[mythtv-users] Long term stability?

[Scot L. Harris]

On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 17:33, Robert Denier wrote:
> Does anyone have a backend that runs for a week or more under reasonably
> heavy use?  By run, I mean with no manual intervention or cron jobs
> resetting things/etc.  I still have to occasionally do
> a /etc/init.d/mythbackend restart although I'm not quite sure why...
> 

I have a master backend/frontend that has been up for 20 days now and a
slave backend/frontend that was rebooted about 12 days ago when I
swapped around the UPS systems.

18:39:49 up 20 days, 11:35,  3 users,  load average: 1.07, 1.01, 0.93
18:41:51 up 12 days,  2:59,  3 users,  load average: 0.08, 0.02, 0.01


> If people do, perhaps a few could give their
> 
> 1) PVR hardware

In both systems I have a PVR-350 and PVR-250, total four capture cards.

> 2) Motherboard chipset

Masterbackend: P5GD2 deluxe motherboard
Slavebackend: ECS 760GX-M

> 3) Kernel version

Masterbackend: FC3 2.6.10-1.760_FC3smp 
Slavebackend: FC4 2.6.12-1.1447_FC4

> 4) IVTV version.

Masterbackend: ivtv-0.3.2d-67.rhfc3.at
Slavebackend: ivtv-0.3.7k-96.rhfc4.at

(I have been wanting to update ivtv but things are working....)

> 5) Firmware version?

??

> 6) System Memory
> 

Master:
             total       used       free     shared    buffers    
cached
Mem:       2074924    1369224     705700          0       3384    
281632
-/+ buffers/cache:    1084208     990716
Swap:      2031608       5296    2026312

Slave:
             total       used       free     shared    buffers    
cached
Mem:       1945772    1896416      49356          0       2608   
1802288
-/+ buffers/cache:      91520    1854252
Swap:      2031608       1048    2030560

> and, well, anything else they think relevant to stability.

I have four SATA 300GB harddrives in the masterbackend system with a 1TB
file system setup for /video which is where I put all the recordings.

One issue that I noted early on with the masterbackend/frontend system,
under heavy load it would have heat problems if the doors to the TV
stand were closed.  

I put all my systems on UPSs since my power company likes to drop power
on a semi regular basis.  Most recordings are done using the two cards
in the masterbackend but all four are used several times a week at the
same time.  

Note that on the P5GD2 Deluxe motherboard it has a marvel chip set for
the ethernet interface.  To get this to work I had to download and build
the driver, it is not natively supported by FC.  At least not FC3.  The
ECS board worked with not problems, nic, sound, video.  

Make sure your cooling is good and have a power supply that is large
enough to handle the drives you plan to install.