[mythtv-users] AMD 790 chipset support?

[Bob Sully]

Hi all -

I'm considering going to a new motherboard/faster processor for my Myth
BE/FE box.  Since upgrading to 0.21 I've been experiencing occasional
crashes (like last night, when it locked up while I was watching live TV -
it had never done that before), and the current motherboard is starting to
act oddly (i.e. takes 10 minutes to reboot after a software reset, all the
while trying to access all of the IDE drives at once....?).  Too bad,
because it's been very reliable up until this point, with solid HD
playback at 720p.  If I do upgrade the hardware I want something that will
do 1080p reliably.

Most of the new AMD-CPU boards that support the high-end 64x2 and Phenom
processors have the AMD 790/790FX chipset.  I searched through the
archives and couldn't find anything specifically relating to whether
there's good Linux support for these chipsets yet; also, are there any
problems using NVidia cards with them, since they're designed to work best
with ATI cards ("Crossfire")?

I'm looking for a full-size ATX board which has rear-panel firewire, SPDIF
out (coaxial and optical), and an e-SATA port, with at least two
(preferably three) regular PCI slots (for my two pcHDTV 5500s).  It would
be nice if it had two IDE headers as well, as two of the four HDs in the
box (400 and 500G) are IDE, as well as the two optical drives.

My frontend/work machine upstairs has has an ABit AN8-32x motherboard and
a 64x2 ("5600") processor with lots of RAM and a PCIe-16x 7600-series
video card.  This would be the cheapest solution for me (assuming that I'd
have enough juice to do 1080p with it).  I'm seriously thinking about
swapping it into the Myth BE/FE machine, but the nForce 4-16 chipset on
that beast runs pretty hot.  If I run Folding at Home on it I have to set the
temp alarms higher, otherwise it'll start beeping at me - and I'm
currently running it open-case.

Any recommendations would be welcome - thanks!
Bob

-- 
________________________________________
Bob Sully - Simi Valley, California, USA
http://www.malibyte.net
http://www.malibyte.com