[mythtv-users] HELP! I'm about ready to give up on MythTV!!!

Blammo blammo.doh at gmail.com
Thu May 19 19:35:34 UTC 2005


> I'm just getting so *bleeping* upset with this whole thing that I'm
> about ready to give up.  I don't *want* to give up, but it seems like a
> hopeless cause right now...  (and to add to the flustration, the
> 'evolution' email client I'm using has crashed at least 20 times while
> trying to type this message!!!)

Having spent way more time than I'd like to admit getting what has
turned into a MythTV cluster let me share one more thing that often
times gets missed.

Hardware.

Unless you're a hardcore game player, most people don't tax their
hardware the way a myth front or backend will. Far more Disk IO, far
more PCI bus IO (capture cards).

You could have a machine that "worked just fine" as a windows box for
the last 6 months, but crashes / locks / dies all the time under Linux
/ Mythtv.

The fact you're having the email client crash, off a "fresh install"
means you have bigger problems, which are only being amplified on
myth.

In my experience, start with the motherboard.

I've had very good luck with both NForce and KT based motherboards. My
current favorite is the MSI KT6V-LSR (found here :
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=KT6V-LSR&class=mb
) , which you can pick up for less than $50, and includes both SATA
and PATA. It's what I'm running in my current master backend, which
has (3) tuners, and 5 HD's in RAID5, and runs smooth as silk.

I did go through 3 other motherboards (all older and had been used in
other machines) before it got stable.

Memory is another good place to look. Running an extended memory test
for 24 hours clean can help eliminate that as a possibility.

Stick with it bud.. there's a "bump" at the beginning, but it does smooth out.


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