<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Dec 16, 2006, at 11:58 AM, NathanKell wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV>Some years ago I posted regarding a saa7134 tuner in FC3; our mythbox, with that and using 0.18, had been running pretty good (albeit the frontend crashed some, but never so destructively I felt like trying to fix it...); recently I took the plunge and upgraded to .20. </DIV> <DIV>First I tried a brand-spanking-new FC6 install; but that had the issue of the sound being muted on every channel change (so I used <FONT size="2">Neale Pickett's cronjob to unmute every 5 seconds). That worked, but the system locked up disturbingly often--which I thought might be related to that hack. So I went back to my FC3 setup, and did a dist-upgrade (since only update'ing mythtv kept erroring out). At first it worked fine, but recently it's been locking up again, with increasing frequency. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size="2"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size="2">So I'm here, begging for help. :]</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size="2"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size="2">The lockup usually occurs during the night, which made me think it might have to do with mythfilldatabase, but that's set to run when zap2it tells it to, so it may not be run then. Unless it's a problem unrelated to mythtv, of course; but then, mythtv and its prereqs is all we run on the box... </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size="2"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size="2">Now, I'm afraid I'm enough of a newb to not even really know what logs to check (or how) to see what might be relevant...</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size="2"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size="2">Anyway, hoping for answers--or at least relevant questions that'll tell me what to look at... ;)</FONT></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV>Intermittent lockups are one of the more "fun" things to diagnose on a PC. They can be caused by any number of things, including power supplies, bad RAM, loose connectors and many other things.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Without pretty expensive equipment the main method of troubleshooting is by substitution of suspected parts.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>My experience has been that a lot of such problems are caused by low-quality power supplies, especially the no-name types sold with inexpensive cases.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I'd guess your problem has nothing to do with Myth, but rather your hardware. I would start by booting something like the the Universal Boot CD and running some diagnostics, I'd start with the RAM. Go to:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><A href="http://www.ultimatebootcd.com">http://www.ultimatebootcd.com</A>/ To get the disk image.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>If you have bad RAM these tests will tell you. You can also test some other things.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Make sure all connectors are tight. Best to remove and re-seat them rather than simply push them tight. Do this with your RAM and any PCI cards as well.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Make sure your fans are working and that airflow is unimpeded. Clean all dust out of the case and any air filters. Thermal problems often cause the type of problem you describe.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>You might also find some useful info in the /var/log/messages file, but with this sort of problem it's unlikely.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Good luck, but even experienced techs groan when a customer complaint starts out with "after it's been on for a while..." :-))</DIV></BODY></HTML>