I recently upgraded from an MX440 (128mb) to a 6200 LE (256mb) and the picture improved (the MX440 was getting interference and causing lines to show up on the screen). Immediately after upgrade the picture was great and the box seamed to respond faster (GUI redraw and what not R5D7). About 2 weeks after install the box started to lockup while watching anything (recorded or live, both HD and analog). When I stick the MX440 back in the thing runs without locking up.

From what I can tell the 6200 LE is not a turbocache model so I don't think it's that issue common with the 6200's. I've tried to look at the logs after the lockup and I can't find anything. The mainboard I'm using is an Asus A7N8X Deluxe with an Athlon XP 3200+. I did try the 6200 in my regular box and Suse 10.2 had issues recognizing the card and updating the dual monitor settings so I'm thinking the card may be suspect.

I'm going to RMA the card and get a different model and I'm wondering if going to the 7600 GS would be overkill for my Myth box. I could always put my 6600 GT from my main desktop into the Myth Box and then put the 7600 GS in my regular machine. What are your guys/girls thoughts?

Try blowing a fan on it. I have two boxes with no fan FX-5200 in them. Both machines will lock up if I don't have a slow speed fan blowing over them. I am not sure if it is over heating of the video card or the capture cards that cause this. If I remember right mine went about a week before locking up. Your 6200 puts out a lot more heat than a MX440. A MX card dissipates 30 watts, Fx5200 about 40watt, a FX6200 65 watt and a 7600 could be as high as 80 watts. On one of my machines I used cardboard from a cereal box to make ductwork for my case inlet fan to direct airflow over the video card. Your 6200 may have temp sensors, LM sensors can read some Nvidia cards. Also another thing to keep in mind is that even if your video card can operate at 90C that dos not mean the capture card right beside it can operate at that temperature. The capture card operation range is probably in the 35 to 40C ballpark.
TVbox

IMHO, yes it is overkill. I don't think you need more than a 5200.

I'm going to give that a try tonight. I do have 4 tuner cards in the box so I'm guessing it could be getting a little warm in there. One interesting thing is I had the box shutdown for the entire day then started it up last night and watched about 3/4 of a Bones episode and then it locked up so I am thinking more and more that it could be a heat issue.

Zalman, etc., make GPU (Note the 'G') cooler fans, to add a quiet fan to fanless cards. The one I looked at had a heatpipe design, so the fan was on the other side or on the top or something like that.

I put a small fan next to the card blowing just a little air across it and while ssh'd into the box the idle tempterature using nvclock -T is 47C. When watching 2 one hour HD programs the temp got up to 52C without locking up. I'm going to let it run until tomorrow morning and check it again. Thanks for the tip!

Got down to 46C when I checked it this morning and I just finished watching 2 Winners and one Dirty Jobs and it's up to 51C. More testing to follow.

thornsoft
I took a look at the GPU from Zalman and may give it a try in the next generation KM box.

What I have never been able to figure out is why the GPU Chip is not on the back side of the video card. The heat sinks could have 1 1/2" fins and have air movement. The front side should have been bare and then you could use the slot next to the video card in stead of wasting a space. I can buy a AMD 3800+ EE that dissipates 35 watt but now my video card has to have 90 watts . Every added watt in a HTPC box ends up adding to the noise and expense one way or another.

ik632
After my box started locking up, it seemed it would happen easier / quicker the next time . Just a guess but I think I may have slightly damaged some capacitors on ether the video or the capture cards. After I added the fan it now has been running for almost one year with out a problem.
TVBox

Problem(s) solved:

1. I've added a fan to cool the card and this has eliminated the lockups.
2. I installed the 8184 (whatever the other version is that comes with R5D7) XvMC drivers and used the generic XvMC driver in the XvMC(config) file under /etc/X11/

Now, XvMC works and the machine doesn't lock up. Thanks again for the help.