[mythtv-users] Chaintech 7nif2 and sound

[Boyd II, Willy]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Chris Thompson [mailto:ct-myth at cthompson.com] 
>Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2004 1:07 PM
>To: Discussion about mythtv
>Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Chaintech 7nif2 and sound
>
>
>Boyd II, Willy (wboyd at fulbright.com) wrote:
>> Does anyone know of the on-board sound for this board does hardware 
>> mixing?
>
>I have this board but in my initial attempt to get 
>mythfrontend working, was unable to get any sound whatsoever. 
>I blame ALSA, not the board. So I can't answer that exact 
>question with any certainty, yet.
>
>> And does anyone have experience with the optional s/pdif adapter?  
>> Some of the newest reviews on newegg are suggesting even the 
>pinout is 
>> missing on the boards currently shipping.  I have an SB Live, and 
>> quite possibly have some divx movies with ac3 sound (haven't checked 
>> yet).  I'm considering this board, and it would be nice to have the 
>> digital out preferably on-board, or the sblive.
>
>Mini Review of the board.
>
>It's a great board with some fairly annoying warts. First, it 
>will not, under any circumstances, boot with ECC ram. I had 
>two sticks of PC2100 ECC and when fired up, the board just 
>beeps at you. And, of course, it beeps at you in a way that's 
>completely undocumented. I was ready to RMA the board back to 
>newegg, when a friend mentioned to check the Phoenix BIOS 
>page, where an obscure line on one of the pages made me think 
>RAM. One non ECC stick of PC2100 later, I had a machine booting.
>
>Sort Of.
>
>This board comes out of the box set to 200MHz memory clock for 
>DDR400. It was highly unstable, as you can imagine, and had 
>several attempts at setting memory timings right, the problem 
>was, if the memory timings were wrong, you didn't even get 
>video to set BIOS. I had to reset the bios jumper several times.
>
>As to your question, regarding SPDIF, my board came with no 
>SPDIF port adapter. I wasn't worried, since, I had no 
>immediate plans for it. But when I went to try to locate the 
>port dongle for sale, I couldn't find it. I read the reviews 
>on newegg, and sure enough, the place on the motherboard for 
>the SPDIF header is just blank traces, no pins.

That's what I was afraid of.  Ah well..  another board with s/pdif would
probably requiring me using a slot for my gfmx anyway.  Last time I checked
this was the only nforce microatx board newegg had with tv-out and sound.

>
>Also the motherboard power connector sits in between the CPU 
>and the port riser, this puts the cable in a location which 
>I'd think would obstruct airflow.
>
>On the upside, the board seems very stable now that it's 
>configured correctly. I love having everything on board. I've 
>currently got it set up diskless, netbooting off my backend 
>machine. I have yet to hook it up to a TV, since I'm waiting 
>until everything is working, which should be Saturday.
>
>So, overall, I recommend this board highly, though I'd caution 
>you to not expect SPDIF and to be willing to play with memory settings.

I'm pretty sure the 512 stick I have now is non-ecc.  Thanks for the heads
up though Chris, that's what I was looking for.


>
>_______________
>Chris Thompson
>