[mythtv-users] PM-Suspend/Cron job/motherboard Woes

[Captain Hook]

On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Stephen Worthington <
stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:

> On Fri, 30 Aug 2013 12:43:48 -0400, you wrote:
>
> >I am using a Harmony One on my Mythbuntu 12.04 frontend (MythTV .26,
> latest
> >fixes).  I've been able to get it to wake using the Harmony One and an MCE
> >USB iR receiver and just about everything works well, but I cannot get it
> >to sleep/suspend with the button on the remote.  I'm not so much concerned
> >with that so I'm trying to use a cron job to evoke pm-suspend daily at
> 2:30
> >a.m.  I had this working previously on another front end and it was
> working
> >fine.  For some reason, it will not run on this purpose-built frontend.
> >
> >Here are the contents of my crontab file:
> >
> >30 2 * * * root /usr/sbin/pm-suspend 2>&1 ./home/user/Templog/Cron.log
> >
> >The pm-suspend command never runs, so I attempted to force it to log to a
> >cron.log log file, which doesn't work either.  I can manually run the
> >command "sudo pm-suspend" and it suspends just fine, so I'm not sure what
> >the issue may be.  I don't see any entries about failing to run in the
> >syslog, but for some reason
> >
> >*Issue 2*
> >If I wake this front end from suspend, it often will not reconnect the NIC
> >and just hangs at a black screen until some timeout value is exceeded, at
> >which point the Myth frontend tells me it cannot connect to my backend.
> >The motherboard is an ASRock B75M-DGS 2.0 with the latest BIOS.  This
> >motherboard has an onboard Realtek RTL8111E NIC, which, from the best of
> my
> >research should be supported in *buntu.  When this happens, if I reboot,
> it
> >resumes working fine.  I did try updating the driver to the Unix/Linux
> >driver listed on ASRock's website, but this did not change anything.
>
> The drivers for the RTL8111E are likely the problem.  I have an Asus
> M5A97 EVO motherboard with an ethernet chip the kernel identifies as
> RTL8168E-VL/8111E-VL.  That is likely the same chip you have, or very
> similar.  The builtin driver that loads for this is r8169, which does
> not work very well at all as it is not actually the correct driver for
> the chip.  So I found and installed the r8168 driver and made it work
> with DKMS so it automatically gets compiled with each new kernel. This
> works much better, but is still problematic as it sometimes simply
> stops working under heavy SMB traffic from my Windows PC (eg copying a
> DVD image file).  So I then wrote a Python script that pings the
> WebSmart gigabit switch the MytTV box is connected to, and when the
> ping fails, it automatically unloads and reloads the r8168 driver,
> which gets the connection working again.
>
> I have the r8168-8.035.00 driver installed, but a quick google showed
> that it has since been updated to r8168-8.036.00 - just search for
> that if you want to try it.  Let me know if you would like a copy of
> my DKMS setup for it.  And if anyone needs a copy of my Python script,
> let me know about that too.
>
> I eventually got fed up with the r8168 driver stopping and when I
> needed a second ethernet port on the box, I bought an Intel PRO/1000
> PT Dual PCIe ethernet card that was going cheap on an auction site.
> That works much better - the builtin drivers in Mythbuntu 12.04 seem
> to have excellent support for it.
>
> >This motherboard works well otherwise and was only $54, so the question
> is,
> >do I replace the motherboard (still returnable) with a more expensive one
> >without Realtek LAN (I realize that Realtek LAN is supposed to be widely
> >supported but this has soured me on it), or should I just add a $30ish
> >Intel PCI-e NIC.  The problem with adding a PCI-e NIC is that I often use
> >wake on LAN and I'm not sure if the motherboard supports it with PCI-e
> >devices (my last one didn't, but it was an Intel OEM Dell board).
> >
> >Thanks for any suggestions.
>
> I can't really help with Wake On Lan as I do not use it.  I do know
> that my PRO/1000 PT card supports it, and the specifications for the
> motherboard in its manual lists "WOR by PME" under "Manageability",
> which I think means that PCIe cards can wake the motherboard.  So you
> might like to check if your motherboard's manual says it has that
> option too.  And check in your BIOS settings for APM options for
> waking from PCIe cards.
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>

Thanks for the reply.  I thought it was probably the drivers, which is why
I tried the ones on the ASRock site to no avail.  I do have a PCI NIC in
another PC that I can experiment with to see if wake on LAN will work from
a PCI slot in the motherboard.
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