[mythtv-gta]: Re:MythTV Frontend Hardware

[Colin McGregor]

On 6/17/08, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 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:

<snip>

>> 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 errors 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.

Well it appears the stock kernel with KnoppMyth is one of the problem
ones... :-( .

>> 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.

The stock Mythbuntu 7.10 frontend can work with a stock KnoppMyth R5
F27 backend (after you have tweaked a number of settings, such as file
locations, database password, etc...). Running apt-get update |
apt-get upgrade however is a ticket to disaster.

>> 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?

That was with the nvidia binary only driver (which the Mythbuntu
people appear to hate) and I tried several encoding schemes including
XvMC. In all cases I was at best looking at a stuttering video/audio.

>> 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.

My FE box (where the power supply fits) has what in my mind an odd
location for the power supply (over the motherboard), The FE/BE box
where things don't quite fit seems very much like a standard
mini-tower tipped on its side, with the power supply JUST to one side
of the motherboard. No, the issue here is that the Coolmax people
included a short power cable between the power supply and motherboard
connector....

Colin McGregor
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