[mythtv-users] Capture Card Power Requirements

[James Crow]

James Crow wrote:
> David Rees wrote:
>> On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 1:46 PM, James Crow<james at ultratans.com> wrote:
>>  
>>> David Rees wrote:
>>>    
>>>> I'd guess that your system pulls about 200w at the most during bootup.
>>>>  You should pick up a Kill-A-Watt and test it - they're useful for
>>>> other things, too! :-)
>>>>       
>>> I just booted things up with the Kill-A-Watt. The highest reading I got
>>> (right after pushing the power button) was 251 watts. This PSU is 
>>> pre 80Plus
>>> so I have no idea how efficient it might be, but 251 watts looks like I
>>> should have plenty of breathing room. I will try running memtest 
>>> overnight
>>> on this system and see if reports errors. Tomorrow I will try to set 
>>> all
>>> capture cards to record at once (4 simultaneous recordings).
>>>     
>>
>> Well, at best it's probably 80% efficient, then, so 251w * 0.8 = 200w.
>>  Damn, I didn't think I'd be that close to guessing your system's
>> power draw!  ;-)
>>
>> Let us know how the testing goes.
>>
>> -Dave
>> _______________________________________________
>>   
> Memtest ran all night (about 15 hours) and found no errors.
>
> This system was built in Feb 2006 (PSU is older) and the MB should not 
> have a problem with bad caps. The only motherboards I have personally 
> seen with bad caps are much older, early pentium 4 boards. After 
> visually inspecting the MB, the caps all look good. I hate to pull out 
> the PSU to check its caps because all the wires are very neatly 
> dressed with zip ties and I will have to void any warranty that might 
> be left on the PSU. It will take me an hour or more just to get it out 
> and back in. One thing that bothers me is the BIOS hardware monitor 
> shows the voltages as low:
> 12V rail -> 11.71V
> 5V rail -> 4.89V
> 3.3V rail -> 3.26V
> Vcore -> 1.36V.
>
> I don't know if the sensors on the MB are not very sensitive (or 
> poorly calibrated) or if the voltages are indeed low. My multimeter 
> shows the voltages to be 11.97V and 5.00V.
>
> After typing the above text I removed the PSU and voided the warranty. 
> It has two failed caps in it. So now I am in need of a new power 
> supply. I have used Antec almost exclusively in the past, but am open 
> to other brands. At work we have a Zalman on our test bench and it has 
> performed very well. The Corsair seem to be highly rated on NewEgg.
>
> Any opinions while I go to search the archives?
>
> Thanks,
> James
>
Great responses so far, but I have a new wrinkle.

Yesterday I temporarily added a spare PSU from work (a Zalman 360 watt) 
to my machine. Kill-A-Watt readings are very similar to the Antec PSU.

Anyway, last night I was watching a recorded show on a FE and the video 
froze. After a few seconds I got a message about an error displaying the 
video. The frontend appeared to freeze for a bit.

This morning I looked at the BE and it was frozen hard. Only a power 
cycle brought it back to life. I don't think the lockup last night was 
caused by power issues.

The change that brought on the instability was the move of a HD and a 
PCI capture card to this machine. Prior to my first post regarding the 
problem I had unhooked the HD and was still experiencing problems. The 
list of possible reasons seems to be settling toward the PCI capture 
card (a PVR-500). Last night when the machine froze, the PVR-500 was 
recording two shows. The PVR-500 previously had been in a slave BE with 
a Pinnacle 800i ATSC/QAM recorder. I had no trouble from it while it was 
in that machine.

I am quickly running out of ideas. My wife is home with our 10 day old 
baby so speed to resolution is helpful. If anyone can spot something 
else in the logs or has any ideas I am open to suggestions.

Thanks,
James

The last log entries are around 23:22. Here is the syslog output:
Aug 20 21:09:51 james-desktop -- MARK --
Aug 20 21:29:51 james-desktop -- MARK --
Aug 20 21:49:51 james-desktop -- MARK --
Aug 20 22:09:51 james-desktop -- MARK --
Aug 20 22:29:51 james-desktop -- MARK --
Aug 20 22:49:51 james-desktop -- MARK --
Aug 20 23:09:51 james-desktop -- MARK --

This is the mythbackend.log from the crash:
2009-08-20 22:57:30.404 Reschedule requested for id 0.
2009-08-20 22:57:33.854 Scheduled 403 items in 3.4 = 0.03 match + 3.38 place
2009-08-20 22:57:54.911 Reschedule requested for id 0.
2009-08-20 22:57:57.259 Scheduled 403 items in 2.3 = 0.00 match + 2.30 place
2009-08-20 22:57:59.441 TVRec(3): ASK_RECORDING 3 29 0 0
2009-08-20 22:57:59.461 TVRec(5): ASK_RECORDING 5 29 0 0
2009-08-20 22:58:31.771 TVRec(3): Changing from None to RecordingOnly
2009-08-20 22:58:31.782 TVRec(3): HW Tuner: 3->3
2009-08-20 22:58:32.083 AutoExpire: CalcParams(): Max required Free 
Space: 3.0 GB w/freq: 10 min
2009-08-20 22:58:32.090 Started recording: Chelsea Lately: channel 1060 
on cardid 3, sourceid 1
2009-08-20 22:58:32.211 TVRec(5): Changing from None to RecordingOnly
2009-08-20 22:58:32.229 TVRec(5): HW Tuner: 5->5
2009-08-20 22:58:32.888 AutoExpire: CalcParams(): Max required Free 
Space: 3.0 GB w/freq: 8 min
2009-08-20 22:58:32.897 Started recording: Property Virgins "The Art of 
Compromise": channel 1053 on cardid 5, sourceid 1
2009-08-20 23:01:30.181 TVRec(1): Changing from RecordingOnly to None
2009-08-20 23:01:30.224 Finished recording Private Practice "Finishing": 
channel 3772
2009-08-20 23:01:30.236 Reschedule requested for id 0.
2009-08-20 23:01:30.551 Finished recording Private Practice "Finishing": 
channel 3772
2009-08-20 23:01:31.675 
RingBuf(/mnt/recordings4/video/3772_20090820220200.mpg): Waited 1.0 
seconds for data to become available...
2009-08-20 23:01:31.919 Scheduled 398 items in 1.7 = 0.01 match + 1.67 place
2009-08-20 23:01:33.613 Using runtime prefix = /usr
2009-08-20 23:01:33.628 Empty LocalHostName.
2009-08-20 23:01:33.634 Using localhost value of james-desktop
2009-08-20 23:01:33.854 New DB connection, total: 1
2009-08-20 23:01:33.952 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: 
192.168.253.50
2009-08-20 23:01:33.983 Closing DB connection named 'DBManager0'
2009-08-20 23:01:34.014 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: 
192.168.253.50
2009-08-20 23:01:34.022 New DB connection, total: 2
2009-08-20 23:01:34.024 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: 
192.168.253.50
2009-08-20 23:01:34.040 Current Schema Version: 1214
2009-08-20 23:01:34.621 Using runtime prefix = /usr
2009-08-20 23:01:34.630 Empty LocalHostName.
2009-08-20 23:01:34.630 Using localhost value of james-desktop
2009-08-20 23:01:34.644 New DB connection, total: 1
2009-08-20 23:01:34.652 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: 
192.168.253.50
2009-08-20 23:01:34.654 Closing DB connection named 'DBManager0'
2009-08-20 23:01:34.656 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: 
192.168.253.50
2009-08-20 23:01:34.658 New DB connection, total: 2
2009-08-20 23:01:34.660 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: 
192.168.253.50
2009-08-20 23:01:34.663 Current Schema Version: 1214
2009-08-20 23:01:36.943 AFD: Opened codec 0xd5f920, id(MPEG2VIDEO) 
type(Video)
2009-08-20 23:01:36.947 AFD: codec AC3 has 6 channels
2009-08-20 23:01:36.971 AFD: Opened codec 0xd60020, id(AC3) type(Audio)
2009-08-20 23:01:37.138 AFD: Opened codec 0x1685910, id(MPEG2VIDEO) 
type(Video)
2009-08-20 23:01:37.400 AFD: codec AC3 has 6 channels
2009-08-20 23:01:37.711 AFD: Opened codec 0x1686010, id(AC3) type(Audio)
2009-08-20 23:01:38.815 Preview: Grabbed preview 
'/mnt/recordings4/video/3772_20090820220200.mpg' 1280x720 at 154s
2009-08-20 23:01:38.844 Preview: Grabbed preview 
'/mnt/recordings4/video/3772_20090820220200.mpg' 1280x720 at 154s
2009-08-20 23:01:39.798 JobQueue: Commercial Flagging Starting for 
Chelsea Lately recorded from channel 1060 at Thu Aug 20 22:59:00 2009
2009-08-20 23:01:40.003 Using runtime prefix = /usr
2009-08-20 23:01:40.007 Empty LocalHostName.
2009-08-20 23:01:40.008 Using localhost value of james-desktop
2009-08-20 23:01:40.021 New DB connection, total: 1
2009-08-20 23:01:40.029 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: 
192.168.253.50
2009-08-20 23:01:40.031 Closing DB connection named 'DBManager0'
2009-08-20 23:01:40.033 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: 
192.168.253.50
2009-08-20 23:01:40.039 New DB connection, total: 2
2009-08-20 23:01:40.041 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host: 
192.168.253.50
2009-08-20 23:01:40.080 Connecting to backend server: 
192.168.253.50:6543 (try 1 of 5)
2009-08-20 23:01:40.083 Using protocol version 40
2009-08-20 23:01:40.085 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Monitor
2009-08-20 23:01:40.087 adding: james-desktop as a client (events: 0)
2009-08-20 23:01:40.089 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Monitor
2009-08-20 23:01:40.090 adding: james-desktop as a client (events: 1)
2009-08-20 23:01:40.386 AFD: Opened codec 0x2739010, id(MPEG2VIDEO) 
type(Video)
2009-08-20 23:01:40.392 AFD: codec MP2 has 2 channels
2009-08-20 23:01:40.393 AFD: Opened codec 0x27395b0, id(MP2) type(Audio)
2009-08-20 23:07:04.554 AutoExpire: CalcParams(): Max required Free 
Space: 3.0 GB w/freq: 15 min
2009-08-20 23:12:30.793 Reschedule requested for id 0.
2009-08-20 23:12:31.481 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1042_20090818165900.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:31.738 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1004_20090819162200.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:31.757 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1007_20090819162200.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:31.770 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1049_20090820074700.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:31.779 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1042_20090820100700.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:31.802 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1049_20090820100700.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:31.973 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2009-08-20 23:12:31.975 adding: mythfront as a client (events: 0)
2009-08-20 23:12:31.976 MainServer::HandleAnnounce FileTransfer
2009-08-20 23:12:31.977 adding: mythfront as a remote file transfer
2009-08-20 23:12:32.363 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1042_20090818165900.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:32.456 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1004_20090819162200.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:32.461 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1007_20090819162200.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:32.465 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1049_20090820074700.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:32.469 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1042_20090820100700.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:32.473 ProgramInfo, Error: GetPlaybackURL: 
'1049_20090820100700.mpg' should be local, but it can not be found.
2009-08-20 23:12:33.155 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2009-08-20 23:12:33.199 adding: mythfront as a client (events: 0)
2009-08-20 23:12:33.213 MainServer::HandleAnnounce FileTransfer
2009-08-20 23:12:33.214 adding: mythfront as a remote file transfer
2009-08-20 23:12:34.760 Scheduled 398 items in 3.9 = 0.16 match + 3.77 place
2009-08-20 23:12:34.805 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2009-08-20 23:12:34.806 adding: mythfront as a client (events: 0)
2009-08-20 23:12:34.807 MainServer::HandleAnnounce FileTransfer
2009-08-20 23:12:34.808 adding: mythfront as a remote file transfer
2009-08-20 23:21:46.161 UPnpMedia: BuildMediaMap VIDEO scan starting in 
:/var/lib/mythtv/videos:
2009-08-20 23:21:46.186 UPnpMedia: BuildMediaMap Done. Found 0 objects
2009-08-20 23:22:04.847 AutoExpire: CalcParams(): Max required Free 
Space: 3.0 GB w/freq: 15 min