[mythtv-gta]: Re:MythTV Frontend Hardware

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 11:27:11AM -0400, Colin McGregor wrote:
> Just to follow-up on what I got for a new front end, the good the bad
> and the ugly (there is a bit of all the above in the new front end)
> here goes:
> 
> The good:
> 
> - The case, a SilverStone SST-SG02-F in black. Quite nice, a LITTLE
> larger than I would consider ideal, but in every other respect I am
> happy with this as a case.
> 
> - The CPU, an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ AM2 socket using CPU. Low-end,
> inexpensive, and just fine for basic front end purposes.
> 
> - Memory - 1 GB from a no-name firm, again, nothing to complain about.
> 
> The bad:
> 
> - ASUS M2N-MX SE PLUS motherboard. Normally I have had great results
> with ASUS motherboards, but this one is a stinker. I can not get it to
> install KnoppMyth, with error such as:
> 
>     BIOS Bug: MCFG area at f0000000 is not E820-reserved

That normally really doesn't matter.  I see that on many systems.

> There is another error regarding an invalid MAC address. Yes, I have
> upgraded the motherboard to the latest version of the BIOS (didn't
> help...).

The nvidia ethernet has had an unfortunate tendancy for some board
makers to program the eeprom backwards with respect to the MAC address.
I believe current kernel versions deal with it correctly, but some
recent ones very much did not.

> I have been able to get Mythbuntu to install on the machine, but that
> raises other issues (a Mythbuntu FE can be made to talk to a Knoppmyth
> BE, but things get nasty fast...).

If they run the same version of mythtv it should be fine.  I suspect
they don't.

> Further, the on motherboard nVidia video display is not good enough to
> support the playback of HD content (grumble).

With or without the nvidia binary only driver?  Using XvMC?

> At the moment I am wondering if my best way forward is to move
> everything to Mythbuntu or if I should buy a different motherboard
> (both options being nasty in different ways)...
> 
> The ugly:
> 
> - Coolmax 500W power supply. Way more power than a pure diskless FE
> would need (as it turns out I have tossed in a 40 GB drive to support
> Mythbuntu, but that is another story...).
> 
> Any event I thought I would drop this power supply into my FE/BE box
> and move the FE/BE 430W power supply (also a Coolmax) into the FE box.
> That turns out to be a non-option. The cord from the power supply is
> too short to run from the power supply to the 20/24 pin power
> connector on the motherboard. So, all is well inside the FE box
> (shorter distance from power supply to motherboard). But it means that
> I have a bigger power supply than I want/need in FE box and I don't
> have the option of swapping power supplies between those two boxes
> should the FE/BE power supply die...
> 
> In summary:
> 
> I am disgusted with the ASUS M2N-MX SE PLUS, it works but barely (all
> the issues appear to land at the feet of the BIOS creators...), and I
> am not happy with the Coolmax 500W power supply (would it kill them to
> add an extra 3-5 cm of wire to the power connector).

Some power supplies assume the case has a certain layout.  HT boxes
often place the power supply somewhere else entirely.  Silverstone for
example tends to have much longer cords on their power supplies becasue
HT boxes is one of their specialties.  They are also rather cheap to buy
and very quiet and very good.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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