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Dude, I got a Dell
http://forums.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3329		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  brianmat [ Mon Jan 24, 2005 9:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Dude, I got a Dell
I was not very happy with the performance of my old Celeron system, and with only 2 slots I couldn't fit much into the board.

So, I used my Dell 8400. It is a very quiet machine and houses a hyperthreaded P4 (2.6).

I have 1200 MB of ram on the machine with a combo generic black CD+RW/DVD combo drive.

I added a generic firewire card to the mix. Worked without a hitch after I added the ohci1394 driver to my modules list.

I am using a generic tuner card. No problems there with basic cable and over the air stuff.

Sometimes the boot will hang on the ethernet card, but this seems to be a known issue. I just reset until it boots.

My sound card is a C-Media CM8738 sound card with an add-on toslink and coax digital setup.

For fun, I added an 2 slot external firewire drive case. I followed the info on LVM on the Wiki page. Webmin can make some of this a little easier for double checking your work.

Problems:

1. No SPDIF. Followed the Wiki again for digital but it did not work until I muted all of the optical line out settings in alsamixer. I was pulling my hair out on this one until I just started flipping switches until it worked. Talk about a pain in the butt. One more system and I am sure to start drinking again.

2. Firewire. It's a bit of a pain to get started. I created a VERY basic script which fires at boot:

Quote:
#!/bin/bash
./rescan-scsi-bus.sh

sleep 1s

vgscan

sleep 1s

vgchange -a y vg

sleep 1s

mount /dev/vg/myth /myth/



Overall the system works pretty zippy. It still gets choppy when ripping a DVD though. I can't complain since I am listening to Guns N Roses over my digital out.

Of course, no DTS tracks work, but it seems that is an MPlayer issue.

4. I had to update the IMDB perl script to catch the listing information. See http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3313

5. Ran the NVidia install scripts and used the sample TV out config file. Nothing really eventful there. I ran the NVidia update after everything was running well the first time. Looks much better and runs much faster - no more flicker.

Let me know what other information I can post that will help. Unless you get reference hardware there is a lot of poking around in config files and trial and error.

Just to let you know though, I love LVM and firewire. No problems yet.
Author:  khrusher [ Tue Jan 25, 2005 8:09 am ]
Post subject: 
my Dell hangs at boot. disconnecting the network cable allows successful boot 100% of the time...once i see the boot starting up the backend, I connect the patch cable.
Author:  brianmat [ Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:45 am ]
Post subject: 
Ok, maybe I just had a HUGE string of luck, and this makes no sense at all, but I have not had a single problem with the machine hanging on boot once I changed to the graphical boot option.

I know it can't be the reason, but I was hanging > 50% of the time before I did that. Since then, I have done about 20-30 reboots testing my firewire setup and I have not had a single hang.

Not a solution, just an interesting observation.
Author:  atomclock [ Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:51 am ]
Post subject: 
That is the same way I fixed my problem... My system was hanging after installing r4v5 and I finally fixed the problem by getting rid of the vga options in the lilo.conf file. I don't know why it worked I only know it has completely fixed the problem.
Author:  Human [ Sat Apr 09, 2005 1:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Dude, I got a Dell
brianmat wrote:
4. I had to update the IMDB perl script to catch the listing information. See http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3313

Hello! Because the forum was down awhile back, this link is dead. Could you be so kind as to post your imdb.pl changes somewhere appropriate and let us know?
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