[mythtv-users] FE replacement recommendations

[Alan Marchiori]

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Alan Marchiori <alan at alanmarian.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I haven't been following the latest hardware news because my myth
> systems have been working flawlessly for the past year or so (thanks
> to everyone involved in making Myth work).  Until the master be/fe box
> died last night. I suspect the motherboard (random reboots, stable for
> less than 1 minute at a time). It was running a amd 64 socket 939
> processor and I can't find a good replacement 939 motherboard.  So, it
> looks like I have to upgrade to AM2 and buy a cheap amd x2 proc.
>
> I'm looking for motherboard recommendations here are my requirements:
>
>  - < $100 cost (MB+CPU)
>  - Micro ATX form factor
>  - DDR2 DIMMS (will use the old ram)
>  - Coax spdif output (ok if I have to build a connector as long as it
> is available on the MB)
>  - Component HD output (I have an old plasma screen, no digital
> inputs!, I have a component adapter card for the geforce 6150 chipset
> from the old MB, so again if it is available on the MB I should be
> able to adapt the connector if needed)
>
> The last 2 points are hard to figure out from the posted specs, so I'm
> hoping someone out there has a similar configuration and can tell me
> what MB they use.
>
> Obviously it would be nice if it works out of the box with no driver
> issues, etc...
>
> Thanks for your help
>

I didn't really think about the memory issue.  Fortunetly 1GB is only
$12.99, increase price cap to $112.99.

Yes, I could fiddle around with replacing caps on the board (I think
that is the problem), but not sure it's worth the trouble.  The old
setup was barley able to play HD.  I could not commflag + record +
playback HD without problems.  I assume even a low end amd x2 should
be able to play HD and do something else at the same time.  This just
happens to be a convenient excuse to upgrade the hardware.

I forgot to add that vdpau compatible would be a good bonus.

I did run memtest, it never found an error before the box shutdown or
rebooted (tried several times).

Thanks for the suggestions.