[mythtv-users] Mobo recommendations

[Yan Seiner]

Scott napsal(a):
> On Apr 9, 2007, at 10:40 AM, Yan Seiner wrote:
>
>   
>> OK, I'm throwing in the towel....  My Gigabit mobo has got to go....
>>
>> I've got a Core2Duo mobo that apparently has some interrupt or bus  
>> problems.
>>
>>        description: Motherboard
>>        product: 945PL-S3
>>        vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
>>        physical id: 0
>>        version: x.x
>>     
>
>
> I think I have the ASUS version of that same board. You don't say  
> which distro/kernel you're running. I'm running Gentoo and had  
> similar issues with a kernel I built. I eventually clued in and set  
> CONFIG_HZ to something other than the default '100'. Right now I'm  
> running 2.6.20.2 with CONFIG_HZ=300 and it's smooth recording and  
> playback for me now.
>   

Thanks everyone for all the input.

Here's a summary of what I've done that has improved matters:

Rebuild the kernel with 1000Hz (I haven't tried 300)
Use clocksource=hpet on the kernel command line <- this has eliminated 
the 'losing many ticks' error
fiddled with the bios until I got my SATA controllers on their own 
interrupts
Disabled everything I don't need in BIOS
Installed the correct driver for my ethernet card (the kernel was using 
its own driver but the one from realtek works much better.  If you hvae 
a Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit 
Ethernet controller, do yourself a favor and get the r1000 tarball from 
realtek and blacklist whatever your kernel is using.

AFAICT the best single improvement came from clocksource=hpet - 
apparently the standard clock on my mobo is flaky and/or poor resolution

This has resulted in eliminating lots of random failures and errors in 
dmesg.

At this point the problem seems to be periodic; recordings are fine 
during the day but start to flake out in the evening.  I suspect it has 
to do with signal strength so I ordered power injectors for my 
antennas.  We'll see how that goes.

--Yan