[vdr] Re: Hardware recommendation?

[Christian Bodenstedt <c.bodenstedt@cityweb.de>]

On Tue, 22 Apr 2003 23:13:34 +0200
Stephan Martin <dvb@martin.de> wrote:
> Christian Bodenstedt wrote:
> 
> > > Most important for me is, that its stable 
> >
> > as I don't use my slowest old 13.5GB-HD or try
> > working on the 3 other HD's at the same time. 
> what problems do you have with your harddrives?
> never had problems with that except when using the
> hdparm-options marked as dangerous.

No problem with the drives, no write-errors or something, just the system
is getting a bit slow when copying big files between more than two disks.
For example when using:

  cp /mnt/hda1/bigone /mnt/hdc1/&
  cp /mnt/hdc2/bigtoo /mnt/hde1/

I won't wonder if playback of an mp3 from hdc stops for a short time.


> I am also interessted in which parts the probleme causes, so could you
> try watching TV (Time-shift) on a full-featured card (which revision ?)
> with xawtv (perhaps full-screen), start 'updatedb' and tell me if it
> works longer than 30 minutes?

I'd really like to, but I just own a budged-card :-(
But I just tried running updatedb&transcode while recording something with
vdr and watching another vdr-recording with mplayer (fullscreen) without
noticeable framedrops or any other problem. 


> > Maybe it would be the better choice to choose a mainbord that is as
> > "old" as the cheap processor. 
> If producers of the boards don't write in their manuals "We don't
> support this and that processor" and if the components are mainstream
> and the best Performance/Euro and they are not able to make the known
> (older) components reliable, how should they make components work, that
> didn't exist when designing a board?
> 
> I think processors don't change as fast... so if they support new ones
> and they support the frequencys and the voltage, there should be no
> problem related to an older tested processor.

That's right, but on the other hand I think a chipset like KT266 was
primary designed for use with FSB266-CPUs. Also there are always other new
features on new chipsets and new CPUs than just increased frequencys.


> > Then you can be sure that the bord works more
> > Also I don't think you would have spent more money if you
> > had bought the duron with a kt133(a)-bord and would buy an Athlon XP
> > with kt333-board in future. 
> I had an kt133 (elitegroup) before. It had a few problems, but the
> computer of my brother broke and he needs a computer for his buissness.
> 
> I tested his board (JETWAY 663AS) and I could reproduce crashes, I
> changed CPU, RAM, GFX BIOS options... So I gave him mine where I know
> were the problems are. (No Jetway for me any longer)
> 
> So I had that Duron 800 and had to buy a new board and new RAM (my
> brother needed more RAM anyway) PC266 was nearly the price as PC266 and
> I would have bought a new cpu, but I had to many problems with it.

So I misunderstood what you wrote in your first mail before.

 
> I would probably buy a kt133, but I didn't find one, I can trust.

I just took a look at the newest c't-magazine: Alternate still sells some
few kt133a-boards ;-)


> > Your pc freezes completely? Maybe a problem with your power supply?
> I have only problems doing videooverlay. I think video overlay doesn't
> need more power than copying the bytes with the cpu.

Your right. 


> > Are two of these HDDs on the same IDE-channel (one as master, the
> > other slave)? 
> yes, but again: I never had problems with things like
> make -j 8 bzImage and updatedb and copying 2GB from one HD to another
> at the same time.

I mentioned it because you wrote about video playback stopping for some
1/10s. This could be a symptom of two discs at the same channel when they
are accessed at the same time.


I'm happy with my PC which is a combination of VIA and AMD. I'm sure it's
the most stable PC I ever owned and I don't remember any real system
crashes. The only crashes I had were some few kernel-panics caused by
older unstable versions of the DVB-driver (and the usual problems with
win98), I think that's acceptable.


Christian



Christian


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