basically you exit menuconfig and run these commands:

make all
make modules_install
make install

then reboot

After one failed compile attempt, I figured out that I needed to put the full path to the dsdt.hex file in the 'make menuconfig' step (the guy who wrote the page didn't say you needed to put the full disk path - just the file name). Then, I performed the 3 "make" steps you instucted. It looked like compiling was going on. It took about 20 minutes. At the end of the process, the compilereminded me to update some boot file. I didn't because I didn't know whether I needed to, since I am recompiling the existing kernel.

I rebooted and the nvidia drivers were screwed up again. (I had updated them to 8178 previously). With no graphics mode, I again used the command line to update the nvidia 8178 drivers. After I got the graphics back, I tested the patched ACPI power shutdown. It works!

I have been trying to read and learn what to do with compiling. I found this page:
www.falkotimme.com/howtos/debian_kernel2.6_compile/
It mentions quite a few steps which you didn't mention. Are they not necessary when recompiling an existing kernel?

The next step is the audio driver patch.

Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner

Yeah, some of the steps aren't neccessary since you're re-compiling the existing kernel (lilo etc)

Thus far, every time I've recompiled the kernel, the nvidia drivers revert back to the original version - the version that doesn't work.

How can I lock in the new 8178 drivers as the current driver that won't get displaced by the next recompile (the next recompile is for the audio driver)?

Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner

It's been my experience that every time you recompile the kernel you have to re install the nvidia drivers. It's not the old ones are resurfacing, its just when you do a recompile it wipes out what the nvidia install does.

Have you disabled the init script that installs the nvidia drivers? if you haven't run:

update-rc.d -f install-nvidia-debian remove

I am down to the sound fix. At present I don't have any sound coming out of the Asus motherboard. I updated the Asus motherboard firmware on Sunday to the latest Asus had on their website.

Mad_Paddler, is the following the correct method of fixing the ALSA sound drivers?



I've downloaded this patch file shown above. How do you "patch the kernel"? This author leaves out too many steps to be useful.

Or, should I just go to http://www.alsa-project.org/
and get the latest ALSA drivers, tools, utilities, etc.?
If yes, is the following the correct method of compiling and installing the ALSA driver components?



Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner

I can't remember exactly what the command is to patch the kernel with that patch, but with most kernel patches you need to:

cd /usr/src/linux
patch -p0 < /full/path/to/a8nvmsound.patch

replace the /full/path/to... with the location of the patch.
you will need to recompile & install the modules afterwards:

make
make modules_install


As for alsa, not sure since i've never tried updating it before... However normally when you download these sorts of things, when you extract it there is normally a full readme file with instructions on what to do

I got a tip that the new 1.0.11rc5 version of the ALSA drivers fixes all the sound problems with the Asus A8N-VM CSM motherboard. It's TRUE!!


I downloaded and compiled the ALSA drivers version 1.0.11rc5 per the instructions in the HOW-TO section of the ALSA website. After a reboot and an unmute of the sound channels (using ALSA amixer), I got clean sound out of the onboard sound chips! (same KnoppMyth kernel 2.6.15.chw-2)

I'm now playing MP3s with the Mythtv music player. Sweetness!

Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner

It seems like several of you on this thread have now got this setup mostly working. I'm still contemplating building a system much like all yours, but I keep reading about XvMC "prebuffer" issues, performance problems with 1080i sources, monochrome OSD, audio oddities, etc. I also keep hearing about how an Intel P4 3GHz system is more likely to "just work".

So, I'd love to see a summary from those who are using an A8N-VM CSM system, with what's working, how well it's working, and what's not working. In particular (and to make copy/pasting answers easier), here's the list of what I'm curious about:

1) What's your specific hardware config (CPU speed, RAM, disk, etc.)
2) What video device is your front end driving, and at what resolution?
3) What audio device are you outputting to? Digital or analog?
4) Is XvMC working reliably? Do you have CPU numbers with/without it? Does it seem to be essential for you? Unusable?
5) Does your audio work properly? No clicks, pops, or whines?
6) How often, (if at all), and when, do you experience jitter, or other artifacts that could be caused by the performance of your system?

Thanks for your time, I look forward to hearing good things about this setup, this board seems like a really good platform for MythTV.

I have been in both worlds. My present myth boxen is running on a Soyo SY-P4I845PE with a 3.06 GHz P4, 1G of memory and a Maxtor ATA 300G hard drive. Sound and video from myth goes to a multimedia receiver with video going on to an 8 year old Sony 35 inch CRT TV. Sound is analog. I use a PVR-350 and Plextor ConvertX TV402-U. The picture from 350 card, using the hardware decoder, looks very good. So do programs recorded using the Plextor box. Live TV from the Plextor is not nearly as good as live TV from the 350. One can especially see this when watching a hockey game. The picture does not seem smooth. Anytime I have ever checked my CPU while live TV was the only job, I have only seen about 5-8% usage. Audio is fine. Once in a while the picture and audio lose sync. I do not know what causes that. Usually backing out to the menu and restarting the show (live or recorded) fixes it.

I have just started building a new box using a A8N-VM CSM, AMD 3700+ (San Diego), 2G memory, the same model hard drive as on the present unit. I can't say I had any more problems with this board than with the Soyo. In fact, I solved problems faster because of the experience gained on the first box. I had to compile and install the latest releases of IVTV and ALSA. That was without incident. The biggest problem was dealing with the bad ACPI bios table. I was compiling 2.6.16.9 kernels with an external DSDT file. That worked just fine except for auto power off. I happened to come across an unofficial release of the bios, 0901, that has the ACPI table fixed. I installed it (let Mikey try it. He'll try anything.) and went back to the stock 2.6.15 kernel today. BTW, the card in this box is a PVR-150 mce, no radio. Recompiled ALSA and IVTV for this kernel and all is well. Everything works now. Only watching on a monitor at this point but I am much further ahead in this amount of time than I was with the first box. No hardware decoder so I am using the default software decoder and onboard video. Haven't tried the TV out. Looks just fine.

I'm not sure the board makes that much difference. It seems like I just trade old problems for new problems no matter what I do. I hope I touched on everything you wanted.

S

Thanks for the info. If I do get this MB, I'll probably want to get a copy of that BIOS you found so I don't have to mess with the DSDT file. It's nice to know everything went pretty well for you after getting that part working.

It sounds like you're running everything analog, though, and I'm thinking of doing everything digital -- HD from the cable to a pcHDTV 3000, and S/PDIF audio to my receiver. I like this board because it seems to have all the things I want in one package (nVidia 6150 video with DVI and VGA output, ethernet, digital audio, firewire, usb) and it's relatively inexpensive. I'm just trying to be sure it's up to the task of doing HD.

I'm curious, if you're just doing SD, why did you upgrade your system? Is it doing more than just MythTV?

-Joel

I wasn't really looking for an upgrade as such. I (who's kidding who? my wife) just wanted to get the tower out of the TV room and put in something that looked more electronic appliance appropriate. I got an nmediapc 200 and it only takes a mini ATX and it's just dominos after that.

With this motherboard I do have digital capability so this set up should have a long future ahead of it. Plus, I get the tower back in the 'lab'.


S

My main system specs are in my signature line at the bottom.

Updating the nvidia drivers to 1.0-8178 was the first thing I had to do - xwindows would not boot before doing it!

I'm also running the 0901 BIOS (to fix the DSDT). It was posted at:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id= ... uage=en-us

For testing I just put an Western Digital 60GB IDE hard drive in. It works fine for recording and playback of HDTV. My final setup will have a bigger storage drive.

Updating the ALSA sound drivers to the most recent fixed my sound problems. Also note that you must unmute all your sound channels with the amixer program before you can hear anything.

I am running XvMC with no video glitches. The 'top' command shows CPU usage at about 53% when playing back HDTV recordings. I've not turned it off yet to see how high it is without.

I'm still running with an LCD monitor at 1024x768 using the VGA output of the onboard nvidia video chips.

I have not bought the Asus SPIDF output connector yet (sold separately from the motherboard) so I'm running analog sound into amplified speakers.

For some reason, I can't watch live tv, even though I can record and playback HDTV. No one has been able to suggest a possible cause or cure.

Eric

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KnoppMyth R5.5, Asus A8N-VM CSM (nvidia 6150 onboard video), AMD Athlon 64 dual-core 4200+, two 1GB sticks DDR 400, HD-3000 HDTV card, PVR-150 card, Iguanaworks RS-232 IR receiver/transmitter, Pioneer DVR-110 DVD burner

Thanks for that very informative reply. As I read through it, I was starting to think everything would be picture-perfect, until I came to that last sentence "I can't watch live TV". That sure stinks. But, I'm really happy to hear you have no problems with the video using XvMC, and your CPU usage seems more than reasonable. I'll probably go ahead and order my hardware now, and cross my fingers that the issue you're having is just software and someone out there will work it out. I'm likely to try installing from straight FC4, too, rather than KnoppMyth, just because I'm a glutton for punishment, and also I'm more familiar in general with Fedora than I am with Debian distributions.

-Joel

How did you apply the bios update?

anyone here used tools like ultimatebootcd to update the bios?

Steve

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OpenMedia Limited
New Zealands first open source PVR based on Knoppmyth
http://www.openmedia.co.nz for details