Mailing List Archive

I bought the Asus A7V8X-X mobo at newegg for approx. $67 and you should be
able to get 512MB of DDR for approx. $30 after rebate at CompUSA or BestBuy
or OfficeMax. Perhaps not what you were looking for in an answer, but you
can still use the processor (I think), the total is under $100 (AR) and I
know for a fact that this mobo works with Myth (sound, LAN, USB, etc. using
Mandrake 9.1). Forces you to dump the 1.5GB of 133 RAM, but you can still
run Myth. Hope this helps.

-- Harry O.


>From: "Ken Thompson" <kent@kmtdesigns.com>
>Reply-To: Discussion about mythtv <mythtv-users@mythtv.org>
>To: <mythtv-users@snowman.net>
>Subject: [mythtv-users] Help me find a winner...stinking Kt133
>Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 16:21:25 -0400
>
>Currently I have a dreaded KT133 chipset built into an ABIT KT7-RAID.
>Its suffering from the intermitten "buffer stuffed blah" So I have 1.5GB
>PC133 ram, 1 1.3 gig athlon processor. I'm having a heck of a time
>locating a motherboard that has an acceptable chipset AND allows me to
>use my current memory and processor.
>
>Could anyone offer me some suggestions as to which motherboard I should
>get? Budget is <= $100
>
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-users mailing list
>mythtv-users@mythtv.org
>http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

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Well, I'm a big fan of the Asus A7N266-VM. It is a Nforce 1 motherboard
with everything onboard. Several of us are currently running one and
they work great. You can pick them up for ~$70 at newegg.com or mwave.com.

I recently built another system with a little more power using an Asus
A7N8X-VM. It's an Nforce 2 system, again with everything onboard,
including the video. You can pick them up for ~$100. Like the
A7N266-VM, these are pretty bare boards with only 3 PCI slots and a bios
that doesn't allow any overclocking. But the boards are small, cheep,
and Asus reliable.

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND AGAINST AN Epox EP-8RGA. This is Epox's NForce2
board with the onboard video. I tried two of these. I could not get
the sound and network card to work reliably. I tried for a whole month
trying Mandrake 9.1, then back to 9.0, and Redhat 9. I about drove
myself nuts. Purchased the Asus mb, and had it working in under an hour.

-rac



Ken Thompson wrote:

> Currently I have a dreaded KT133 chipset built into an ABIT KT7-RAID.
> Its suffering from the intermitten "buffer stuffed blah" So I have 1.5GB
> PC133 ram, 1 1.3 gig athlon processor. I'm having a heck of a time
> locating a motherboard that has an acceptable chipset AND allows me to
> use my current memory and processor.
>
> Could anyone offer me some suggestions as to which motherboard I should
> get? Budget is <= $100
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

> Currently I have a dreaded KT133 chipset built into an ABIT KT7-RAID.
> Its suffering from the intermitten "buffer stuffed blah" So I have 1.5GB
> PC133 ram, 1 1.3 gig athlon processor. I'm having a heck of a time
> locating a motherboard that has an acceptable chipset AND allows me to
> use my current memory and processor.
>
> Could anyone offer me some suggestions as to which motherboard I should
> get? Budget is <= $100

You can try the ECS K7S5A Pro. Not exactly the best brand out there, but
I've worked with many of them (not with MythTV, mind you. I just got into
MythTV a few days ago) and sold a bunch of systems built around it (or
previous revisions) with nary a hitch. I have a 1.2ghz Duron built for
my mom around one and it's been solid. It's based around the SiS735 chipset.
Unless if something has changed recently, it has two SDR and two DDR slots
(no mixing RAM types, though) which lets you use 1GB of your current RAM.
1GB should be plenty, though, unless if you put your entire ringbuffer in
RAM or something.

This thread from the archives sounds promising:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/perl/mailarc/gforum.cgi?post=68567;search_string=K7S5a;guest=1000899&t=search_engine#68567

The onboard sound might not be the greatest, however. It's an AC97 codec
based around the Realtek 9738 chip. Not sure how good the line-in quality
is on it. Anybody want to chime in here?

PCI slots are abundant, so even if it IS sub-par I'm sure you have a better
sound card sitting around somewhere.

These boards are appearing in Toronto at around the CAN$65 mark (!), so
it's not much of a gamble. I'm sure you can find it for around US$50 online.

Hope this helps,

- Ed.

Edmund Wong wrote on Wed August 13, at 11:02 +0800:
> You can try the ECS K7S5A Pro. Not exactly the best brand out there, but
> I've worked with many of them (not with MythTV, mind you. I just got into
> MythTV a few days ago) and sold a bunch of systems built around it (or
> previous revisions) with nary a hitch. I have a 1.2ghz Duron built for
> my mom around one and it's been solid. It's based around the SiS735 chipset.
> Unless if something has changed recently, it has two SDR and two DDR slots
> (no mixing RAM types, though) which lets you use 1GB of your current RAM.
> 1GB should be plenty, though, unless if you put your entire ringbuffer in
> RAM or something.

I'm using the K7S5A (not the Pro). No problems here. I'm running with
a 1.4Ghz Athlon and 256M DDR RAM.

> The onboard sound might not be the greatest, however. It's an AC97 codec
> based around the Realtek 9738 chip. Not sure how good the line-in quality
> is on it. Anybody want to chime in here?

The on-board sound is simplex, locked at 48kHz, distorts if you have
the volume at > 95%, and too quiet to drive speakers directly. But
other than that, it plays sound great! :-) No probs with the quality.

I bought a second sound card to handle line-in, and use the on-board
for line out. In a stroke of bad luck, the 5.1 CMI-based soundcard I
bought uses the line-in control for recording volume, so I can't just
that sound card for mythtv :-(


,dunc

> > The onboard sound might not be the greatest, however. It's an AC97 codec
> > based around the Realtek 9738 chip. Not sure how good the line-in quality
> > is on it. Anybody want to chime in here?

Wait, Realtek? I typed that? I must be on crack or something. I meant
C-Media.

> The on-board sound is simplex, locked at 48kHz, distorts if you have
> the volume at > 95%, and too quiet to drive speakers directly. But
> other than that, it plays sound great! :-) No probs with the quality.
>
> I bought a second sound card to handle line-in, and use the on-board
> for line out. In a stroke of bad luck, the 5.1 CMI-based soundcard I
> bought uses the line-in control for recording volume, so I can't just
> that sound card for mythtv :-(

If it's locked at 48khz, it's fine for playing MythTV recordings but
would potentially cause problems with some of the other modules. Any
comments on the quality of the line-in? I'm planning a MythTV box around
a similar board and I would flip the functions of the two if it came
down to it, personally. Unless, of course, if the onboard sound can be
wrangled into supporting other sampling rates.

Also, has anybody run the onboard sound in full-duplex?

- ED.

Edmund Wong wrote on Wed August 13, at 11:31 +0800:
> > > The onboard sound might not be the greatest, however. It's an AC97 codec
> > > based around the Realtek 9738 chip. Not sure how good the line-in quality
> > > is on it. Anybody want to chime in here?
>
> Wait, Realtek? I typed that? I must be on crack or something. I meant
> C-Media.

Ahhh, I remember mine is a SIS7012 now. Could be different.

> If it's locked at 48khz, it's fine for playing MythTV recordings but
> would potentially cause problems with some of the other modules. Any
> comments on the quality of the line-in? I'm planning a MythTV box around
> a similar board and I would flip the functions of the two if it came
> down to it, personally. Unless, of course, if the onboard sound can be
> wrangled into supporting other sampling rates.
>
> Also, has anybody run the onboard sound in full-duplex?

I can only speak about mine (SIS7012, not the "Pro" mobo), but I checked
out the sampling issue - the chipset supports a variable sample rate,
but the ECS hardware uses a fixed frequency oscillator :-/. As for
full-duplex - my attempts to record and playback simultaneously resulted
in lockup from memory. I guess it /may/ have been a driver issue. You
could be *cough* lucky.

Line-in quality was fine.

Mythmusic works fine outputting to the same sound card.

,dunc

I have a KT133-based board for my MythTV PC (which is
temporary, I just built it out of stuff I had around
the apartment). My CMI8738 on-board sound doesn't do
full-duplex very well either (with ALSA, I don't think
I tried OSS).

With ALSA, doing full duplex, the regardless of what I
set the mixer settings to, the sound would always be
very low, and turning up the speakers would emit a
loud hiss.

From what I recall on the ALSA mailing list, this is a
known issue with the CMI8738 driver.

My solution was to get another sound card. I bought a
Soundblaster 16 PCI (based on the Ensoniq 1371 chip,
although it's identified as a Creative 5880), and it
seems to be working well (bought it because it was
cheap, $30). The sound is a little strange (almost a
bit "bassey", with some slur to it), but I'm not sure
if that's the sound card, or the the incoming video
(could also be my mixer settings). This is using
full-duplex with ALSA, perhaps if I dedicate one card
to the capture input, and another card to the output,
the problem might go away.

But, like I said, I haven't had much luck with the
CMI8738 sound in full-duplex.

-- Joe

--- Edmund Wong <ed@guyline.com.hk> wrote:
> > > The onboard sound might not be the greatest,
> however. It's an AC97 codec
> > > based around the Realtek 9738 chip. Not sure how
> good the line-in quality
> > > is on it. Anybody want to chime in here?
>
> Wait, Realtek? I typed that? I must be on crack or
> something. I meant
> C-Media.
>
> > The on-board sound is simplex, locked at 48kHz,
> distorts if you have
> > the volume at > 95%, and too quiet to drive
> speakers directly. But
> > other than that, it plays sound great! :-) No
> probs with the quality.
> >
> > I bought a second sound card to handle line-in,
> and use the on-board
> > for line out. In a stroke of bad luck, the 5.1
> CMI-based soundcard I
> > bought uses the line-in control for recording
> volume, so I can't just
> > that sound card for mythtv :-(
>
> If it's locked at 48khz, it's fine for playing
> MythTV recordings but
> would potentially cause problems with some of the
> other modules. Any
> comments on the quality of the line-in? I'm planning
> a MythTV box around
> a similar board and I would flip the functions of
> the two if it came
> down to it, personally. Unless, of course, if the
> onboard sound can be
> wrangled into supporting other sampling rates.
>
> Also, has anybody run the onboard sound in
> full-duplex?
>
> - ED.
> > _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@mythtv.org
>
http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>


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From: Edmund Wong <ed@guyline.com.hk>
>If it's locked at 48khz, it's fine for playing
>MythTV recordings but
>would potentially cause problems with some of
>the other modules. Any
>comments on the quality of the line-in? I'm
>planning a MythTV box around
>a similar board and I would flip the functions
>of the two if it came
>down to it, personally. Unless, of course, if
>the onboard sound can be
>wrangled into supporting other sampling rates.
>
>Also, has anybody run the onboard sound in
full-duplex?

I'm running Myth on a K7S5A Pro and a
friend is running Myth on a non-Pro. Both of us
have no sound related problems with
MythVideo and MythMusic (he uses MythMusic to listen
to 24Kbps/8Khz talk-radio shows). Since we are both
able to pause live-TV and watch a show while
recording another, that would imply full-duplex.

The Pro has bigger capacitors which may help clean
up the rails and by extension, the sound quality.

We couldn't get the DHCP client to work in Woody
(I heard it's fixed in later versions of the
driver) but we both run MythWeb and dynamic IP
would mess up our bookmarks anyway so we don't use
it.

BTW, the non-Pro is on clearance at the Campbell
Frys store for $19. They were running a $59
special for a boxed XP1800 and K7S5A Pro combo but
the sale ended today.

I really like the K7S5A Pro for this application.
No fans mean silent operation and the single chip
north/south bridge and integrated peripherals
probably means less power dissipation. BTSC audio
isn't exatly the cleanest source and I MythTV
playback is always lossy if you have MP3 turned on.
As they say, "garbage in, garbage out" so it
probably doesn't make sense to use "golden ear"
hardware. The sound system doesn't add any
noticable noise nor take away any
noticeable quality and that's good enough for me.

Back to the original question, you might have to
ditch the PC133 SDRAM and get some DDR (probably
depending on what resolution you capture and
how much L2 cache is on your CPU).

-Dennis

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Dennis Lou wrote on Tue August 12, at 23:46 -0700:
> I'm running Myth on a K7S5A Pro and a
> friend is running Myth on a non-Pro. Both of us
> have no sound related problems with
> MythVideo and MythMusic (he uses MythMusic to listen
> to 24Kbps/8Khz talk-radio shows). Since we are both
> able to pause live-TV and watch a show while
> recording another, that would imply full-duplex.

Bugger. The i810_audio.c module in the kernel quite plainly doesn't
support DUPLEX, so it looks like your friend is using ALSA and so
should I :-P

,dunc

Dennis Lou wrote:

> I'm running Myth on a K7S5A Pro and a
> friend is running Myth on a non-Pro. Both of us
> have no sound related problems with
> MythVideo and MythMusic (he uses MythMusic to listen
> to 24Kbps/8Khz talk-radio shows). Since we are both
> able to pause live-TV and watch a show while
> recording another, that would imply full-duplex.
<snip>
> I really like the K7S5A Pro for this application.
> No fans mean silent operation and the single chip
> north/south bridge and integrated peripherals
> probably means less power dissipation. BTSC audio
> isn't exatly the cleanest source and I MythTV
> playback is always lossy if you have MP3 turned on.
> As they say, "garbage in, garbage out" so it
> probably doesn't make sense to use "golden ear"
> hardware. The sound system doesn't add any
> noticable noise nor take away any
> noticeable quality and that's good enough for me.

That certainly sounds promising. So the ALSA driver supports full-duplex
and works relatively well? My current plans are based arond one of these
puppies:

http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/K7SOM

with the 1.3ghz Duron onboard. (yes, they exist. I have one running as
a box for my mom. And for the record, I've been pitching these boards to
people since February at work, so this isn't a reaction to that review
or anything.)

I've got an entire rant about that board in me, but I'll save it for
my own thread. :)


> Back to the original question, you might have to
> ditch the PC133 SDRAM and get some DDR (probably
> depending on what resolution you capture and
> how much L2 cache is on your CPU).

I don't see how switching to DDR is going to make any difference for
him...

- Ed.

Thank you all for providing an excellent amount of information on a
whole range of motherboard options:) However, my main drive, or MO, is
to replace my KT133 chipset because of the DMA bug with the IDE
controller.

Does the SB Live! + KT133 chipset have problems also? That's what I'm
currently running. I find that within 3-4 hours I get the buffer
backened full message (or something like that) If anyone has a
workaround (get a new sound card??) that would be appreciated.
-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces@mythtv.org
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Edmund Wong
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 5:22 AM
To: mythtv-users@mythtv.org
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Help me find a winner...stinking Kt133


Dennis Lou wrote:

> I'm running Myth on a K7S5A Pro and a
> friend is running Myth on a non-Pro. Both of us
> have no sound related problems with
> MythVideo and MythMusic (he uses MythMusic to listen
> to 24Kbps/8Khz talk-radio shows). Since we are both
> able to pause live-TV and watch a show while
> recording another, that would imply full-duplex.
<snip>
> I really like the K7S5A Pro for this application.
> No fans mean silent operation and the single chip
> north/south bridge and integrated peripherals
> probably means less power dissipation. BTSC audio
> isn't exatly the cleanest source and I MythTV
> playback is always lossy if you have MP3 turned on.
> As they say, "garbage in, garbage out" so it
> probably doesn't make sense to use "golden ear"
> hardware. The sound system doesn't add any
> noticable noise nor take away any
> noticeable quality and that's good enough for me.

That certainly sounds promising. So the ALSA driver supports full-duplex
and works relatively well? My current plans are based arond one of these
puppies:

http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/K7SOM

with the 1.3ghz Duron onboard. (yes, they exist. I have one running as a
box for my mom. And for the record, I've been pitching these boards to
people since February at work, so this isn't a reaction to that review
or anything.)

I've got an entire rant about that board in me, but I'll save it for my
own thread. :)


> Back to the original question, you might have to
> ditch the PC133 SDRAM and get some DDR (probably
> depending on what resolution you capture and
> how much L2 cache is on your CPU).

I don't see how switching to DDR is going to make any difference for
him...

- Ed.

From: Edmund Wong <ed@guyline.com.hk>
>Dennis Lou wrote:
>> I'm running Myth on a K7S5A Pro and a
>> friend is running Myth on a non-Pro. Both of us
>> have no sound related problems with
>> MythVideo and MythMusic (he uses MythMusic to
listen
>> to 24Kbps/8Khz talk-radio shows). Since we are
both
>> able to pause live-TV and watch a show while
>> recording another, that would imply full-duplex.
>
>That certainly sounds promising. So the ALSA
>driver supports full-duplex
>and works relatively well? My current plans are
>based arond one of these
>puppies:

Yes, we both run ALSA.

>
>http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/K7SOM
>
>with the 1.3ghz Duron onboard. (yes, they exist.
>I have one running as
>a box for my mom. And for the record, I've been
>pitching these boards to
>people since February at work, so this isn't a
>reaction to that review
>or anything.)

The 1.3 Morgan core Duron is what I ran.
Works great at 480x480, MPEG4, MP3.

-Dennis


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My CMI8738 is working fine in ful-duplex with ALSA-0.9.x, I didn't have
to do anything special IIRC. It's an old (I found it in a Celeron 300A
system!) PCI AOpen card, not onboard, though.

Pete

Joe V wrote:

>I have a KT133-based board for my MythTV PC (which is
>temporary, I just built it out of stuff I had around
>the apartment). My CMI8738 on-board sound doesn't do
>full-duplex very well either (with ALSA, I don't think
>I tried OSS).
>
>With ALSA, doing full duplex, the regardless of what I
>set the mixer settings to, the sound would always be
>very low, and turning up the speakers would emit a
>loud hiss.
>
>>From what I recall on the ALSA mailing list, this is a
>known issue with the CMI8738 driver.
>
>My solution was to get another sound card. I bought a
>Soundblaster 16 PCI (based on the Ensoniq 1371 chip,
>although it's identified as a Creative 5880), and it
>seems to be working well (bought it because it was
>cheap, $30). The sound is a little strange (almost a
>bit "bassey", with some slur to it), but I'm not sure
>if that's the sound card, or the the incoming video
>(could also be my mixer settings). This is using
>full-duplex with ALSA, perhaps if I dedicate one card
>to the capture input, and another card to the output,
>the problem might go away.
>
>But, like I said, I haven't had much luck with the
>CMI8738 sound in full-duplex.
>
>-- Joe
>
>--- Edmund Wong <ed@guyline.com.hk> wrote:
>
>
>>>>The onboard sound might not be the greatest,
>>>>
>>>>
>>however. It's an AC97 codec
>>
>>
>>>>based around the Realtek 9738 chip. Not sure how
>>>>
>>>>
>>good the line-in quality
>>
>>
>>>>is on it. Anybody want to chime in here?
>>>>
>>>>
>>Wait, Realtek? I typed that? I must be on crack or
>>something. I meant
>>C-Media.
>>
>>
>>
>>>The on-board sound is simplex, locked at 48kHz,
>>>
>>>
>>distorts if you have
>>
>>
>>>the volume at > 95%, and too quiet to drive
>>>
>>>
>>speakers directly. But
>>
>>
>>>other than that, it plays sound great! :-) No
>>>
>>>
>>probs with the quality.
>>
>>
>>>I bought a second sound card to handle line-in,
>>>
>>>
>>and use the on-board
>>
>>
>>>for line out. In a stroke of bad luck, the 5.1
>>>
>>>
>>CMI-based soundcard I
>>
>>
>>>bought uses the line-in control for recording
>>>
>>>
>>volume, so I can't just
>>
>>
>>>that sound card for mythtv :-(
>>>
>>>
>>If it's locked at 48khz, it's fine for playing
>>MythTV recordings but
>>would potentially cause problems with some of the
>>other modules. Any
>>comments on the quality of the line-in? I'm planning
>>a MythTV box around
>>a similar board and I would flip the functions of
>>the two if it came
>>down to it, personally. Unless, of course, if the
>>onboard sound can be
>>wrangled into supporting other sampling rates.
>>
>>Also, has anybody run the onboard sound in
>>full-duplex?
>>
>>- ED.
>>
>>