[mythtv-users] Re: gave up on the Epia

[Micah Wedemeyer]

> I don't use EPIA for myth but I don know that the C3 is not a single
> core and some C3 processors actually compile better as i586...
> So does this mean there's a mini-ITX board for sale, or were you just
> getting discouraged?

Yup, I tore everything out of it and am presently putting together a machine
based around an nForce3-150 mATX motherboard.  I've heard from a lot of people
that the nForce boards are rock solid.  Plus, I'm getting a little extra
horsepower under the hood with an AMD Sempron 2600+.  The C3 had me pulling my
hair out any time I had to compile anything.

And yes, there is a mini-ITX board for sale, but I didn't think this was the
place to advertise it.  If you're interested, look for my posting on Anandtech's
BBS.

Also, someone asked about the symptoms of the DMA problems.  The only symptom I
ever got was a total lockup whenever I tried to send large files over the LAN
from my desktop machine to the Epia.  Small text files, no problem.  Large data
files, lockup in less than 5 seconds.  I had plenty of other lockups too, but I
don't know if they were DMA related.

FTP lockups meant that using my Myth box as a media server was out of the
question, which was one of my hopes from the beginning.  Hopefully, the nForce +
 AMD route will help on this.

Micah



On 4/13/05, Michael Carland <mcarland at bitsgonewild.net> wrote:
> On Apr 13, 2005, at 11:15 AM, James Stembridge wrote:
>
> > On 4/13/05, Michael Carland <mcarland at bitsgonewild.net> wrote:
> >> The issue was that I compile for epia with -march=c3, and the
> >> offending
> >> package built a utility for itself, and then failed running it since
> >> the desktop
> >> didn't have the c3 magic.
> >
> > Does using -march-c3 make any noticable performance difference?
>
> Dunno, I've never done it any other way. I just figured since I was
> compiling from source anyways, I would set the appropriate arch.
>
> > I just use standard debian packages (which afaik will work on an
> > i386), even my kernel is just a standard i686 version.
> >
>
> I started with Debian sarge. Trying to work through my tv out problems,
> I switched to a self compiled Xorg, and not being a deb wizard, I then
> had to compile everything that depended on X. I'm sure if I took the
> time, I could have found a deb for Xorg 6.8.2, and learned how to use
> deb sources so I could do the unichrome patches. Or even just found
> unichrome debs. But even though it has been frustrating, sometimes I
> like to build the stuff myself so I know more about how it works.
>
> >> Regarding giving up on epia, I don't have any of the DMA problems, or
> >> even FF/REW problems (although the machine is diskless, so I suppose
> >> there are fewer DMA contentions),
> >
> > I have a disk and haven't see any issues. How might they manifest
> > themselves?
> >
> > The only stability problem I've had was lockups caused by the longhaul
> > cpufreq module, since I've stopped using that it seems pretty solid.
>
> I never installed longhaul, and I've never had DMA issues. I'm just
> referring to the constant stream of via dma complaints, system lockups
> I believe. I imagine you could be right, that longhaul has a large part
> in it. Also, I know the ivtv people recently discovered they had been
> letting a bad default value exist for dma timeouts, and this somehow
> affected via more than other chipsets (via chipsets had a different
> default dma timeout value?).
>
> But, since I don't seem to have any dma issues, I'm just worrying about
> the problems I do have. I'm thinking .18 will fix my XvMC VLD, and then
> I need to find a job, so I can pay someone to come and tune up my TV!
>
> -Michael
>
>
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