[mythtv-users] Hardware Suggestions

[Michael Tiller]

MythTV users,

I've been running MythTV for over 5 years now.  I originally built the
machine myself and in that time, I've had numerous hardware failures.  I
think the tally stands at 3 power supplies (with 2 cases), 1 CPU (my own
fault), at least one motherboard.  I suspect these crappy power supplies
have a lot to do with it, who knows.  I don't mess around with the machines
much once they are built so I'm not sure what has caused it.

Last time I even mentioned this in this newsgroup I was accused of gross
incompetence by several people.  I'm not interested in hearing all the
reasons I'm probably to blame so let's just stipulate it up front and spare
me the insults.

The machine is again teetering on the brink of failure (takes several tries
to boot up but runs fine once up?!).  I'm expecting a hardware failure any
day now.  My question is what next?  I'm sick of this revolving door of
hardware and frankly it isn't helping the WAF much either.  I've got lots of
computers but for some reason the Myth system has all the problems.

I'm contemplating just buying a stock system of some kind rather than
assembling something from parts.  Since I've upgraded to two outboard
capture devices (HD-PVR and HDHR), I don't really need my old PVR-150 any
more and that opens me up to smaller (fanless?) computers with VDPAU capable
graphics cards.  In fact, VDPAU (and a reasonable CPU just to run the
frontend GUI) are about my only requirements since I can use the HDHR IR
pickup via TCP/IP.

So I'm open to suggestions about potential systems.  I'm aware of the Acer
Aspire Revo.  That looks nice (small, cheap, capable).  I'd have to replace
the HD, not sure how easy that would be with such a device (and whether
there would be any issues having it accept a 1TB hard drive in its place).
Anybody have any other suggestions for some small, cheap and capable systems
that I could replace my existing setup with?

Ideally, I'd like to hear from people who actually have working setups with
similar hardware.  Things like the Revo look cools, but I need to know if
they actually work.

Thanks for any suggestions.  I'm not such a hardware maven so I'm not that
up on the latest things.

--
Mike
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