[mythtv-users] Newbie with a shopping list for review please

[Justin The Cynical]

bryan wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Below is my shopping list for my MythTV system or LinuxMCE sytem not sure
> yet.

*snip*

> Shopping list
> 1-ASUS M2NPV-VM Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
> 1-AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 2.3GHz Socket AM2 Processor
> 1-Patriot 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Memory
> 1-CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX ATX12V V2.2 450W Power Supply 
> 3-Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
> 1-Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500 MCE Dual TV Recorder Tuner Card w/MCE Remote 253
> PCI Interface
> 1-LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DH-20A4P-04
> 1-SILVERSTONE SST-LC17-B Black Computer Case

CPU:

The CPU with the listed tuner card is overkill.  You really wouldn't 
need that much power unless you:

Want the commercial flagging/transcoding to be finished really quickly
You are future-proofing for ATSC/HD watching.

The Hauppauge card you listed is SD only.  A P4-based Celeron can deal 
with that quite easily.

Memory:

2 gigs is 1 gig too much.  While memory is cheap right now, I would be 
surprised if that second stick is really used for anything beyond system 
caching.  The money spent on the RAM /might/ be better used elsewhere, 
depending on how much you are paying per stick.

This is what my system looks like after 22 days of uptime (I have a dual 
ATSC tuner FE/BE, no analog tuners, sending audio to an external 5.1 
receiver)

Mem:   1035240k total,   960100k used,    75140k free,    13052k buffers
Swap:   257032k total,      584k used,   256448k free,   689660k cached

The top four memory hogs:

   PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
24936 mythtv    15   0  220m 116m  23m S  0.0 11.5 147:12.06 mythfrontend
  3078 root      26  10  632m  56m  15m S  0.0  5.6  24:06.52 mythbackend
24902 root      15   0 44584  37m 3784 S  0.0  3.7  12:51.65 X
  5644 apache    16   0 18428  11m 3172 S  0.0  1.1   0:00.67 httpd


Power supply:

Personally, I'd go for a 500 watt Seasonic, but that's me.  :-)


Case:

I have that exact case.  If I was to do it again, I probably wouldn't 
have gotten it.

Problems-
With a full size ATX board, it's a bit cramped towards the front of the 
case near the drive bays.

The top cover is a bit flimsy IMO.

The drive bays are a pain to install/remove due to bad screw placement 
(check the quick install page here 
http://www.silverstonetek.com/download/d_contents.php?pno=lc17&area=usa).

(This is my biggest complaint) The optical drive 'covers' are actually 
attached to the optical drive via double stick tape.

(See http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/sslc17/4.html 
for a picture.  The quick install page also shows the procedure for 
removing the covers)

Not only is this cheesy IMO, but optical drives with a curved tray 
faceplate (which that Lite-On has) may have a hard time with this method 
of attachment.  IIRC, my printed book manual for the case said not to 
use drives with a curved tray faceplate.

Aside from that, the loudest parts of the system (Northwood P4, parallel 
IDE drives) are the hard drives.  The cooling vents for the system do 
not generate a lot of air turbulence,  helping make a quieter system.


Tuner card:

Unless you are planning on capturing from your local cable co, or 
firewire from a satellite feed, I'd get an ATSC tuner card for the local 
digital broadcasts.


And as always, YMMV.  :-)