[mythtv-users] a7n8x -- lockup after 30 minutes recording]

[H Brett Bolen]

I do have plenty of swap space.  I ran top from another
computer and did not see swap grow, and there was plenty
left when the machine froze.  I have tested the ram, and
found no problems.

I will try the test wth the keyboard leds tonight --  what do
the leds do to indicate a kernel oops?  There is no indication
of any problems in the /var/log/messages file ( no any file
I could find).

one interesting data point:  I turned off btaudio, and thought
that fixed the problem, but it still froze.  It took about
an hour, which is longer, but it did not fix the problem.

again what do the keyboard led indicators show when
there is a kernel oops?

Should this go into the dev group?

b

Ray Olszewski wrote:

> At 09:28 AM 11/13/2003 -0500, H Brett Bolen wrote:
> 
>> using nforce2 asus a7n8x deluxe mobo with amd2800 ( not
>> overclocked), and hauppauge 401 card ( btaudio). mobo has
>> onboard sound. ati  radeon video ( origional aiw, but not
>> using it for vid cap or audio capture ( in or out )).
>>
>> I have moved the bttv card to different pci slots, and used
>> `lspci -vv` to try to make sure it's irq is not shared.
>>
>> Lockup is computer freeze -- no keyboard, no pings, etc. A reboot
>> is necessary to get it running again.
> 
> 
> If the host freezes this thoroughly, it is most likely not a Myth 
> problem as such.  Because Myth buffers "live" TV, it will use up RAM 
> much more quickly than will (say) xawtv. Though eventually ANY choice of 
> apps will fill up available RAM -- that's the way the kernel works -- a 
> vidcap app like Myth will do it a lot faster. So I'd **guess** that you 
> have either a RAM problem or a swap-partition problem.
> 
> The best way to investigate this (since apparently you have other hosts 
> available on a LAN, from which you can ping this host) is to open an ssh 
> session to the Myth host and run "top" in it. That way, even after the 
> Myth host freezes, the last "top" report will be visible on the remote 
> host, and you can see if the failure is coincident with RAM almost 
> filling (suggests a swap problem). Or with RAM filling to a particular 
> size (suggest an actual RAM problem).
> 
> Although a Myth host (in my expeirence) does not really need a swap 
> partition, I have (rarely) seen combinations of kernel and hardware that 
> need a small swap partition to avoid periodic freezes of the sort you 
> seem to be describing. In the case I have her, the partition never 
> actually gets used, but the system freezes every couple of days (in 
> non-Myth settings) if swap is not available. Weird, but true.
> 
> Also notice if the keyboard LEDs are all on after the freeze. If they 
> are, this indicates a kernel oops happened ... which you **might** (if 
> you are lucky) be able to get info about from your logs after a reboot 
> (this is unreliable, because a kernel oops can cause filesystem sync to 
> fail before the info actually gets to the disk drive).
> 
> Can't help with the rest of your questions (below), though.
> 
> 
>> using mythtv v0.12.
>>
>> I have not had any more lockups with this computer.  appears
>> to happen at after about 30 minutes of recording.  does something
>> happen at 30 minute intervals ?
>>
>> xawtv runs forever ( although without sound).
>>
>> Is there a way I can play /dev/sound/dsp1 (  btaudio) ?  Unix
>> cat doesn't work because of a speed mismatch ( might be stereo/mono
>> mismatch).
>>
>> does anybody have a7n8x deluxe working with mythtv? What are you using
>> for audio?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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