[mythtv-users] A plea for help
Jay R. Ashworth
jra at baylink.com
Mon Sep 24 00:25:57 UTC 2007
On Sun, Sep 23, 2007 at 06:09:01PM -0600, Brian Wood wrote:
> Ben Davis wrote:
> > Hi all. I have been a happy MythTV user for roughly 3 years now, and
> > have loved it. I've recently upgraded my entire mythtv setup to an HD
> > setup, and have begun to notice that my mythtv box crashes from time to
> > time during recordings. And when say crash, I mean hard-crash: no
> > network, keyboard control, display output, nothing. I am never able to
> > see any type of error on the screen (probably from X blanking the
> > screen). Anyways, because I don't want to spend a ton of money
> > replacing each bit of hardware until something works, I'll list out as
> > many facts as I can here. I'm hoping for someone here to be able to
> > help me figure this one out.
>
> Check the obvious. Test your RAM, look into power supply problems.
>
> Often random crashes can be thermally-related, make sure you have
> adequate cooling (proper heatsink mounting with thermal compound).
On Sun, Sep 23, 2007 at 08:10:48PM -0400, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
> The first order of business is to run memtest86. You claim that you've
> tried different Linux distros and versions of MythTV. That pretty much
> rules out a software problem, or, rather, given that, a software issue is
> very unlikely.
What they both said. memtest86 is always the first order of business;
if you installed linux from a commercial distro or a liveCD, it's
probably in the boot menu; if not you can download an ISO and burn it.
Let it run overnight, at least.
Remember that the internal temp of your box is usually roughly 20F
hotter than ambient; 30+F hotter if your box's cooling sucks. How hot
is the room?
You might want to find the DPMS switch in your X config and turn screen
blanking off with it; alernative, SSH into the box and say
# tail -f /var/log/messages
(from some other PC) and see what's left when it crashes.
And yeah, power supplies are cheap: go buy a *good* one (Antec makes
some great ones, including a new model with a 120mm fan ; if you spent
less than $75 you're playin' with it), and don't forget: PC power
supplies are happiest around 80-85% continuous rated load; don't buy a
750W monster if your machine only draws 350 watts...
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra at baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274
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