[mythtv-users] Nvidia nFORCE motherboards . . . anyone try them?

Ronald Frazier ron at ronfrazier.net
Tue Apr 1 03:06:19 UTC 2008


> not exactly the same chipset, but I am just building a new system based on
> GeForce7100/NForce630i , a Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H.
> I wasn't able to get the nvidia drivers running with 2.6.18, but have good
> success now with beta from nvidia (171.06) on 2.6.24, allthough I'm still on
> plan old VGA, need to setup HDMI later.

I also am running the GA-73PVM-S2H motherboard (in three separate myth
machines). I've been quite happy with it. I'm currently running Debian
testing (2.6.24).

CD/DVD on the SATA bus wasn't supported under 2.6.18, but was under
2.6.22. Audio and network didn't work until 2.6.23. The video worked
on 2.6.23 with the 169.04 beta drivers.

HDMI output works without any issues.  From what I recall of my brief
"experiment" (and don't quote me on this...I did it once for about 30
seconds, and perhaps I misremember), you can even run dual screen
VGA+HDMI. They both were set to the lower VGA resoltuion. I didn't
persue it any further...I had only stumbled on this by accident, as I
forgot to unplug the VGA when I hooked it up to the HDTV. I don't know
how much you can do with it, but it could be handy if you get a case
with a touchscreen (assuming you can control the resolutions of the
outputs separately).

The network card driver does NOT wake up properly for a suspend to ram
state. If you have a hard drive in the system, you can take down the
interface and unload the driver before sleeping, then reverse it after
waking. That works successfully. However, the NIC PXE booting
(disabled in bios by default), and if you are trying to do a diskless
boot (as I am) that doesn't work well because you've lost your drive
and can't reload the drivers. I have not yet gotten around to trying
to create a tmpfs, copying the necessary modules there, and using that
 copy to reload everything after waking. That seems like a possible
soltuion, but I don't know.

My current way of working around diskless + suspend to ram is to
install an intel NIC. That works, however every once in a while, when
I wake the machine from suspend to ram, it just hangs. However, its
pretty rare. I don't know if it is because of the fact that it's
diskless, and maybe it is losing the nfs connection occasionally. Not
sure.

The graphics card will only wake up from suspend to ram if you had
xwindows loaded (with the nvidia driver) when you issued the suspend.
Otherwise, the system will wake fine but there is no display (you can
still ssh in and everything). Apparently the graphics driver saves
some other hardware state that gets trash otherwise. There is a web
page that lists all the things you can try to save and restore the
video state, but nothing worked other than the X driver.

I have NOT tested the SATA raid support. I think that about covers it.
Other than requiring a newer kernel and the few gotcha related to
suspend to ram, it has worked wonderfully.

-- 
Ron


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