[mythtv-users] Re: Machine lock ups, I need help

Mon Dec 8 08:48:52 EST 2003

Hi,
 I am surprised your box crashed while gaming. I have played quake III, 
descent III, SOF and heretic II without any problem for hours. OK, 
heretic II has sound problems but that is some SDL software bug having 
to do with the aureal sound card. My box never crashed in a game, 
atleast not with linux.Of course, it keeps crashing in windows 98 games. 
I have had a few lock-ups but they are not so frequent that I would be 
worried. I have never had a kernel Ooops though, what I have had is a 
lock-up, screen freeze and no response to the keyboard. Last time I had 
it was when I tried  to use the btaudio driver. Usually happens when I 
do things like that. I am not using a PVR card. It's just bt878 based 
pixelview playtv pro card. My recording(mpeg-4) is not working right 
now, but I think I have goofed up somewhere. You see, there is less load 
on my buses while I am recording because I am not watching TV at that 
time(at least not yet). Anyway, when myth runs in a normal way(without 
recording), at that point also it is both recording as well as playing 
to give you time shift TV. So the load on your system buses should be 
more when you are watching live TV then when you are recording a show . 
Actually, the load on your PCI bus will always be the same because you 
are just reading from the bt878 and not wrting anything to it or any 
other PCI card. Load on the AGP card would be there when you are 
watching live tv but not when you are recording in the background. The 
only part of my PC that would be heavily loaded when recording is my 950 
MHz CPU. But the CPU would be fine in any case. I too once heard someone 
say somewhere that the KT133 chipset causes problems with Nvidia's 
card(on a linux newsgroup), I was adviced to use 2X AGP, of course I 
would never consider a step like that !! I might want to play Quake III 
and descent III and I don't want to degrade my system performance 
needlessly.
I'll try to make my recording work. Maybe, I have done some mistake 
somewhere. As I said I am not using a PVR card.
AFAIK, your machine should work just fine.
Actually, I tried to overclock my machine a few days ago, and now 
whenever I insert the cable into the tv tuner, the windows start shaking 
a little bit. I have removed the overclocking now but it's still 
shaking. Perhaps something in tv tuner got damaged (increased PCI bus to 
36 MHz). Otherwise, my machine is working perfectly fine, including 
quake III.
Let me try to get that fixed and I will see whether I am able to record 
or not. Watching live TV never crashed my myth box, but then I asked it 
to keep only a 1 GB buffer and I have 1 GB of RAM, my buffer was 
possibly entirely in my RAM, or atleast 80% of it. Depends on the mythtv 
code though, could have been on the HDD  too. All I know is that for the 
first time in my computer's life, the used memory bar moved up to claim 
the entire 1GB.
Here is my config :-
AMD Athlon ThunderBird 950 MHz
FIC AZ11E - KT 133 chipset - via 686B and vt8363
Nvidia GeForce 2 MX 400 64 MB
Pixelview PlayTv Pro - bt 878
Seagate Barracuda 80 GB 7200 rpm
1 GB generic unbranded 133 MHz SDRAM - dirt cheap stuff !
Red Hat 7.2 with some upgrades - Nvidia  driver
myth - 0.11 (haven't upgraded to 0.12 yet)

Hope your old computer starts working again !
thanks a lot
Dhiraj

Craig O'Shannessy wrote:

>Hi Dhiraj,
>
>I know it sucks.  I can't remember what the suspected problem was, I could
>watch tv using xawtv as well, no problems, but Myth slams the PCI bus MUCH
>harder than xawtv alone, especially when watching live TV.  My box would 
>crash in non-repeatable ways (different modules each time) within an hour 
>of running up Myth and watching livetv, or recording.  I did RAM tests 
>etc.
>
>I believe it was something to do with the interrupt handling or something.
>
>Anyhow, I'm not SURE it was the MOBO, I ended up getting a whole new box,
>but I ran EXACTLY the same software (same harddisc) on the new box, and it
>hasn't crashed once.
>
>See this google search for evidence of others with KT133's and myth.
>
>http://www.google.com.au/search?q=+site:mythtv.org+kt133
>
>I've got a dead old computer too.  It did use to crash occasionally before
>I tried turning it into a myth box, but I always thought it was an X or
>NVidia problem, because it was only whilst gaming.  Maybe that was the
>only time I thrashed it hard enough to crash? (Until myth ;)
>
>If you find a way to get this mobo going with Myth, please let me know,
>and I'll make someone a PVR for xmas ;)
>
>Craig
>
>From: Dhiraj Gaurh <dhiraj at vishnubhugwaan.org>
>
>  
>
>>I have the FIC AZ11E which also uses KT133 chipset. I have never had
>>kernel Ooops but my recording part is not working yet. If bttv has
>>problems with KT133 then why have I been watching TV for the last two
>>years using xwtv without any problems. How does bttv know that I am
>>recording or playing, it should be the same thing, this is just an
>>application level differnce. I have used the vcr program to record shows
>>in the past without any problems. If you can watch TV on this chipset
>>then it is perfectly possible to record too.
>>I am using RH 7.2 with AMD T-BIRD 950 MHZ
>>My mythtv recording  part is not working because of some software
>>problem which I need to fix, it doesn't crash my machine. It just
>>doesn't record, nothing happens. I am not going to believe that this
>>KT133 bug surfaces only with myth and not with vcr !
>>A computer costs a lot of money. I can't afford to buy a new computer
>>because some particular feature of one application is crashing. Why
>>don't you use mythtv to watch live tv and use vcr to record in your old
>>computer. Should work on yours if it works on mine. If KT133 is at
>>fault, that is.
>>You murdered your old friendly computer  :)
>>    
>>
>
>  
>
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