[mythtv-users] Hardware suggestions

Jelte Veldstra jelte.veldstra at gmail.com
Mon Jul 24 19:53:09 UTC 2006


Hello Steve,

Just did a quick check on the Antec case. It will fit micro ATX mobos. That
should give you plenty of choice. Personally I would stick to Intel or
nForce chipsets. I have good experiences with making quiet systems of AMD K7
(Athlon) chips and socket 370 PIII (inlcuding celeron) coppermine CPUs.
These chips have enough horsepower for non HDTV applications, DivX, DVD etc.
I'm currently using a AMD Athlon 1350+ with 768 MB RAM as a diskless
frontend. It is whisper quiet (practicably inaudible at 5 feet away) after
swapping the PSU fan for a Papst 19 dB one and the CPU cooler for a Zalman
all copper flower heatsink. The fan that came with the Zalman is running at
5V. I used a full ATX mobo in a full ATX Dign case. It might have helped to
have a bigger case. In small cases heat builds up quickly and needs more
fans to move it out.
More info on quiet PC's can be found here: http://www.silentpcreview.com

Regards,


Jelte



On 7/24/06, scamp <scampgb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Jelte
>
> Thanks very much for your reply.  I do think that I'm suffering from the
> DMA problem, but no matter what I try I can't seem to fix it.  VIA haven't
> not been particularly helpful with it.
>
> I'd like to find a Micro-ITX board, then it'll fit in the Antec Fusion
> case.  I've been hunting for a case that looks like it "should" live under
> the TV, and this is the best that I've found!
>
> I'm happy to use either AMD or Intel.  I'm just bothered about
> noise/heat.
> Processing power isn't much of an issue, but I'll need to be able to play
> DVDs - and it would be handy if I could do MPEG4 at some point in the
> future.
>
> Any suggestions as to specific models/ranges that I should look at?  I'm
> not all that good at hardware!
> Thanks
> Steve
>
>
>
> On 7/24/06, Jelte Veldstra <jelte.veldstra at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello Steve,
> >
> > What you encountered is probably an issue related to VIA chipsets and
> > high DMA loads. The ivtv drivers give a big stream of DMA requests and
> > various VIA chipsets choke on it. I encountered it myself too.
> > So I would recommend to stay away from VIA chipsets altogether. If you
> > want to stick to the ITX formfactor then I guess you need to look for Intel
> > alternatives. If you're not stuck the ITX platform and don't need a lot of
> > computing power (> > coppermine) might be worth considering.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> >
> > Jelte
> >
> >  On 7/24/06, scamp < scampgb at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >  Hi
> > >
> > > I've been using MythTV on a Via EPIA MII-10000 for a little while now,
> > > but I've not been able to fix some annoying problems with regular system
> > > lockups.  These happen at least once a day, and fsck has been quite busy of
> > > late.
> > > I've been following a thread on the VIA website about it, which seems
> > > to conclude that it's a problem with one of the chipsets and it's not likely
> > > to be fixed.
> > >
> > > So, I've decide to replace the thing.  I've done a fair amount of
> > > browsing, but I'd like a little advice on a suitable motherboard.
> > >
> > > What I plan to build is:
> > > Antec Fusion case (http://www.antec.com/uk/productDetails.php?ProdID739
> > > )
> > > NVidia FX5200
> > > Motherboard, processor & memory
> > > Existing 300Gb IDE hard drive, PVR-350 & WinTV-Nova-T-USB2
> > >
> > > The NVidia FX5200 seems inexpensive and seems to have good support.
> > >
> > > I'm looking for a Mini-ITX motherboard that is reliable/stable under
> > > Linux.  My preferred distro is Debian.  I'm based in the UK, so something
> > > that's available here would help :-)
> > >
> > > This box will sit under my TV, so I'll need it to be really quiet.
> > > I'll be using it for SD recording, both from digital terrestrial and the
> > > S-Video input on the PVR-350 (connected to a satellite box).
> > > I'd like to be able to use MythDVD and the visualisations on
> > > MythMusic.
> > >
> > > Would someone be kind enough to point me in the right direction?
> > >
> > > Thanks :-)
> > >
> > > Steve
> > >
> > >
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> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
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