[mythtv-users] S.O.S. : General h/w question

[Maarten]

On Friday 15 October 2004 20:16, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> On 10/14/2004 05:21 PM, Maarten wrote:
> >On Thursday 14 October 2004 21:52, zardoz at zardoz.ath.cx wrote:

> And, of course, a Myth box really needs the top-of-the line motherboards
> out there...

Well, at least mine do, yeah.  But that's because I do software encoding, not 
hardware-assisted encoding like a PVRx50 does.

> I have a PCchips M848ALU (Athlon-based with SiS chipset) using a PVR-350
> and PVR-250 (nVidia TV out instead of PVR-350 TV out), and I have to
> "reboot" my Dish network satellite receivers more than my Myth box (have
> to reboot the sat receivers once a month--had to reboot my Myth box
> after I lost power during Hurricane Jeanne).  I helped a friend build a
> Myth box.  He has the same motherboard, but has 4 PVR-250MCE's and his
> system works like a charm, too.

That's very possible.  However, if I happen to have had a bad Asus board, and 
you happen to have a good PCchips board, that doesn't neccessarily make 
PCchips a better brand than Asus, now does it ?

I've come to know PCchips as particularly flaky.  They tend to die much more 
prematurely than other brands, they have high DOA returns, they have had some 
real bad windows(ugh!) drivers, and the list goes on...
Feel free to differ of opinion though, but remark that "one good board does 
not a brand make".

> I'm not recommending PCchips (or any other brand, for that matter)--just
> observing that it's often easier to blame the motherboard than to blame
> the guy who installed/configured the system. ;)

I configured more systems than a small town could house. :-)
Still, only yesterday I had a problem that baffled me for over 6 hours... :-(
(think keywords lilo, raid5, BIOS mappings and you get the picture...)

Maarten

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