[mythtv-users] PVR-500 + VIA KT400 = rebooting? black magic problem?

[Jo Shields]

Fedor Pikus wrote:

> On 9/14/05, *Brian M. Sperlongano* <zelonewolf at gmail.com 
> <mailto:zelonewolf at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Folks,
>
>     I recently bought a PVR-500 to replace my existing low-quality
>     saa7139 card.  I've finally gotten through the various
>     instructions and have gotten nice high-quality video out of
>     /dev/video0.... but only for about 5 seconds, after which my
>     machine reboots!!!  There was a previous thread on the list where
>     someone complained of having problems with KT133 motherboards, and
>     since my mobo (Soyo KT400) uses the KT400 chipset, I thought there
>     might be a problem.  
>
>
> It's a fairly common problem, most VIA-based boards won't even boot 
> with PVR-500. It's not strictly a chipset problem, at least one vendor 
> (ASUS) acknowleged the problem and released a BIOS update which fixes 
> it. As far as I know, Soyo did not, I could not get Soyo Dragon 2 to 
> boot with PVR-500.
>
> Try the latest BIOS for your board, but if that does not work, you're 
> pretty much hosed.
>
>
>     Also, with the .3x release of ivtv, it seems that the
>     no_black_magic flag is no longer an option, as I get the following
>     in dmesg when I try to install the card:
>
>     cx25840: Unknown parameter `no_black_magic'
>
>     In any case: perfect video for a few seconds, then POOF reboot.
>
>     -Brian
>

Older VIA Chipsets, especially the KT133, have rather... fragile... PCI 
busses. The best known symptom is the cracking sound caused when using a 
Sound Blaster, from the PCI bus flooding and choking.

I'd assume a PVR500 would throw a fair bit of data around the PCI bus...

--Jo Shields