[mythtv-users] PVR-250 is hot! hot! hot!

[James L. Paul]

Micah.Wedemeyer at gtri.gatech.edu wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> My Myth box has extremely poor ventilation, and subsequently, runs very
> hot.  I wanted it to be extra quiet, so I shut off all the rear exhaust
> fans except the PSU fan.  The PSU fan is pretty slow; I've reduced fan
> speed (with a FanMate) for the CPU fan, and I let the GPU (Geforce4
> Ti4200) go full speed.  All in all, pretty quiet.

One of my problems is the GPU fan on my GeForce card doesn't last. I 
have to replace the fan every few months. In fact, it's stopped right 
now. :(

> As for temps, it's another story.  I don't have lm_sensors working
> (something about their eeprom module causing issues with ivtv's
> tveeprom).  However, my case has some temp sensors.  The heatsink on the
> CPU is about 64C, and the internal case temp is up there as well.
> However, I think this is still within spec (AMD Sempron), so I'm fine
> with it.  I might undervolt the CPU a little, to see if that would help.
> Anyways, I don't care about temps as long as it's not causing problems.

I have a heat problem also, not helped by the ambient temp in our living 
room is usually around 82F. I do have a lot of fans in my case, and it's 
noisy. We're used to it.

> My cause for concern, however, is the PVR-250.  It has no fan on it, and
> it is getting much hotter than anything else in the case.  I taped a
> temp sensor on the back of the card, and it routinely gets up to 74C.  I
> can't find any specs on the operating range for it.  Has anyone had any
> problems with their PVR-250 overheating?  What are the symptoms.

I have 3 PVR250 cards in my box, none of them are the ones I originally 
had almost 2 years ago when I built it. I have had 5 cards die, and one 
of my current cards is half-dead. I'm hoping it lasts long enough for 
the ivtv drivers to support PVR500MCE, so I can try decreasing my number 
of cards to 2 and tuners to 4.

In my experience, PVR cards work when very hot, but not forever. I see 
the tuner become unstable and noisy, then I start getting zero length 
recordings until I reload ivtv, and eventually it won't encode at all.

YMMV

> Thanks,
> Micah
> 
> 
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