Mailing List Archive

On Mon, 2011-06-06 at 13:09 +0200, Ramon Hofer wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I have had a problem with my PVR-500 which I was able to solve by
> patching the kernel.
> The messages about "[ivtv-users] WinTV PVR-500 stops recording after
> some minutes (ivtv0: DMA TIMEOUT)" here on the list describe my
> problem and Andy's solutions. Thanks again!
>
> Unfortunately my system still has problems when recording.
> It crashes from time to time and reboots automatically or just Freezes
> after writing some error messages (I could take a photo of them if you'd
> want to know them).

I don't have time for a proper reply, but here is some reading for you:

http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009528.html
http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009532.html
http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009539.html

It's all very disheartening. You essentially have to experiment your
way through an enormous amount of unkonws to figure out why the PCI
chipset on your motherboard is unhappy enough to reboot the system. All
with no error logging about the triggering event. The labor cost alone
is probably more than the price of another Desktp PC with a new video
card.

In the end, Jeroen did actaully find the problem on his system. It was
caused by a change in the kernel that modified the way his motherboard
PCI chipset was set up.

Regards,
Andy



> I didn't have much luck with the new 2.6.38 kernel that's why I patched
> the 2.6.32 kernel.
> But this didn't help as well.
>
> I have found this here:
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Hauppauge_PVR-500#Spontaneous_Reboots
> But I have selected "No Forced Preemption (Server)" for "Preemption
> model" so I think this should not be the problem.
> Btw my mainboard is a Intel Desktop Board DP55KG.
>
> I'm using ivtv-utils from debians repository:
> $ dpkg -l | grep ivtv
> ii ivtv-utils
> 1.4.1-1 utilities for use with the ivtv kernel driver
>
> and these two firmware files:
> v4l-cx2341x-enc.fw
> v4l-cx25840.fw
>
> And don't have any module options.
> There's no "low latency" message in my syslog.
> So I suppose this is not the problem?
>
> I have an Intel Core i3 so I switched Hyperthreading of as written here
> http://ivtvdriver.org/index.php/Troubleshooting#IVTV_may_cause_hangs_when_run_on_an_Intel_processor_with_Hyperthreading_enabled.
> But this didn't help either.
>
> I have absolutely no clue how to solve this problem and would appreciate
> any help.
>
>
> Here's the log from such an autopmatic reboot at 21:30:
> http://pastebin.com/w8DKvxnb
>
>
> Thanks in advance
> Ramon
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ivtv-users mailing list
> ivtv-users@ivtvdriver.org
> http://ivtvdriver.org/mailman/listinfo/ivtv-users



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On 06/06/2011 01:31 PM, Andy Walls wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-06-06 at 13:09 +0200, Ramon Hofer wrote:
>> Hi all
>>
>> I have had a problem with my PVR-500 which I was able to solve by
>> patching the kernel.
>> The messages about "[ivtv-users] WinTV PVR-500 stops recording after
>> some minutes (ivtv0: DMA TIMEOUT)" here on the list describe my
>> problem and Andy's solutions. Thanks again!
>>
>> Unfortunately my system still has problems when recording.
>> It crashes from time to time and reboots automatically or just Freezes
>> after writing some error messages (I could take a photo of them if you'd
>> want to know them).
> I don't have time for a proper reply, but here is some reading for you:
>
> http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009528.html
> http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009532.html
> http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009539.html
>
> It's all very disheartening. You essentially have to experiment your
> way through an enormous amount of unkonws to figure out why the PCI
> chipset on your motherboard is unhappy enough to reboot the system. All
> with no error logging about the triggering event. The labor cost alone
> is probably more than the price of another Desktp PC with a new video
> card.
>
> In the end, Jeroen did actaully find the problem on his system. It was
> caused by a change in the kernel that modified the way his motherboard
> PCI chipset was set up.
Thanks for the reply!

Unfortunately I can't spent that much time trying to locate the error.

Is it correct that the problem is caused by the card and that there
should be no problems with the PVR-150?

How are the chances that the PVR-500 works on a different mainboard?


Best regards
Ramon


Btw: Sorry Andy for only replying to you the first time!

On 6/6/2011 2:10 PM, Ramon Hofer wrote:
> On 06/06/2011 01:31 PM, Andy Walls wrote:
>> On Mon, 2011-06-06 at 13:09 +0200, Ramon Hofer wrote:
>>> Hi all
>>>
>>> I have had a problem with my PVR-500 which I was able to solve by
>>> patching the kernel.
>>> The messages about "[ivtv-users] WinTV PVR-500 stops recording after
>>> some minutes (ivtv0: DMA TIMEOUT)" here on the list describe my
>>> problem and Andy's solutions. Thanks again!
>>>
>>> Unfortunately my system still has problems when recording.
>>> It crashes from time to time and reboots automatically or just Freezes
>>> after writing some error messages (I could take a photo of them if
>>> you'd
>>> want to know them).
>> I don't have time for a proper reply, but here is some reading for you:
>>
>> http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009528.html
>> http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009532.html
>> http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009539.html
>>
>> It's all very disheartening. You essentially have to experiment your
>> way through an enormous amount of unkonws to figure out why the PCI
>> chipset on your motherboard is unhappy enough to reboot the system. All
>> with no error logging about the triggering event. The labor cost alone
>> is probably more than the price of another Desktp PC with a new video
>> card.
>>
>> In the end, Jeroen did actaully find the problem on his system. It was
>> caused by a change in the kernel that modified the way his motherboard
>> PCI chipset was set up.
> Thanks for the reply!
>
> Unfortunately I can't spent that much time trying to locate the error.
>
> Is it correct that the problem is caused by the card and that there
> should be no problems with the PVR-150?
>
> How are the chances that the PVR-500 works on a different mainboard?
>
>
> Best regards
> Ramon
>
>
> Btw: Sorry Andy for only replying to you the first time!
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ivtv-users mailing list
> ivtv-users@ivtvdriver.org
> http://ivtvdriver.org/mailman/listinfo/ivtv-users
Providing you get a mainboard without the bug that is causing you the
bus errors... you should have a very good chance... I have two pvr-500s
running personally with no problem...



--Robert
running 2 pvr-500s, hvr1800(digital only have not gotten analog to work
yet), hdhomerun(died going to replace with hdhrcc), firewire to dcx3416



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On Mon, 2011-06-06 at 21:10 +0200, Ramon Hofer wrote:
> On 06/06/2011 01:31 PM, Andy Walls wrote:
> > On Mon, 2011-06-06 at 13:09 +0200, Ramon Hofer wrote:
> > > Hi all
> > >
> > > I have had a problem with my PVR-500 which I was able to solve by
> > > patching the kernel.
> > > The messages about "[ivtv-users] WinTV PVR-500 stops recording
> > > after
> > > some minutes (ivtv0: DMA TIMEOUT)" here on the list describe
> > > my
> > > problem and Andy's solutions. Thanks again!
> > >
> > > Unfortunately my system still has problems when recording.
> > > It crashes from time to time and reboots automatically or just
> > > Freezes
> > > after writing some error messages (I could take a photo of them if
> > > you'd
> > > want to know them).
> > I don't have time for a proper reply, but here is some reading for
> > you:
> >
> > http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009528.html
> > http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009532.html
> > http://ivtvdriver.org/pipermail/ivtv-users/2009-August/009539.html
> >
> > It's all very disheartening. You essentially have to experiment
> > your
> > way through an enormous amount of unkonws to figure out why the PCI
> > chipset on your motherboard is unhappy enough to reboot the system.
> > All
> > with no error logging about the triggering event. The labor cost
> > alone
> > is probably more than the price of another Desktp PC with a new
> > video
> > card.
> >
> > In the end, Jeroen did actaully find the problem on his system. It
> > was
> > caused by a change in the kernel that modified the way his
> > motherboard
> > PCI chipset was set up.
> Thanks for the reply!
>
> Unfortunately I can't spent that much time trying to locate the
> error.
>
> Is it correct that the problem is caused by the card and that there
> should be no problems with the PVR-150?

No, the problem is caused by the system and the interactions of its
subsystems, components, firmware and software.

I can't guarantee you any success because:

- Like all great products rushed to market, the CX23415 and CX23416 have
bugs in both the hardware and firmware. I'll speculate that a
manifestation of those bugs can possibly be the CX2341[56] DMA-ing data
to some address where it shouldn't, or maybe causing an unusual
condition on the PCI bus.

- PCI motherboard chipset and PCI bridge chip manufacturers are all
implementing to the PCI specifications. The implementers can interpret
things differently and/or decide to do things differently within the
language of the specifications.

- From what I understand, Internext Compression really only tested the
CX2341[56] chips against one specific vendor's PCI chipsets during
development.

- The Linux kernel, including the ivtv driver, is never bug free. The
Linux kernel can also set up motherboard PCI chipsets in a manner that
is quite different from the way Windows sets them up.


The best rule of thumb I can give you, for building a system with
CX2341[56] based devices, is to use a motherboard with an Intel PCI
chipset and specifically avoid VIA PCI chipsets.


> How are the chances that the PVR-500 works on a different mainboard?

Overall, very good. The random PCI reboot problem is rare; although the
PLX PCI bridge chip on the PVR-500 board appears to be a contributor.

Unfortunately, there is no absolute way to know until you test an
assembled system.

Regards,
Andy

> Best regards
> Ramon




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The best rule of thumb I can give you, for building a system with

> CX2341[56] based devices, is to use a motherboard with an Intel PCI
> chipset and specifically avoid VIA PCI chipsets.
>
>
Not to step on Andy's toes, but as a counter point: I built 66 systems based
on Via motherboards and chipsets that use PVR-150s and they have been in
24/7 use for over three years and have not experienced any problems like you
describe.

That being said, they are purpose built machines and don't do anything else
but capture and stream data from the PVR-150 but they are Via CPUs and
chipsets and they work just fine.

-Jeff

On 06/07/2011 04:36 AM, Jeff Campbell wrote:
> The best rule of thumb I can give you, for building a system with
>
> CX2341[56] based devices, is to use a motherboard with an Intel PCI
> chipset and specifically avoid VIA PCI chipsets.
>
>
> Not to step on Andy's toes, but as a counter point: I built 66 systems
> based on Via motherboards and chipsets that use PVR-150s and they have
> been in 24/7 use for over three years and have not experienced any
> problems like you describe.
>
> That being said, they are purpose built machines and don't do anything
> else but capture and stream data from the PVR-150 but they are Via
> CPUs and chipsets and they work just fine.
>
> -Jeff
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ivtv-users mailing list
> ivtv-users@ivtvdriver.org
> http://ivtvdriver.org/mailman/listinfo/ivtv-users

Thanks to all you have replied!

The best choice seems to be to go for another Mainboard.
But as the DP55KG has an Intel P55 Express Chipset and not a Via Chipset
I'm a bit scared of taking again a wrong one...

Is my assumption correct that there won't be big hope that a BIOS
Upgrade would solve the problem?


Regards
Ramon