First off, I admit I'm quite a noob. I installed R4 using Auto Install and selecting i686 modules. I am running "install-nvidia.sh" as per the instructions and doing a "apt-get update" and "apt-get install xmltv". This gets me a MythTV box which allows me to record some programs but intermittently, it will freeze. My hardware is as follows:

Shuttle MN31N Motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Processor
512MB Memory (2x 256MB DDR SDRAM DIMMs)
Hauppage PVR-350 Card
Maxtor 120MB Hard Disk (had on hand)
Acer 50x CD-ROM (had on hand and don't plan on playing DVDs right now)
Antec Overture Case

I have conservative BIOS settlings including disabling memory pre-charge. I have a monitor connected to the first of two video outputs on the mobo. Cable is connected to the antenna input of the PVR-350 and the output breakout cable is connected to the S-Video/Composite output of the PVR-350. The composite connections of the breakout cable are connected to the composite of a TV. The TV input is set to AUX input.

I'd like to get this to a point where it will reliably record programs so I can off load them in an editable format to burn to DVD on my Mac. I would like to get TV out on the PVR-350 to work, but I can wait for R5 if it is easier than messing around. Any ideas of what to try next?

Well the first question would be is that an nforce2 motherboard, if so you may have the lapic problem that can only be fixed with a kernel recompile at this point.

Second I am pretty sure that no tuner card can use two imputs simotaniously.

Get a hold of memtest86 and test your memory.

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

Okay, got ahold of MEMTEST86 v3.0 and have been running in differring modes over the last couple of days without any errors reported. Any other suggestions? I was thinking of trying to update BIOS of the mobo but the recent changes in the lastest version don't seem like they would affect the problems I'm seeing.

ok the shuttle is an nforce2 motherboard you are most likely experianceing the lapic problem it can only be solved by recompiling the kernel without local apic support at this point. Hopefully there will be an easier solution for R5 Search the forums for lapic or local apic there are several threads about it.

Any hints on how to recompile the kernel for this specific issue? I'll try to search this site for info in the event it was already posted. I seem to have the same problem if I setup some tv recordings overnight. Next morning my system is hard locked. Currently using a Shuttle SN41G2 nforce2 based system. Everything else seems to be working correctly

I ran into what sounds like the same problem. The machine would freeze randomly, usually in association with heavy disk activity. I swapped memory, HD, and everything else I could to eliminate them befoe deciding it was MoBo, Bios, or kernel driver problem. Oh yeah hardware:

Shuttle XPC SN41G2 - Nforce2 chipset on the MoBo
WD800JB (80Gb, 8Mb cache, 7200 rpm, UDMA100, ...)
Haupage Win PVR-250
...

After much searching I found several threads from late 2003 in the linux kernel mailing list:

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/ ... .html#1298

Look for the Nforce2 threads, this message in particular:

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/ ... /1393.html

In the meantime I've found that disabling DMA makes the machine stable enough to let me work on it., although you'll really want to patch the kernel to get DMA working so you have enough disk bandwidth.

hdparm -d 0 /dev/hda

Oh nuts, sent too soon... To recompile the kernel:

1) Become root

su -

2) Go to the kernel directory

cd /usr/src/linux

3) Apply the patch. You'll basically have to hand edit it in, since the ones posted in the kernel mailing list are for 2.6.x and 2.4.22. I also had to add a definition for PCI_DEVICE_ID_NVIDIA_NFORCE2 to one of the header files.

4) From /usr/src/linux run:

make bzImage

5) Read the README files there for how and what to copy over to you /boot directory.

BTW - This is a fairly hacky way to do it, but I'm still testing it myself. Look for more polished directions once I get everything nailed down.