On Tuesday 12 September 2006 07:12, Keehan Dowd wrote:
> Hi Hans,
> I did not want to intrude and send this directly to your email
> address...
>
> I caved in with the DMA errors and bought an SiS chipset motherboard
> and I was wondering if you'd like the VIA mobo I replaced?  It's a
> MachSpeed P4M800 (http://www.machspeed.com/specs/matrix/mp4m800.htm)
> and I'd be happy to send it to you to "further the cause" in aiding
> to get to the bottom of the DMA error problem.
>
> Maybe some others on the IVTV users list might be able to chip in
> with some DDR SDRAM sticks and/or a CPU to throw on it...
>
> Now I just have to sit back and wait to see if the DMA errors return
> with this new motherboard.  :)

Hi Keehan,

Thanks for the offer, but I don't think it will be of much use for me.

Perhaps it is good to give a short recap about the known problems, since 
there is some confusion here:

- PVR500 won't allow the computer to boot. I have one of these 
motherboards and it is a BIOS issue. The PVR500 has a PCI bridge which 
is fairly unusual and some motherboards cannot handle this. Try to 
upgrade to the latest BIOS and possibly contact the motherboard 
manufacturer to see if it can be fixed.

- VIA chipset problems: the symptom is usually that the card is unable 
to capture at all or for more than a few minutes at most before 
failure. AFAIK this is particular to older VIA chipsets (KT266-400). 
Try these suggestions: 
http://www.ivtvdriver.org/index.php/Via_motherboard_problems

- DMA problems, in particular DMA error 0x0000000b: these happen during 
heavy DMA usage. Two contributing factors are using a CPU frequency 
changing tool (powernowd, cpuspeed, etc) and apparently a RAID 
configuration. Interestingly the PVR500 seems to be immune to these 
problems, at least I have not been able to reproduce it on that card. 
It seems that the PCI bridge isolates the buggy DMA engine of the 
cx23415/6 from the motherboard's PCI bus. I've been able to reproduce 
this problem for all other cards. No known solution as yet. Although 
the improved driver I'm working on should minimize this from happening, 
it still can happen. I am 80% certain that it is buggy hardware and/or 
possibly firmware. 

Regards,

        Hans

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