[mythtv-users] OT: dead motherboard or video card?

[Calvin Harrigan]

On 6/16/2010 6:16 PM, Brian Wood wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 16, 2010 03:59:48 pm Greg Woods wrote:
>    
>> On Wed, 2010-06-16 at 15:41 -0600, Greg Woods wrote:
>>      
>>> I also tried removing all the PCI cards from the machine except the
>>> video card; still text mode only.
>>>        
>> OK, I have seen it all now. I have seen machines where I had to swap
>> cards between slots to avoid IRQ sharing issues. I thought that was
>> strange. But this is different.
>>
>> I had forgotten that I removed the PVR-500 card (thanks to Comcrap, that
>> card is pretty much useless now). I put it back in, so that there are
>> now cards in every slot, and poof! Everything works. I have never before
>> seen a machine that won't work right unless every slot is full, but
>> there you go. I guess the PVR-500 isn't completely useless )-:
>>      
> Wow. You;re right, we have heard it all now.
>
> It might have something to do with the system's enumerating of resources on the PCI bus, more or less like we used to have
> to keep the same hard drive arrangement in order to get the same drive names, a problem Linux had that Solaris did not, at
> least back in the day.
>
> You may find some BIOS option to reset all that information, but it might help or hurt.
>
> I still find my PVRs useful for recording the SD output of STBs or satellite receivers, when my lone HD-PVR is busy, or for
> some programming that does not benefit from higher resolution.
>
> But I had never thought if using them as "placekeepers".
>
>    
You are right, I've come across this before.  Look in the xorg.conf file 
for a line like:

" BusID       "PCI:1:0:0""

Comment it out and that should allow the driver to search for the card 
and allow you to remove the PVR card.