[linux-dvb] uncorrectable errors when high activity on ATI graphics card

[Richard Ablewhite <vv1gg1@yahoo.co.uk>]

Hi,

Been using a Nova-T (budget card) for years now and have a reliable 
system with 2.6.5 kernel and 1.1.1 linuxtv-dvb drivers from gentoo. This 
worked great on an old box with a 1.2ghz Athlon, Sis 735 based mb and 
geforce 2mx graphics card.

ive recently built a new box running pretty much same software setup and 
kernel but powered by a dual proc P3-800 box with 512m rdram, intel 
based motherboard and an ATi grahics card. When I started playing live 
streams with mplayer the stream would play the buffered content fine 
then stutter and crash. Using tzap and by doing a few tests it seems 
that when there is a large amount of graphics activity on screen tzap 
reports high numbers of uncorrctable errors. This is not related to disk 
or CPU activity as I tested for this, purely graphics activity. So 
basically if i am using tzap to monitor the stream and then run mplayer 
to display any video content or run glxgears tzap shows a large number 
of uncorrectable errors and often even looses FE_HAS_LOCK.

I fail to see an obvious connection between the two and was wondering if 
anyones seen this before? just incase anyone thinks im crazy the tzap  
output is at the bottom of this mail :)

I can hapily compile a kernel and do other CPU and disk intensive tasks 
without any problems, really seems just related to graphics activity.

My next test will be to isolate the issue more by switching the geforce 
card instead of the ATi. If this works it could mean theres an 
incompatibility between the nova-t and the ati graphics card. If theres 
still problems then it would be specific to the mboard or AGP bus? Guess 
ill dig out an old PCI card at this stage...

Any advice or tips before i continue would be much apreciated, ive had a 
look through the archives and not found much

The new server is a Compaq A550 incase anyone has a similar setup

Thanks,

Rich

---

Spot where i ran glxgears:

status 1f | signal 3333 | snr a8a8 | ber 000012f2 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal 3333 | snr a1a1 | ber 0000126d | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal 3333 | snr a8a8 | ber 00001649 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal 3333 | snr 7878 | ber 0000ffff | unc 000018b6 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 03 | signal 3333 | snr 0000 | ber 0000ffff | unc 000018bf |
status 03 | signal 3333 | snr 0000 | ber 0000ffff | unc 00000865 |
status 03 | signal 3333 | snr 0000 | ber 0000ffff | unc 0000085a |
status 03 | signal 3333 | snr 0000 | ber 0000ffff | unc 00000873 |
status 07 | signal 3333 | snr 7171 | ber 0000ffff | unc 00001459 |
status 1f | signal 3333 | snr 7979 | ber 0000ffff | unc 00001820 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 03 | signal 3333 | snr 0000 | ber 0000ffff | unc 00000d43 |
status 03 | signal 3333 | snr 0000 | ber 0000ffff | unc 00000bd1 |
status 03 | signal 3333 | snr 0000 | ber 0000ffff | unc 00000d2b |
status 03 | signal 3333 | snr 0000 | ber 0000ffff | unc 00000720 |
status 03 | signal 3333 | snr 0000 | ber 0000ffff | unc 00000a09 |
status 07 | signal 3333 | snr 7070 | ber 0000ffff | unc 00000fe2 |
status 03 | signal 3333 | snr 0000 | ber 0000ffff | unc 00000dff |
status 1f | signal 3333 | snr aaaa | ber 0000e72d | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal 3333 | snr acac | ber 00001225 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal 3333 | snr aaaa | ber 000012bd | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK
status 1f | signal 3333 | snr a8a8 | ber 000013c8 | unc 00000000 | 
FE_HAS_LOCK