Howdy, folks...

First, the specs:
IBM NetVista (Intel chipset)
P4 1.8GHz
256MB of RAM
Hauppauge PVR-150
GeForce FX 5200 PCI graphics card (128MB RAM)
40G & 80G hard drives (80G mounted as /myth/tv/)
KnoppMyth R5E50
Onboard sound

I've been running my box for a couple of weeks now. Things seem to be going well, except for the fact that I keep getting what seem to be hard freezes a couple of times every day. I can't really associate them with any particular events (it always happens when I'm not actually watching TV), although my logs seem to reveal that the cron jobs (that is, the default jobs KnoppMyth sets up; no one job in particular) may be associated with the problem.

Anyway, I'm running memtest86 now, but I would also like to be able to monitor the CPU temp. I feel like this is something I should know, but how does one do this in Linux/KnoppMyth? The system has processor and chasis fans, so that didn't seem like it would be a problem, but I thought it might be worth at least looking in to.

Oh, I also had a couple of log entries which referred to MySQL tables which needed to be repaired (which I did). That didn't seem to be a causal factor, though...

Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks a lot!

- Sean

Try mbmon to check your system temperatures. For more details: man mbmon

If that works you can use xmbmon and the rrd_tool graphs to chart the system status. See my R5E50 upgrade hints posting for some fixes to get the rrd stuff working.

Thanks, tjc... the temp. never gets above 110 degrees Fahrenheit, so it looks like heat is not the cuplrit. Also, memtest came back clean.

I have some shared IRQs... could that be the issue? If so, how do I go about changing them?

- Sean

My next guess would be some kind of DMA problem. Check the logfiles for that and see the IVTV wiki for more info. I'm not sure that they've got a real fix yet but they may have some mitigation strategies...

I've looked into the DMA/IVTV issue, and am confident that it isn't related. I can shut down the frontend and remove any programs from the backend's record cue and it will still lock up after a while (the amount of time varies greatly), even without using the PVR150 for anything during that time period.

Actually, it seems that it doesn't "lock up" per se - it's very weird: If video is playing, it will lock on one frame, then wait a few minutes, then play a few frames, then wait, etc. If it's not playing anything, the frontend freezes, but I can right-click and bring up the KnoppMyth menu, open the shell, and switch from directory to directory. If I try to do much more (like run TOP, for example), it freezes up - no mouse movement, no keyboard response, no nothing. Additionally, if I try to SSH into the box after it's entered this state, the response is slow and unreliable, but it does sometimes work (until, once again, I try to run anything). Also, Apache is responsive after the machine has entered this state, but MythWeb is not.

This seems like some kind of hardware issue, but I've yet to figure out what it is. Memtest has come up clean. I've stress-tested the processor, and it's come back clean as well. I've played with turning APIC off (which actually makes the machine unbootable), adjusting various BIOS settings... everything I can think of. I've spent hours on this and other message boards (trying to figure out the problem myself without bugging you folks too much), but because the problem is so vague, I've been unable to find anything. I wish I could be more descriptive, but I can't find any kind of consistency to the whole thing. It seems completely random, and there are no errors in my logs.

Does anyone have any experience with this kind of problem? Is there something I'm missing?

(sigh)

Thanks...

- Sean

Hmmm, it kinda sounds like you are running out of memory! Next time it happens try to bring up top before it goes completely unresponsive. Check your RAM and SWAP usage and see it your out of memory. I could be way off but the way you describe it makes me wonder...

How much physical RAM and how much SWAP space does your machine have?

Martian

_________________
ABIT NF-M2 nView | Athlon 64 X2 3800+ | 2GB DDR2 800 | HDHomerun | GeForce 6150 (onboard) | WD 640 GB SATA HD | DVD-RW (sata) | StreamZap IR receiver with Logitech Harmony remote

Vizio 37" LCD HDTV (1080p)

Thanks for the note... I hadn't thought about that.

I have 256MB RAM, and a 368 MB swap partition. According to rrdtool, the amount of free RAM is next to nothing (avg. < 3%), but there's plenty of free swap space all of the time. I was under the impression that MythTV didn't need a lot of memory, and that 256MB was sufficient. Was I wrong?

- Sean

UPDATE: I should specify that the average amount of cached memory (thus, memory which can be freed up when necessary, from what I understand about Linux) is 35%. Also, it's a SD box, no HDTV.

I can't actually catch it as it's going into a coma, but I was thinking the info. from rrdtool would be sufficient...

Im running a Netvista also with exactly the same issues.

Have you progressed any further?

Hi gang,

I'm using the same IBM type system (Intellistation E Pro - P4 1.8GHz) for my MBE with a WinTV 401 and Air2PC rev 0.2.

Open the box up and take a look at the capacitors! I know I have one on my system board that's leaking, and you may have one or more that's causing your system problems.

May not be what you want to hear, but better safe than sorry.