I finally got MythTV set up and working, with my remote and everything. As of now, I use it mostly to record tv and watch recorded tv - very rarely do I use it to watch live TV. In fact, I often go a few days without even touching it.

However, I've run into some issues with the machine simply not responding. Every few days (though sometimes more, sometimes less) the machine will hang, and not respond to network requests, web requests, or my remote.

Could this be an overheating issue? I'm running in an Antec Sonata case - Athlon XP 1600+, 2x80gb Seagate Barracuda HDs, GeForce FX5200 video. I've got 3 case fans, a large video heat sink/fan, and a large CPU heatsink/fan, though they were picked more for noise issues than for cooling ability.

A quick check of my logs and nothing seems to stand out, except that everything seems to stop happening at a certain time.

/var/log/messages:


/var/log/syslog:


Sometimes, when I press the reset button, it takes a while for the machine to actually reset (about 1 minute).

Any ideas as to what I might be able to do to narrow down what's wrong? The only thing that takes me away from a heating issue is that it happens even when the machine is idle (it has actually not gotten stuck while watching a show).

Could be a memory problem. I had lockups until I slowed down the memory timing in my bios. What is your motherboard? I could detect the problem using memtest86 with the fast memory timings and when I slowed it sown, memtest reported no errors.

I'm using an EPoX 8KHA+ board with a VIA KT266A chipset (if memory serves me...amazing how many random sequences of alphanumerics I can remember thanks to computers, yet can't remember a phone number at all thanks to cell phones)

Anyway, I'm running memtest86+ right now. 2 passes and no errors yet...

Yesterday, I ran the box without a top on the case and it still froze. I think that suggests that it isn't a cooling issue?

I could be wrong, but I wouldn't bet on a overheating issue. The Athlon XP 1600 doesn't run all that hot to begin with. The Sonata case does a good job of cooling. The case fans should be configured to make air flow through the case. Since the fan on the back panel blows air out, make the one by the disk drives suck air in from the front of the computer.

Hanging like this is a hardware problem of some sort, certainly. I run my box for weeks and weeks without a hang.

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Since things have been going wrong while I'm not doing anything, I guess it's probably either memory or hard drive - hopefully not processor! I think the memory is the most likely to make it hang though.

I've got a sound card, tuner card, video card, and a firewire card as well. If things don't go right I'll start removing them piece by piece, but I hope this doesn't mess up the hours of work I put in getting all the drivers to work. I really don't think I could repeat it - I was basically trying whatever I could find to get my PVR-150mce and Streamzap remote to work.

For what it's worth, the motherboard I had memory problems on was a KT266A based motherboard too.

I googled for some reviews of my motherboard, and this one claims they had hanging problems when using an 1800+ but not a 1.4G processor.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm? ... 864&page=2

I seem to remember seeing a lot of comments that pointed to memory problems with Athlons XP processors in particular when I was trying to figure out what my problem was.

I guess I was a bit skeptical about how well myth/linux could work after my initial problems, but that has certainly changed now.

The memory timing thing was the magic bullet for me. My box has been rock solid ever since.

also the via 266's were highly susceptible to the "VIA bug" this happens under very high DMA usage.

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I've got a hunch it's that streamzap remote. I've got the same issue and I can reproduce it fairly consistently. (MythTV crashes with no network response).

My system was extremely stable until I a) Upgraded from R5A16 b) Installed an HD5000 as an additional tuner c) Replaced my PVR-150 IR reciever with a Streamzap PC Remote

Unfortunatly I did all of this almost at once and it's taken a week or so to narrow down the issue to the streamzap.

Why am I so certain? Because MythTV won't crash while I'm away, or when I'm using it. It consistently crashes when I watch a movie with XBMC on my Xbox. (Note, MythTV and XBMC have *nothing* to do with each other except for sitting physically in the same cabinet).

If we do a lot of FF and RW during the movie MythTV is sure to lock up and I have to do a hard reset.

While we use the remote to control the Xbox (FF, RW, Pause, etc) I see the streamzap IR receiver light going crazy as it acknowledges the Xbox IR signals.

It sure seemed like a temperature issue, but mbmon and the system bios report the P4 I have at 33c and the system temp at 35c. Both are plenty cool.

Unfortunately, I don't have a fix. I came across this thread when I searched for "streamzap" and felt a bit of deja-vu when I read your problem.

I'm going out on a limb here and just guessing that you have other components in your entertainment center that you actively use alongside your Myth machinge.

Hmm - interesting. I thought that it was crashing randomly, but maybe it actually does correlate with the remote. I'm sure that sometimes when I come back after being away a couple days, the machine is down, but maybe that's only after I watch some TV.

I've disconnected the remote and we'll see how it goes. Luckily I have a wireless keyboard I can use for now.

Memory test came back clean after many passes. Is there any fix/workaround for the "Via bug"? Even if my system runs less than optimally, it would be better than having it crash all the time.

Have you read through and tried everything in this thread?
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... highlight=

I believe I've got my lockup issue resolved. Unfortunately I wasn't finding any info related to Streamzap and lockups (here, Google, or the other forums).

I decided to just replace it: http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... =streamzap

A very easy way to see if it's causing you problems would be to hook it up and use another remote to send it a barrage of signals. If you can get it to lockup on que then you've got your answer.

For what it's worth, I also have a VIA chipset and this has never been an issue for me. As I stated earlier, my system had been rock solid up until recently.

Good luck!

See my related response in this thread :

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... =streamzap

I unplugged my StreamZap, installed my MCE remote (came in a package from pcalchemy.com with the pvr-150mce) and upgraded to R5A26. Since then my box has been perfectly stable.

Well, the problem with the Streamzap appears to now be fixed, with 0.8.0 pre3 and a nice little patch fix from one of the folks on the LIRC list. I assume this will be included into the CVS soon. Check the LIRC list for the patch.