[mythtv-users] Can't capture using PVR250

[Coax]

Interesting!

Check lspci.

Given your failure mode, i'm not entirely sure that either of these 2
things i'm about to point out - is really your problem.  But these are at
least 2 things to check.. (I'm not sure if you've posted your hardware
configuration, so if you have, I apologize in advance.)

Make *SURE* you don't have a VIA KT-133 (or KT-266!) chipset on your
motherboard.  (if you do, you'll see stuff about it in the lspci output.)
If you do, trash it (or use it for some other application) and get a new
motherboard.  The Hauppauge PVR-250/PVR-350 will NOT work well with it.
There are ways to try to minimize the lockups and crashes, but in the end,
there is no definitive workaround.  (The VIA chipset in question has a bug
that will be triggered when large amounts of dma data is transferred
through the chipset.. Makes sense, too, because with this type of
application, about 99.9% of it is all done via dma.. video (both hardware
encoder and video card itself), disk, etc.)

Also, check if you have an NFORCE2 motherboard. (lspci will report a bunch
of nVidia devices if you have one)  If you do, you'll need to recompile
your kernel to A) disable SMP support (Isnt needed anyway unless you have
a multiprocessor capable board)  and B) disable Local APIC support.  (If
you do indeed have a NFORCE2 board, I have a 2.4.25 kernel built that will
probably work for you so let me know.)

I've not seen the I/O error problem on either of these boards.  But
rather, lockups within X - and sometimes, even the whole system.  (I use a
PVR-350 w/ the TV-Out port on that heading to my TV.)  But the idea here
is that if you do indeed have one of these motherboards, the "failure
condition" almost always appears the same:  Random problems that end up
not-so-random when you really try to use your MythTV setup.  (But hey, at
least the NFORCE2 problem can easily be worked around.)

Hope that helps!

Chad


> ivtv_debug=1 is turned on. The only error that is 'spewed' into dmesg is...
>     ivtv: Timeout waiting for data!
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Coax" <coax at cornernet.com>
> To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 4:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Can't capture using PVR250
>
>
> I'd definitely load your ivtv module with ivtv_debug=1 - so you can
> 'dmesg' and capture any errors resulting from your 'cat /dev/video0 >
> /tmp/test.mpg' command.
>
> Any errors spewed (if there are any) might point out the problem.
>