mobo... Abit NF7-S. No problems for my system.