[mythtv-users] How I solved my PVR-350 hard lockup problem

[Ryan Dalzell]

Hi Guys,

I just recently did some fiddling with my machine and - of course - created 
severe havoc and much domestic turmoil for days afterwards. The box would 
hard lock (hang) and have to be power cycled. Then it would hang again. 
There is seemingly no pattern to when these would happen. I could watch 
LiveTV for hours and then change channel and it would hang.

I've fixed it now but I noticed plenty of other people having the same very 
frustrating problem. My theory is that perhaps there is a common factor in 
this and that is, my probably quite common, hardware configuration:

* PVR-350 (250 probably the same)
* EPIA board
* SFF case with brick power supply

What I did to cause the chaos was upgrade the hard drive from 80GB to 250GB. 
What I did to fix it was remove the hard drive altogether and boot the 
machine over the network (pxe, netboot). Now the machine is rock solid, 
records shows all evening, watches LiveTV, etc, etc. It's back to being the 
little box of joy in the corner!

Basically, the power supply that I was using does not have the ability to 
keep the voltages high enough at all times to keep the machine happy. And 
this is a 90W supply I bought separately, not the 60W I got with the case - 
that was pretty much useless as the box regularly booted without ethernet 
(well know problem I believe).

Anyway, what's my point? If you're having hard lockups, resets, etc. with a 
PVR-350 in a SFF PC can I suggest you try minimising the power consumption 
or using a much bigger power supply. At the moment I have a 90W with just 
an EPIA-M board and the PVR-350. No hard drive, no CD-ROM, no LCD etc. And 
my voltages are still a bit low, so 90W is probably still marginal, but it 
works, so now I'm going to leave it alone...

Anyway, hope this helps someone.

Cheers,
-Ryan