[mythtv-users] minimum CPU requirements for PVR-250

[Torsten Schenkel]

Am Mo, den 05.01.2004 schrieb Andy Skinn um 17:49:
> >The only thing that might be a problem is DMA bandwidth.
> If 
> >your old board doesn't have DMA then there is a problem.
> Make
> >sure it's a busmastering PCI slot on there. But this
> applies
> >to the PVR250 as well.
> >As to any other grabber card I know of.
> 
> How can I tell if this is the case for my board.  This is
> an old computer that I got off someone else.  The only
> information I have about it is what is provided at this
> website:
> http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psg1EHET-459UJ5
> 
> Any help would be appreciated.

Hmm, from what I see there I get the impression that it's a pre-DMA
board. Don't know though. I guess I would contact IBM support. It might
take you some time on the line to get to the old, wise guy that still
knows anything about that baby :-)  

> >If you have an old 5400 RPM hard drive in PIO mode you
> might
> >have issues...

> I plan on using a 40GB harddrive.  I'm not sure if the mobo
> will support 40GB though (might be the 32GB limit) - but
> I'm alright with that.  It's a 7200 RPM drive - hopefully
> this mobo will support that.

There also is an 8 GB limit :-). As above, with specialties like this
old IBM machine I'd contact IBM. Might well be it's up to the task. As
far as processing power is concerned I'd say it is, what's open is I/O
capabilities.

What's the output of lspci -v?

> Sorry if this is a newbie question, but PIO mode?  Is that
> specific to 5400RPM drives, or is that a mobo setting?

PIO modes are the older adressing modes for hard drives. I guess all
7.2k drives are DMA. But I like the 5.4k DMA drives, because they
produce less heat (yes they definitely do, tested myself. Believe me,
you don't want to touch an IDE Raid-array when the fans are broken :-)

Torsten
-- 
Walkthrough: MythTV on Epia with PVR350 using Debian:
http://www-isl.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de/~hi93/myth/mythtv_debian_epia_pvr350_walkthrough