[mythtv-users] Jetway JNC62K

[Calvin Dodge]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 12:14 PM, Michael T. Dean
<mtdean at thirdcontact.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately I chose (twice--ended up replacing the mobo 2 times) a
> high-performance motherboard with a high-performance chipset--both very
> good, well-respected brands, which I won't name, to protect the
> guilty--for my master backend.  Unfortunately, "high-performance" meant

Awww .. c'mon!  Don't we deserve the benefit of learning from your experience?

I mean, _I_ have no problem with naming names (like "stay away from
Via chipsets").

I'll even throw one in here for free. One of our systems here has an
Asus M2A-VM motherboard. The board is definitely low-power - with an
Athlon 64 BE2350 (dual core) the total power usage (according to my
Kill-a-Watt meter) is around 45 watts.

BUT ... it's not currently suitable as a Mythtv client (it was a slave
server briefly), because the Linux driver (radeonhd) for the onboard
video is in its infancy. If we have a need for another client system,
I'll have to install an add-on video card to make the system suitable.

> In other words, IMHO, how much you pay is not directly related to
> stability, nor is the vendor's marketing claims, nor even the "Tom's
> Hardware" mobo review (as he doesn't test the kind of usage a MythTV box
> receives) or whatever.

That's true.

> Note, I am /not/ recommending PC Chips mobo's.  Anyone reading between
> the lines will see that more than anything, old and stable (=high mobo
> rev numbers, later chipset gens--late version hardware) is what I've
> decided to use for stability.  Another approach is to buy server-class
> components, but I'm too cheap to do that.

Good point. So, rather than using the price as a guide, I'll resort to
the recommendations of knowledgable folk
(http://forums.hardwareguys.com/)

But I'll still stay away from Jetway and PC Chips (the latter having
the ignominious reputation of being specifically UNrecommended by Red
Hat a few years ago).

Calvin