[mythtv-users] IVTV Problem

[Jarod C. Wilson]

On Sunday, Oct 26, 2003, at 02:34 US/Pacific, Torsten Schenkel wrote:

> On Sun, 2003-10-26 at 07:52, Jarod C. Wilson wrote:
>
>> So people successfully running an nForce2 board all seem to either 
>> have
>> a 2.4.20 kernel with APIC disabled, or a 2.4.22 kernel, in which APIC
>> actually works. Or a Red Hat 2.4.20 kernel, with APIC in an unknown
>> state. My presumption is that Red Hat backported the vital APIC stuff
>> from 2.4.22, so their kernels are safe with nForce2 boards. Either
>> that, or APIC is disabled. I'll have to look into that (as well as
>> whether APIC is enabled or disabled in my BIOS)...
>
> no the 2.4.22 is NOT NForce2 save. You still have to disable local APIC
> in the Kernel. I have two NForce2 machines running. One with 2.4.22 
> WITH
> APIC stable for two months uptime (new machine so only two months), MSI
> K7... board (don't know the exact number, have to look it up on monday,
> if you are interested, the boards no longer available). Because of the
> good performance of this machine, I decided to go for another NForce2
> machine, despite of the annoying binary drivers. The second machine 
> (MSI
> K7... Delta, the sucessor board to the other's) installed and came up
> nicely, but heavy DMA traffic made it freeze, which, being in a number
> crunching environment, led to a maximum uptime of 30 minutes. Changed
> the board to the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe, no change. Disabled APIC in kernel
> and BIOS and this second machine got stable.

Huh. Well, for kicks, I checked, and I do NOT have APIC disabled on my 
system, and didn't do anything special with the kernel to disable it 
either, and I'm rock-solid. I guess I'm just lucky. No problems w/ivtv 
and recording multiple shows at once, while watching a recording. Go 
figure...

> The problem with NForce2 seems to be that NVidia is not very thorough
> with their revision numbering, with changes WITHIN one minor revision
> which are not being documented. I heard stories of changes in the
> endian-ness of the chipset that weren't documented and didn't lead to
> other denominations, don't know if that's true, you'll have to ask 
> Allan
> Cox, I take it he's really pissed of by the NForce2.

Hrm... Changes of endian-ness, huh? Possibly some nForce2 Mac 
prototypes involved in that...

> So, while everyone is going from VIA to NVidia, those chipsets aren't
> stable either (the other way round, never had problems with VIA, except
> ivtv).

And meanwhile, I never had any problems using a VIA chipset board 
(KM266 chipset) w/ivtv...

> Hmm, the only really stable board in my park, that has no known
> chipset issues is the ASUS Dual Athlon MP with AMD chipset (don't know
> exactly which one, but NO Via southbridge).

AMD 760 MP, I believe. I've got the same chipset on my Tyan Thunder K7 
board. Or possibly the 760 MPX (which I have on my Tyan Tiger MPX 
board), but if it is the Asus board I'm thinking of, it is the 760 MP.

> I don't want to go back to
> Intel, but if this situation won't change, there will be no choice.

Not good. I don't wanna go back either! But then I haven't had any 
issues with either a VIA or nForce2 board. Perhaps there is more to 
distribution selection than meets the eye...

--Jarod
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