[mythtv-users] What's the best HD frontend only hardware?

Ronald Frazier ron at ronfrazier.net
Fri Feb 29 18:16:04 UTC 2008


I've build my systems based on a Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H ($80 newegg)
and a Core 2 Duo E4500 ($125). The motherboard has built in
VGA+DVI+HDMI. It uses the nvidia i630 chipset and a onboard nvidia
7100 GPU.

For the rest of the system, I've got 2GB memory (was like $35 after
rebate), a 330 watt SeaSonic power supply ($60), a Coolermaster
CAV-T03 case ($60) and a samsung SH-S203B SATA DVD drive ($30). My
frontend does a diskless boot and my backend has a Samsung 500GB
HD501LJ hard drive ($105). The backend also has a PVR-350, PVR-500,
and HD Homerun.

The system works great. It's hooked up to my TV at 1360x768 resolution
(I should have a new 1080 tv in a few days, and I can post updated
info once I try that out). Playing 1080i content from my HD HomeRun
uses about 20% of each core with no deinterlacing, about 25% of each
for linear, and 55% each for Yadif.

I've download a  few 1080p H264 trailers. Playing those back in
mplayer uses about 75-80% of one core (do you need to do something
special to get mplayer to do multi processor?).

I use Debian. I tried etch at first (2.6.18) and the installer
couldn't even recognize the SATA controller. Upgrading to debian
testing (2.6.22) got the hard drive controller recognized so I could
at least install, but the network and sound didn't work. Upgrading the
kernel to 2.6.23 fixed that. For the nvidia 7100 graphics, the 169.04
beta drivers worked (I had to have it compile the drivers for the
kernel).

As opposed to what Chris said, I think the stock CPU fan works great
(though it might not be great if you overclock...I wouldn't know).
I've never seen the systems get more than about 35 degrees C. I
believe that's was the case temp...the CPU temp was actually lower
than that (the case I use has an exhaust port coming right from the
CPU fan). But I can't say what the temp is under heavy load or
anything. I've never bothered to install any sort of monitoring
software (can anyone suggest a command line one I can use?). I always
just gave it a bit of a workout and quickly rebooted and checked in
the bios.

But that CPU stays quite cool. I actually got a fan failure warning
from my system after I first built it. It seems that at idle, the CPU
is cool enough that it turns the fan completely off, so I had to
disable the fan monitoring.

As far as reliability, everything has worked great for me. There is
only one hiccup I'm still trying to work out. I use suspend to ram,
and every now and then when I try to wake it, the system will power up
but it won't actually wake. I haven't figured out if it's a hardware
or software error. It might also be related to the fact that it runs
diskless. Not sure. I have to look into it more.

Also, with suspend to ram, there was one other hiccup. The network
drivers need to be unloaded before suspending and then reloaded after
waking. Thats not much problem, except if you want to do diskless. I
actually had to put an intel network card in to work around that.

As far as power consumption, it's quite good. My diskless frontend
runs about 35w at idle, 55w at full load (both cores at 100%). My
backend (with 1 drive + PVR-350 + PVR-500) runs about 65-70w at idle,
95w under full load.

-- 
Ron


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