Assistance diagnosing multiple system failures

[IVB]

As you mostly know by now, i've had some very significant issues after switching to my new server. I made the mistake of getting a budget MSI Neo3-F motherboard for my E6600 box, but let me describe what i've done and see where your fresh/independent eyes can help.

What i'm looking for isn't an answer to all my problems (although that would be nice), it's more "hey, these are the steps you should try next".

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Ok, here's the facts:

1) Old server was an absolute rock, worked just fine. I had 1 PVR250 and 1 VBox DTA-150 for HD. I had a D11-500 DTV Box that worked just fine with the paterson cable. But, it was an AMD2500 Asus A7N8X-E and had a hard time rendering HD to the MVP, plus I need to run a database server so I upgraded.

2) New server is an MSI Neo3-F. I built it <6 days ago, seemed to work just fine, but yesterday it suddenly started popping random errors. It stopped being able to tune the DTV box.

So today, I reformatted the new server and slowly put everything back on. Here's my current problems:

1) Vbox tuner driver doesn't want to load, but the capture driver works just fine
2) PVR250 seemed to install just fine, but upon selecting it as a video source, it wouldn't let me configure tuning.
3) DTVControl utility connects to COM1 just fine, but on pressing a command it ends with "timeout". It sends a command, claims it's a valid command, but the last line is timeout. (Is that a problem or is that standard?). I downloaded the latest paterson firmware to the cable, and the latest firmware to the DTV box itself, so it's not that.

So I decide that it's late, and thank god I didn't reformat the old server (gave it to my kids), so i'm pulling it back and popping the PVR250/VBox back in. This leads to my last problem
4) The old box, which was working fine, still works fine with the VBox HD tuner. But, it looks like the D11-500 still won't accept tuning.

So at this point i'm gonna sleep on it, see if I can get some epiphany in my sleep, but given that I just reformatted the new box totally and I still can't get the PVR250 to tune, plus given that I can't get the D11-500 to tune, plus that vbox error, i'm wondering exactly how many different pieces are currently failing.

I'm also strongly contemplating RMA'ing the MSI to newegg and searching the SageTV forums for a known workiing LGA 775 mobo in it's place, so I at least take one variable out of the equation.

Any assistance or independent guidance is greatly appreciated.

[bcjenkins]

Did you run the new rig through any burn in tests? Rearranged any slot locations for the cards? Try putting in one card at a time and setting it up prior to putting in another?

I just bought an ASRock board from newegg which supports DDR memory and AGP for my upgrade. (The wife was tight with the budget ) I rated it a 3 though. While it has 4 pci slots I could only get tuners into 3 of them and only has 100mb LAN. I will be buying a dual server nic though when this purchase fades from her memory.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157107

B

[davephan]

The first step I would recommend is to get imaging software, install it on the old SageTV computer and take an image of it. Then off load the image files to removable media, such as DVDs or a USB hard drive. If you use DVDs, I would sugguest using relatively small segment sizes and making at least two copies. If there are many image segments on each DVD, then if all your DVDs have unreadable spots on the DVDs, the chances are the same segment number will not be bad on all of them. At that point, you can always restore the old SageTV computer (you may discover you need to some files you saved on that system, even years later).

Next, install the imaging software on the new SageTV computer after you installed the operating system, and periodically take checkpoint images during your build process. Then you will never have to start over and repeat all the building steps. If a step fails, you can simply recover to the last successful build point.

Its simply too time consuming and frustrating to have to keep reformatting and starting the build process over again -- and if your time is worth anything, the imaging software is very cheap. After your system is working successfully, you can take periodic images, and easily recover the system to a working condition very quickly without much effort.

You did not mention if you were able to get the Hauppauge PVR card to work with the Hauppauge software. I had some trouble getting the Hauppauge software to work with the card. I beleve the fix for me at that time was to image the system back to before the Hauupage software was installed, and re-install the software and drivers.

Dave

[IVB]

Thanks for the replies.

Indeed as soon as I read bcjenkins reply, I realized that in my exhausted frustration indeed I had just put both cards in, and tried to get them both to work at once. I will indeed try different slots for those.

Also about imaging - i've never done that before to a different motherboard type; would that work if I'm going from an AMD2500 motherboard with 5 PCI slots to an E6600 motherboard with 3 PCI slots?

I didn't even install the Hauppauge software, i should try that too.

Thanks for those (and any other) replies.

[bcjenkins]

If you're going to image, run sysprep.

B

[davephan]

Originally Posted by IVB

Thanks for the replies.

Also about imaging - i've never done that before to a different motherboard type; would that work if I'm going from an AMD2500 motherboard with 5 PCI slots to an E6600 motherboard with 3 PCI slots?

That is a different question. Taking an image of one computer, and applying it to a completely different computer.

I use Ghost 9.0 and Ghost 10.0. I don't think they have the ability to apply an image to a significantly different computer.

Acronis is another imaging product, that I have not used, but others have said it is a great product. Acronis has an additional product called "Universal Agent" that says you can take an image of a computer and apply it to a completely different computer.

I have heard of success stories using Symantec's Backup Exec System Recovery server software to apply an IBM server image to a Dell server. However, Symantec's BESR software is expensive, and is usually only used by businesses.

You might check out Acronis, especially if they have a trial version that will let you make sure the "Universal Agent" actually works. If you could successfully build your new computer with an Acronis image of the old computer, then upgrading your computer would be very quick.

However, maybe you want to build the system from scratch to try to have a 'cleaner' build. In that case, taking images during the build process at major build steps allows you to test the recovery process at each step, and allows you to startup the build process without going back to formatting the hard drive.

I periodically take images of my SageTV computer every couple of months and before updating the SageTV software or other major software.

Dave

[bcjenkins]

Sorry, should have been clearer. If you want to move from one machine to another with an image, run sysprep with the reseal option. Make sure to inject your SATA or IDE drivers so it will boot. FTR - I would do a fresh install regardless. I used winlite to build a install disc with drivers added in and SP@ on 2K3.

B

[jdamore]

I have been using Acronis to load the bare Windows (no drivers or apps) for when I am "experimenting" with a new builds and have had no problems with different hardware.
Another benefit is you dont have to keep activating your MS lisence over the phone (create image after you activate). Not sure about the others, but Arconis can restore an image from a networked pc.

You can create an image of windows, then, you can create incrementals after you load drivers, apps, setting, ect..

Takes me <15 minutes to restore a fresh copy of windows.

[IVB]

Well, given that my old PC is sorta stable (can't tune the DTV box but I can leave it on HBO 24x7 and only enable that channel, plus HD works and 24/Idol are coming up over the next 72 hours) I decided to take BCJenkins advice, and will do a fresh install on the new server.

But, rather than risk setting up my old server all over again then cloning it to the new one and having it not work, and since the new mobo isn't what I really wanted in the first place, I ordered an Intel brand 965P motherboard off newegg with 3 PCI slots, 3 PCIe 1x slots, and 1 16x slot for only $50 more than my current one. I also had a large amazon g/c, so I used it for a PVR-500 that'll be here this week too. That way I can get the new box up & running without mucking with the old box.

My MSI Neo3-F is 31 days past order, hopefully newegg will respond to my begging email to RMA it since it was only 1 day past the cutoff. If not, i'll eBay that, should be able to get at least $50 for it. Plus, I can sell off those 2 PVR-250's and break even on the whole deal.

The other upside of doing this with a new mobo & capture card is that it'll force me to decompress and think about something else for a few days. I'm convinced that some, if not most, of my problems were me shooting myself in the foot repeatedly as it had been nearly 3 years since my last SageTV server build. (man, wanna talk about a *large* wiz.bin file :P )

Once it does, i'm absolutely going to image it for easy restore purposes. My heart can't handle this again.

[paulbeers]

That's weird that you aren't having any luck with that MSI Neo 3. The Neo 3 uses the 945P chipset right? That is what I have but by Gigabyte (945P). MSI is usually my favorite mobo brand, but i went Gigabyte this time after hearing such good things about their boards and overclocking. My server has the e4300 overclocked (with no increase to the core voltage) and running at 2.4Ghz with no problems. I guess sometimes we all just get a bad board.

[IVB]

Yes, 945P. Honestly, I think it's user error. I actually had it all working, then mucked with that IDE crap, and then it all went to crap. Upon rebuild, I wasn't careful as to which PCI slot I was putting stuff in. I'm sure if I were to muck with that, I could rebuild it.

It's just that I really wanted to switch motherboards anyway, this was as good an excuse as any.

[paulbeers]

Aaahhhhh, yes well that I also understand too! I will admit if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have cheaped out and gone the 945P route either. I mean my board has been solid, but it just seemsthe hardware manufacturers have put higher quality components on the 965P motherboards (makes sense since they can charge more for them). Oh well.

[bcjenkins]

Even though I just recently rebuilt my server it seems my part selection wasn't going to be up to snuff. The motherboard I selected only has a 100mb LAN built in, and when I tried to add a gb adapter to the only slot available, a PCIe, the machine didn't like it. (I bought the board to save some green by being able to use old memory and agp card)

So.. I will be re-re-building my server this weekend. On top of that, I had to buy new RAM, DVD, VGA, PS, too.

Here's how it will work out for me:

• Download latest BIOS and Manual for board
• Find latest drivers based on chipsets used (Intel, Marvel, JMBTech, DualTV, Fusion 5, USB - Serial, PCI Modem for HA)
• Grab nLite for creating custom install CD
• Slipstream SP2 for 2K3 and Drivers for all HW
• Build machine in wee hours to not upset family TV time

On the server I don't install any audio drivers, I will disable the built-in audio in the BIOS. I don't install video drivers. Plain VGA is good enough for the server.

If all goes well, I will be done in 3-4 hours.. I have started maintaining a zip file for all of my SageTV addons and begun making use of the multi-import plugin. So once installed and licenses installed, configuration is very simple and fast.

Anyone else have any build suggestions?

B

[ben_95sl1]

I didn't read all of the comments, but did you run memtest and prime95 to find any hardware problems? (Ultimate Boot CD is awesome, highly recommended)

I've also been having a lot of trouble with recent hardware, and I'm now understanding why people do those tests before even bothering with windows installs. I just had a stick of ram go bad; it caused the hauppauge remote to respond slowly/intermittently: does that make sense?!?!? Not to me, but that was the only symptom that something was wrong. I'm still having other issues, but I should be able to figure them out as I've built two systems (one htpc sage server/front end and one "normal" gaming/cad/internet pc) on the am2 platform, using the same mb so I can swap stuff until the server is uber stable.

I am moving towards buying local now, as I've already had one motherboard failure, which can be exchanged so much more conveniently.

good luck
Ben

[IVB]

What a nice weekend I've had. Well, mixed results, but still movement.

The good:

I just had the absolute *smoothest* motherboard install i've ever had, so much so that i'm going to specifically recommend this Intel 965P Core2Duo motherboard for anyone looking for something nice, simple, stable, and with RAID0+1 and RAID5 on the mobo to boot. I was able to put 5 SATA drives in, and in a matter of literally seconds after the first power-up, set it up so that SATA0 was the boot, 1-3 were the 500GB sata that I wanted in a RAID5, and SATA4 was a 400GB I wanted as standalone. It all just worked.

Plus I migrated my SageTV server over and it started up just fine. I can watch OTA digital on the MVP, still can't do HD transcoding on the fly. I'm contemplating migrating to V6.1 which I heard solves many issues, but 24 is on tomorrow night so I may hold off until Thursday (after American Idol/etc).

I was also able to use a PVR500, with 1 input for the CCTV, and 1 input for the DirecTV. That was cool.


The Bad
I still can't get the D* STB to tune, but i've now clearly proven that it's either the cable or the STB. I believe i'm at the latest firmware, but i'll force-check tomorrow. I've currently only got HBO enabled, so at least I can watch Sopranos and Entourage.

[paulbeers]

Congrats on getting the new sage server up and running (well at least mostly anyway). I would highly recommend 6.1.9 if you want to do transcoding for the MVP. It has been rock solid (although I have had to stop using HD, temporarily since I suddently can't seem to get a good signal with my rabit ears and the HDHomerun that I ordered had a snafu on the addressing and is somewhere in limbo with UPS) for transcoding and everything else. High Quality is just pure sweetness on the MVP.