thelinuxlink.net

After completing my Backend/frontend (mybuntu dual core vdpau 2tb 4 tuners) i decided to upgrade my remote frontend.

My remote frontend was an old 600Mhz athlon 1 mid tower system . I used a Videologic SonicVortex2 (au8830 based) to give
spdif (optical) to my yamaha surround processor. I had a nvidia mx4000 graphics card which had s video out (i am still
running a 36" toshiba picture frame2 crt). I had never previously got the tv out to work as well as i would have liked
to give direct connection to the tv. I instead brought a kworld vga to tv unit from maplins. This worked ok but would
not retain settings on power down. I was running suse 10.3 on this with mythtv installated on top. Boot times were
slow, 2 minutes plus. Remote control was via a infra red keyboard, not really living room friendly.

I have decided to write this up as the upgrade process proved far more problematic than expected.

So an update of the motherboard cpu and graphics was planned. Searching Ebay i found a ASUS p4s533vm motherboard.
From spares i had a nvidia 5200fx card, 1gb ram and a p4 478pin SL6WF 2400 mhz cpu. On putting this hardware together
i found that a bios update was needed. I know that there are various means of updating bioses under linux. What i
found worked well for me in this case was to use Ultimate boot cd. This gave cd access on u: drive from which i could
run awdflash (and the bios file ps5vm110.awd) from a finalised cd. Having updated the bios i was able to boot from
the mythbuntu 10.04 cd. A couple of issues were that the cpu fan was very loud and the cpu clocked as a 1600 due to
the fsb being 533 not 800. Frame rate was erratic i suppected that i need a faster cpu. Sound via optical spdif worked.
I was able to get hold of a replcement 70mm cpu fan (akasa thermally controlled) which was much quieter. I ordered a
2800 533fsb P4 from ebay to replace the underclocked 2400. Even with this installed the picture was not smooth.
In order to make configuations changes easier i installed the vino remote desktop server on this machine. I was then
able to run the vinagre client on my backend/front end to remotely control the remote frontend. The advantage of this
was that i could run the tv as the lone display device and optimise the xorg.conf as required. I was also able to try
running -v playback to see if i could find any clues to why a 2800 mhz p4 would not play PAL standard def smoothly.
What i found was that the audio was being resampled from 48000 to 44100 hz and i was getting WriteAudio: buffer underrun
messages. If i used the oss sound drivers the picture ran smooth but the audio was a bit distorted. I believe this is
down to the quality of resamling done on the sound card. So a better card card was required. After much reasearch i
decided that the recenltly released Asus Xonar DG looked a good option, had spdif out, cmedia hd oxygen based. Ordered,
delivered, installed, no sound, conclusion too new! It is the new baby brother hd oxygen chip and is not yet supported.
As a stop gap until driver support arrives i can across a Terratec sixpack card on ebay for just over £10. Worked out
the box, spdif sound is fine as is the picture.

In order to improve the remote control i bought a vista MCE remote expecting mythbuntu to natively support it. Unfortunetly
what i had bought was a copy of an ortek vrc-1100. This was not a proper mce but a dual HID device. For this i have opted
to set up a xmodmap to get a few more keys functional, it is now OK.

I have now got picture and sound working ok. For some fine picture adjustments i editted the .nvidia-settings-rc in the
home directory directly. I had to use this to sort the overscan out.

Final things is to get mythmusic working (tried nfs caused bootup problems) autofs looks interesting also a longer s video
lead so i can get the box out of sight!

Did you say two Terabytes? Jumping Jiminy Cricket!

yeh it is quite generous isn't it!

Thought i would future proof as much as possible. Terrabyte drives really are not that expensive now, even
when here in the UK we pay in pounds what you would pay in dollars in the US.

Iam really pleased with the setup now, I had a few false starts previously installing mythtv on top of opensuse.

My decision to have another go at putting together a new mythtv system was prompted by Dan and Pats' blog.

They are are so enthusiastic and the advice is very good. They strongly recommended VDPAU , i have a
nvidia 220 gt card and the quality is excellent and the cpu load very low. Also they advised the use of a dedicated
distro, mythbuntu did make the job much easier.

I have bought a 5m s video lead and the remote frontend box is now hidden out the way. The picture via s video is
slightly soft and there is occasionally slowly scrolling pale horizontal bands on the image, but is certainly good enough
not to distract you from the program you are watching.

I would like to go flat screen in the living room and link up via VGA or HDMI then all the issues with sorting out the
analog link would go away.

One recent modification to the Remote frontend was the fitting of a Artic Cooling Accelero S2 to the graphics card.

This is a fully passive heatpipe and finned radiator style cooler that is compatible with a wide range of ATI and NVIDIA
based cards.

I had discovered that the fan type vga cooler fitted to the 1/2 height 5200fx card i was using was very noisy. Cost wise
this cooler was about the same as a passive cooled 5200fx so i thought i might as well try it.

Due to the cramped component layout on this half height card i had to remove two of the 4 mounting lugs from the
Aluminium securing plate with attaches the cooler to the graphics chip.It was possible to remove the Aluminium
securing plate from the cooler to do this modification.

Card worked fine after installation of the Cooler.

The cooler is significantly larger than the card. So it is not a solution for a compact case.

Noisiest component now is the harddrive which you only notice during boot up.