Mailing List Archive

I don't know what is causing your problem, but I do know that (unless
you've done more checking than you report here) your statement that
"Nothing else has changed as far as software/configuration goes" is rash
... at least if you and I use "configuration" the same way. A new mobo
might have changed any of the following:

IRQ assignments (I see that you do mention something vague about
this, down toward the end - and you mention changing the slot assignments here)
IDE chipset
video (if the mobos used onboard video - or did you move the same
AGP card?)
audio chipset (if they use onboard sound - or did you move the
same PCI card?)
"hidden" IRQ conflicts (for example, a Winmodem competes for an
interrupt at the BIOS level even though Linux cannot see or use the device)

Since the problem is with live TV, my first thought is an IRQ problem
involving the capture card and the VGA card ... Linux won't report this, so
you'll have to look at the BIOS listing that displays before lilo starts
the boot process to see it. This seems farfetched, to be honest, but your
report is somewhat difficult to interpret, so I'm kind of guessing blindly,
and nothing else suggests itself from what you've reported so far.

It might be easier to offer more certain suggestions if we had a better
understanding of the problem. "I can't watch live TV" doesn't characterize
the problem very precisely (what actually happens when you try?), and
"Something to the effect of" is not a useful way to report error messages
in your logs (neither is "a funky error"). And the obvious hardware details
might also serve to suggest something, as well as what Linux distro and
kernel you are using.

At 12:17 PM 4/8/2003 -0400, Calvin Harrigan wrote:
>Greetings all,
> I have a question not directly related to mythtv, but... Yesterday,
>Sunday, I swapped out the motherboard in my mythtv box. The only other
>thing that changed was the memory, same amount though. DDR -> SDRAM. The
>machine seems to work fine, but when it comes to mythtv it behaves
>erratically.
>I can watch pre-recorded programs fine, I use the epg to schedule programs,
>I can even record programs! But for reasons beyond my understanding right
>now I can't watch live TV. Nothing else has changed as far as
>software/configuration goes. I initially thought that it was a hardware
>problem, you know something wrong with the TV card setup, gave up on that
>idea when I did a record. It record for 3 hours without missing a beat.
>After messing with it some more I realised that I was getting was seems like
>hardware/kernel/driver errors. Something to the effect of:
>
>VIDIOSYNC 0: Invalid Argument
>VIDIOSYNC 1: Invalid Argument
>.
>.
>.
>
>This repeats until I kill the backend or the backend crashes.
>
>I also noticed that if I did a 'dmesg' I get a funky error about interrupts
>on the tv card and that the driver is resetting it the card. I moved the
>card to a different slot and that cleared up, not sure what that was about
>because it had it's own interrupt before, but now it's sharing with the nic.
>
>I'm not convinced that it's not a hardware problem and was wondering if
>anyone had any ideas/experiences to help try to solve my problem.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Olszewski" <ray@comarre.com>
To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users@snowman.net>
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 12:44 PM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] Strange Problem with new MB


> I don't know what is causing your problem, but I do know that (unless
> you've done more checking than you report here) your statement that
> "Nothing else has changed as far as software/configuration goes" is rash
> ... at least if you and I use "configuration" the same way. A new mobo
> might have changed any of the following:

I was refering to the software configuration on the system. Mythtv, kernel,
drivers, X11, etc.

>
> IRQ assignments (I see that you do mention something vague about
> this, down toward the end - and you mention changing the slot assignments
here)
> IDE chipset
> video (if the mobos used onboard video - or did you move the same
> AGP card?)

Same video card

> audio chipset (if they use onboard sound - or did you move the
> same PCI card?)

Same sound card

> "hidden" IRQ conflicts (for example, a Winmodem competes for an
> interrupt at the BIOS level even though Linux cannot see or use the
device)

All cards are the same. Even the processor is the same. Only the motherboard
and the memory was changed.


The motherboards (same brand - MSI) uses similar chipset
(KT133A,KT400)(VIA8231, VIA8235) thus the same drivers.
(The board with the KT133A is what I am currently trying to get working)

> Since the problem is with live TV, my first thought is an IRQ problem
> involving the capture card and the VGA card ... Linux won't report this,
so
> you'll have to look at the BIOS listing that displays before lilo starts
> the boot process to see it. This seems farfetched, to be honest, but your
> report is somewhat difficult to interpret, so I'm kind of guessing
blindly,
> and nothing else suggests itself from what you've reported so far.

All add in cards are assigned there own IRQs, the onboard sound is disabled.
The serial ports are assigned to the standard IRQs (3,4).
The only thing sharing IRQ are the USB controllers (shared among
themselves).

>
> It might be easier to offer more certain suggestions if we had a better
> understanding of the problem. "I can't watch live TV" doesn't characterize

Selecting "Watch TV" from myth does nothing on screen. Sometimes
mythbackend hangs, sometimes the entire system hangs.
If only mythbackend hangs I'll see messages in the console saying:

VIDIOSYNC 0: Invalid Argument
VIDIOSYNC 1: Invalid Argument

repeated many times.


> the problem very precisely (what actually happens when you try?), and
> "Something to the effect of" is not a useful way to report error messages
> in your logs (neither is "a funky error").

Sorry about the vague descriptions, I'm doing it from memory. I don't have
the box in from of me.

> And the obvious hardware details
> might also serve to suggest something, as well as what Linux distro and
> kernel you are using.
>

System Configuration:

MSI K7T Turbo 2 motherboard KT133A chipset
512 MB PC133 SDRAM
32 MB GF2 MX200 w/ tv-out
sound blaster pci 128
generic 100MB NIC (Realtek 8139 chipset)
Aimslab Xtreme98 (bt848 based) tv/radio card
80 GB Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive (IDE CH1 Master)
DVD ROM (IDE CH2 Master)

Running:
Gentoo Linux 1.2
Kernel 2.14.19
twm window manager
X11 4.1.2


I was hoping that someone else had similar problems...

Thanks,

Calvin


> At 12:17 PM 4/8/2003 -0400, Calvin Harrigan wrote:
> >Greetings all,
> > I have a question not directly related to mythtv, but...
Yesterday,
> >Sunday, I swapped out the motherboard in my mythtv box. The only other
> >thing that changed was the memory, same amount though. DDR -> SDRAM.
The
> >machine seems to work fine, but when it comes to mythtv it behaves
> >erratically.
> >I can watch pre-recorded programs fine, I use the epg to schedule
programs,
> >I can even record programs! But for reasons beyond my understanding right
> >now I can't watch live TV. Nothing else has changed as far as
> >software/configuration goes. I initially thought that it was a hardware
> >problem, you know something wrong with the TV card setup, gave up on that
> >idea when I did a record. It record for 3 hours without missing a beat.
> >After messing with it some more I realised that I was getting was seems
like
> >hardware/kernel/driver errors. Something to the effect of:
> >
> >VIDIOSYNC 0: Invalid Argument
> >VIDIOSYNC 1: Invalid Argument
> >.
> >.
> >.
> >
> >This repeats until I kill the backend or the backend crashes.
> >
> >I also noticed that if I did a 'dmesg' I get a funky error about
interrupts
> >on the tv card and that the driver is resetting it the card. I moved the
> >card to a different slot and that cleared up, not sure what that was
about
> >because it had it's own interrupt before, but now it's sharing with the
nic.
> >
> >I'm not convinced that it's not a hardware problem and was wondering if
> >anyone had any ideas/experiences to help try to solve my problem.
>
>
>
>
>
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