[mythtv-users] Mythbackend log:CC length(19) seq_num(0) 0xa 0x31 0x98 0x3b 0xcf 0x0 0x61 0x1f 0x10 0x90 0x5 0x3 0x91 0x3f 0x0 0x3f 0x92 0x1

[Tom Dexter]

On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 6:12 AM, Mike Perkins
<mikep at randomtraveller.org.uk> wrote:
> Tom Dexter wrote:
>>
>> Thanks!  Yea that makes sense.  They shouldn't really occur to any
>> significant extent under normal conditions anyway.  As a matter of
>> fact, in this particular case, it was one of my three HD-5500 cards
>> going south.  I noticed that both failed recordings were on the same
>> card, and then noticed I was getting these in /var/log/messages:
>>
>> Jul 31 12:14:00 mythback kernel: tda9887 1-0043: i2c i/o error: rc ==
>> -6 (should be 4)
>>
>> As a matter of fact, today it had gotten to the point were I couldn't
>> get better than about 55% signal on it (even when switching around
>> antenna cables).  I finally started getting more of the above syslog
>> errors and they were actually making the system almost unresponsive.
>> I pulled out that card and all is well until I can get a new one.
>>
> Don't automatically assume that it's that one card that has gone kaput. My
> original setup of three K-World DVB-T cards ran well for ages and then I
> started getting errors. I assumed like you did that one of the cards was
> about to go, so pulled each one to try and isolate the problem, but although
> one looked more iffy that the others I wasn't entirely convinced.
>
> That was about the time multi-rec appeared, I didn't actually need the third
> card any longer, so left it out. My gut feeling is that either there was
> some problem with the PCI bus - or a particular slot - or the power supply
> struggled with three cards in the motherboard (those cards get /real/ warm).
>
> Try swapping stuff about. You may find a duff PCI slot or that your PSU is
> borderline. The card you pulled may work perfectly well in a different slave
> back end.
>
> --
>
> Mike Perkins
>

Very good advice...and despite the fact that I absolutely hated the
idea of having to tear down and setup my backend machine several
times, I decided to take it :D.  Here's what I did:

The card I've assumed was bad was in slot 2 of the three CPI slots I
have.  First I moved one of the cards that was working well from slot
one to that slot.  It worked perfectly there, which would tend to rule
out a bad slot.

Then I added the allegedly bad card putting it in slot 1 this time.
It still gave me problems...50% signal strength etc.  That starts
looking pretty likely to me that the card itself is going.

I suppose there's a chance of it being a power issue, though it would
seem rather odd for a power issue to essentially following that one
specific card around.  Speaking of power supplies however, I had the
original power supply go in that thing a few years ago.  I replaced it
in a hurry with what I now know is a rather cheap 480w PSU.  I've
never totally trusted it.  I'm thinking of going ahead and getting
something like an Antec 650w PSU or something.  From what I
understand, the Dell Dimension 4600's take any standard ATX power
supply.

Thanks for the advice.
Tom