[mythtv-users] A7N8X-E Deluxe Stability with HD2000 / FBUS, FDSR, IRQ Lockup

[Preston Crow]

On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 11:56 -0800, John Freer wrote:
> Background:
> 
> I've got an XP2600, 333FSB, in an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard
> with a MX440 at 8x AGP.  As tuners, I've got a PVR-250, HD-2000
> (dvb-bt8xx DVB Driver), and a Win-TV dbx (software btttv card).

That's almost exactly what I have.  Same motherboard, AMD 2500+, FX5200,
PVR-250, HD-2000, HD-5000 (new Air2PC).

> Assuming nothing else is going on, I can playback 1080i content with
> ~5% free.

I only use a small percentage of the CPU, even with 1080i, thanks to
xvmc.

> I'm running FC3 with 2.6.12 / 18.1 mythtv.  All dist-upgraded to the
> latest at-testing.

I'm running 2.6.14.2 with DVB drivers from CVS.  All with the latest
Gentoo stuff.

> Symptoms:
> 
> I have intermittant problems with HD recordings from the HD-2000. 

> Then they end with something like
> bttv(0) IRQ lockup

I see a few of those in my /var/log/messages.  I haven't correlated it
with failed recordings, but it's possible.

> There is also pixelation / data corruption while the FBUS errors are
> going on.  Its not a signal quality issue.  Seems to correlate with
> processor load and/or HDD load.  

This is a huge issue for me, and it's the same with the HD-5000 as with
the HD-2000.  I found that recording on the SATA drive caused too much
activity, but recording on the PATA drive usually works.  I had to use
	hdparm -d1 -m16 -a16 -A1 -u1 /dev/hda
to get it to work (the -m16 was the critical one); otherwise it was even
worse with the PATA drive.


Ideally, the cards would have a large enough buffer on them to allow for
bus contention, and the driver would make full use of it.  I believe
that the video4linux driver for the HD-2000 didn't have glitches even
without the hdparm settings on the PATA drive, so it may be something
that improved drivers can solve.

--PC