[mythtv-users] Re: Shuttle MN31L/N

[Vinton Coffman]

>  Hi, I am currently using the Chaintech 7nif2 board for my MythTV box 
> but
> I am thinking of going to the Shuttle MN31L (or the MN31N) board as 
> they
> support S/PDIF.
>
> The Chaintech and the Shuttle boards seems pretty much identical (as 
> far
> as features) apart from the audio system difference (Chaintech uses
> nVidia MCP and Shuttle uses nVidia MCP-T).
>
> My question is: is/has any one used the Shuttle MN31L/N boards and what
> is their experience with them. Any problems that I might have?

I've used a Shuttle MN31N for the last year without any problems after 
the inital setup.  The initial setup did have some hiccups.  I bought 
the board shortly after it was released and the BIOS had some issues 
that were solved after a month of banging my head on the wall.  The 
main problem had to do with memory precharge.  There is now a option to 
disable it and that is the way I run my system.  There were some issues 
with either ACPI or APIC, I can't remember which.  I'm running kernel 
2.4.23 with the problem module disabled.  When I upgrade to Fedora Core 
2 I'll try a standard RedHat kernel but why rock the boat if its 
running fine now.

I don't remember the specs for the Chaintech but the Shuttle doesn't 
have video out capability.  There's no output pins on the board either. 
  That didn't bother me though.  I wanted the other features like 
Firewire, USB2, ATA100 or better and SPDIF audio that this boad 
offered.  I use a GeForce 4 440MX.  Its an Asus Magic card.  I just 
looked and I don't see the GF4 series card just the 5600.  The Magic 
series has s-video out and a passive heatsink so its quiet.

I haven't hooked up the SPDIF audio yet.  Still haven't taken the time 
to get alsa to do this and I just got an amp that can handle the input. 
  Its still using the OSS compatible stuff from ALSA /dev/dsp so I can't 
comment on that aspect of the board.

My issues stemmed from being an early adopter of this board.  You 
should have a much smoother time.

My current config consists of 2 pvr-250 card (one rev1 and one rev2), a 
modem card for caller id, 2 120 GB Seagate hard drives using LVM, 8X 
AGP GeForce 4 440MX, DVD-ROM drive, Athlon XP 2500 Barton, 512 MB RAM, 
Enermax 365 W PS, and a CoolerMaster ATC-610 case.  The system is a 
little too noisy, I'm going to get a DigitalDoc5+ to monitor temps.  
Then maybe look into water cooling or a fanless power supply or both.

Good luck,
Vinton