[mythtv-users] My new myth build so far...

Justin The Cynical cynical at penguinness.org
Sat Jul 12 09:03:08 UTC 2008


The hardware:

Intel BOXDP35DPM P35 ATX MB
Corsair CMPSU-520HX power supply
Intel C2D E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 65W Dual-Core Processor BX80570E8400
2 gigs system RAM
Western Digital Caviar GP WD5000AACS 500GB SATA 3.0Gb
Western Digital Caviar SE WD800AAJS 80GB 7200 SATA 3.0Gb
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB 7200 ATA100
HDHomerun Rev 2
EVGA GeForce PCIe 7600 GT 256MB, component out
BTC DVD-ROM BDV316E
Silverstone LC17
MythBuntu 8.04

The system is connected to my Toshiba TN50x81 projection set via 
component.  Database is running on an old Ultra 10 440MHz I had around 
(Debian install), local network is gigabit.

The install went pretty damned smoothly overall, but I did run into a 
few problems:

-The VNC Service install process sometimes hangs/crashes the update 
manager when being installed.  It took a few tries to get it to install 
correctly after the install was done.  If I tried to do it during the 
initial install, the progress bar would stop at 83% and go no further.

-With the video card I have in the system, I had to use 'safe graphics' 
when starting the install.  Otherwise, the TV would show garbage.


Current issues and quibbles (myth and Linux):

-lm_sensors will not detect any of the motherboard sensors

-The restricted device manager panel says the nVidia drivers (non-free) 
are not in use, but xorg.log says that it is.

-Said nVidia driver on the system is 96.43.05, the one on my laptop 
running the bird (8.04) is at 169.12.  Of course, comparing the two 
shows that the laptop has a lot more repos configured, and I don't know 
if copying them across will break anything.

-I can't get the %$&^% TV Out working correctly.  If I attach any other 
device in the house to the set via component (DVD player, Playstation 2, 
borrowed STB with a ATSC receiver), the screen looks just fine.  If I 
set the nVidia driver to output 480i, the image on the screen is shrunk 
and a bit 'skewed' on a few sides.  If I try 480p, the image fills the 
viewing area, but all the graphics are freaking huge, like the display 
is only showing SVGA (or even VGA) resolutions, but xorg accepts the 
chosen resolution and does it on a 'virtual desktop'.  Of course, I had 
this issue with the old set-up using a MSI 6200 AGP card, so I don't 
think it's distro or hardware specific.

Otherwise, it's been mostly perfect.  Optical out 'just worked' (default 
and spdif for the sound options), mythmusic isn't blocked and nothing 
gets turned on stopping it from playing anything when mythtv proper is 
in use (my old SB 5.1 Live kept getting optical RAW flipped on, which 
would kill sound output from mythmusic), and upgrading the DB from .20 
to .21 was essentially without issue (mythmusic, OTOH, I had to dump one 
of the tables to get it to upgrade.  Meh, easy to fix, just rescan the 
available files).

The board also has headers for all the plugs for the front panel module 
(four usb ports and the sound jacks).

Local ATSC playback (72p and 1080i) using the slim playback profile is 
working just fine, and the CPU doesn't even break a sweat playing back 
said 1080i.

Only once did I have the BE shut down on it's own, which I think was 
caused by the permissions on one of the storage drives (BE kept trying 
to expire recordings, couldn't, and finally just freaked out and quit).

Also, dmesg shows that filldb segfaulted once for no apparent reason. 
Don't have any idea on that one, and running it by hand worked fine. 
*shrug*

Oh yes, the WAF is very high.  :-)

Notes:

-I had originally bought some Corsair RAM (CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 
DDR2 675 (PC2 5400) TWIN2X2048-5400c4), but one stick was bad (I'm 
waiting for the replacement sticks to arrive).  Right now, I'm running 
some kingston sticks I had laying around.  The board is known to be 
picky on the RAM voltages and timings, so I may end up having to use a 
different set of sticks.

-The board is a standard ATX sized board.  Fitting it into the LC17 with 
all the cables attached (the 24-pin power header in particular) is 
somewhat tricky.  There isn't much room in the case with a board this 
size.  I had to bend/flatten the power header wires enough that makes me 
uncomfortable, but it was the only way to get it attached and still have 
the drive bay for the optical drive.


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