[mythtv-users] MythTV Hardware Recommendations - Stability is the Key

[Leo Kliger]

> 
> My question is, what would be a good choice for a cheap but complete
> MicroATX motherboard and processor combination that will support MythTV
> with rock solid stability? My primary concerns are STABILITY, heat and
> power consumption.
> 

I built a system based on the specs of the Dragon MythTV at the
following link.

http://mythic.tv/system_specs.php

I run standard digital definition via x4 Aver Media DVB-T 771 cards on
Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) with MythTV 0.19-fixes.

The only instability issue I have had since late last year has been
dropped disks out of my x4 disk SATAII RAID 5. 
This has been a random issue (though noticed under or just after load)
and after switching file system types and replacing disks a few times I
no longer believe it to be a Linux issue or that of hardware failure.
 
After much research and gnashing of teeth I happened upon a brief
discussion at vger.kernel.org where someone described the exact same
issue.
They also had a fix which was to jumper set the drives to SATAI.
It's early days yet as I did this just 5 days ago. 
But I have put my system under a lot of load this last week both
recording on all tuners and performing lossless transcodes something
which I was becoming quite worried about doing.

My only complaint (other than the above) is the cheap bios fan on the
"MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum" motherboard which became noisy after just 10-12
weeks of runtime.
But some lubricating oil and a dash of multi-purpose grease has fixed
that little issue.

Hope this helps,

Leo