[mythtv-users] Spontaneous Reboot when second tuner starts recording!

[Brian Wood]

On Jul 14, 2006, at 8:33 AM, John Pierce wrote:

> Hello, I have a problem that I have had no luck with solving.  This
> problem has existed since I installed my PVR 500 MCE, originally on a
> Fedora 4 box, now on OpenSuSE 10.1.  The system is rock solid and
> stable during continuous live tv and all other aspects of MythTV with
> the one exception of watching live tv and having the second tuner
> start a recording.
>
> During live tv, if the second tuner starts a scheduled recording the
> system will just spontaneously reboot.  When the system is completely
> rebooted the recording will continue with the recording and to get the
> complete recording I must cat together the two small pieces.
>
> If not watching live tv, all scheduled recordings proceed normally.
>
> I can find nothing in the logs that seem abnormal to me.
>
> I will detail my machine and supply the output of lsusb and lspci:
>
> Custom built:
> Biostar M7VIT Pro Ver 1.1
> AMD Athlon XP 2000
> 1 Gigabyte Memory
> 320 Gb Disc Space (1 maxtor, 1 seagate) IDE interface
> ATI Radeon 9000 AGP (128 Mb Ram)
> Aureal Semiconductor AU8810 Vortex PCI Sound Card
> Linksys NC100 Fast Ethernet Card
>
> The tuner inputs are coming in on the two composite in sets of the PVR
> 500 MCE, External cable stb's from comcast.  Both stb's connected to
> the computer through the serial ports for channel changing capability.
>

Spontaneous re-boots are a bear to troubleshoot, as you have discovered.

In my experience they are almost always at least partially hardware  
related.

The last such problem I had to track down for a friend turned out to  
be bad RAM.

If your 1GB is two DIMMs I would try running with just 1 of them at a  
time and see what happens.

If it's a single DIMM try another one of you can.

You could also try one of the many RAM-testing programs, but in my  
experience they will show up this type of problem only about 50% of  
the time.

If your motherboard permits it, you might also try loosening up on  
your memory timings, and perhaps even bumping the DIMM voltage *just  
one* minor step (I take no responsibility for the results of over- 
volting).

I can't remember if the XP 2000 supports MCE reporting, but if it  
does and your kernel supports it as well, you might also look for  
machine check errors before you get your total failure, sometimes  
this can give you a clue.

Normally I would give the usual advice about blowing out all the  
dust, re-seating all cards and cables, making sure your power-supply  
is good etc., but with your problem happening in such a specific  
situation it doesn't sound like that sort of problem, although such  
measures never hurt.

Good luck.