Via c3 800 can't handle 2 tuners as a server?!

[Dekard]

For Shame!

I've got a nice little epia board, via c3 800 with 512 ram and a 40 gig system drive running as a server for a pair of clients. When I added my second tuner it completely froze the system. When I was watching the same channel on another client I was fine. As soon as I went to change the channel BOOM! Freeze time on the original client.

Man, am I glad I've got a new dual processor server and a 300 gig hd coming in next week. I'm severely disappointed in this Epia system. Its nearly useless.

[PGPfan]

I wonder if this might be another example of the trouble VIA chipsets have with PCI bandwidth. Sounds like it won't be missed too much with the new sever though

You could always repurpose the VIA box as a little NAS server box with the software from ServerElements.

-PGPfan

[Dekard]

I noticed that with 1 tuner cpu usage was 70-80%... I'm selling the Via board already so it won't be missed. I had originally tried to use it as a nas \ ftp box but it couldn't handle the crc checking of the ftp process so it has largely proven useless. I'm truely disappointed.

The server is a dual processor Athlon MP setup on a Tyan motherboard. Somehow I think it will handle Sagetv and ftp without any issues..

[dbfresh23]

What kind of tuners are you using? No way it should be 70-80% with a hardware encoder. Now if you were trying to play it back on this system at the same time that could explain the cpu utilization.

[Dekard]

Originally Posted by dbfresh23

What kind of tuners are you using? No way it should be 70-80% with a hardware encoder. Now if you were trying to play it back on this system at the same time that could explain the cpu utilization.

]

Both are brand new pvr-150's. The system is operating in client \ server mode and I'm just using it for capture and storage. And when I'm recording something its almost impossible to use the system for anything else. It just can't handle it.

[ben_95sl1]

There must be something weird going on....It is pretty weak, but it shouldn't be that bad. A pvr150 on my athlon takes up like 2% on average, but with playback is about 12% with DXVA enabled. If a via c3 800 can almost decode mpeg2 smoothly (from my personal experience with the same chip), I can't see how basically writing two files shouldn't be a piece of cake? I've heard of some pretty weak systems used as servers with sagetv.

[dbfresh23]

Originally Posted by ben_95sl1

I've heard of some pretty weak systems used as servers with sagetv.

Yeah, while doing some testing I've tried it on a Celeron 366 and a P3 500 - both with 128mb Ram. Both recorded from 2 PVR150s without a hiccup. Gotta either be something wrong with the hardware or the winblows install. The whole point of having the PVR150 hardware encoder is so that your cpu utilization doesn't spike like that...

[blade]

Originally Posted by dbfresh23

Yeah, while doing some testing I've tried it on a Celeron 366 and a P3 500 - both with 128mb Ram. Both recorded from 2 PVR150s without a hiccup. Gotta either be something wrong with the hardware or the winblows install. The whole point of having the PVR150 hardware encoder is so that your cpu utilization doesn't spike like that...

My Sage server is a celeron 366 with 320mb of ram and it does fine capturing 4 shows at once from dual 500's. Not to mention it's also running show analyzer.

Something is definetly wrong somewhere with cpu usage that high.

[Wheemer]

He's probably using software encoders or something.

SA must take a while with a 366 though!?

EDIT: Oops.. missed the pvr 150s

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Wheemer

He's probably using software encoders or something.

OP mentioned it was PVR 150's.

FWIW, if the PCI problems are bad enough, it could cause high CPU usage. You can check the "Show Kernel Times" option in Task Manager, and see how much of that 70-80% is taken by the kernel.

[Dekard]

Originally Posted by stanger89

OP mentioned it was PVR 150's.

FWIW, if the PCI problems are bad enough, it could cause high CPU usage. You can check the "Show Kernel Times" option in Task Manager, and see how much of that 70-80% is taken by the kernel.

I'll check the kernel times today. Thats an interesting point.

[Dekard]

Originally Posted by stanger89

OP mentioned it was PVR 150's.

FWIW, if the PCI problems are bad enough, it could cause high CPU usage. You can check the "Show Kernel Times" option in Task Manager, and see how much of that 70-80% is taken by the kernel.

Man, you are good, Stranger89... basically all of the usage is kernel time... Are there any drivers or bios updates I can use to improve this?

[stanger89]

You might want to do a search for VIA PCI Latency patch. It may not be applicable anymore though.

[Dekard]

I just installed the latest 4 - 1 drivers and saw a tremendous improvement in cpu usage. Down from 70-80 percent to 30-60 percent. Now we are getting closer to something I can work with. Its a shame tho, those numbers still aren't good enough to handle two tuners.

[ben_95sl1]

which chipset is on the board: KT133,333? I've never had issues with my kt400 chipset before...despite all the bad things I've heard about VIA chipsets, I've never experienced a problem myself (I'm running 2 VIA boards)....and supposedly the pvr150 + VIA is bad.

[Dekard]

Originally Posted by ben_95sl1

which chipset is on the board: KT133,333? I've never had issues with my kt400 chipset before...despite all the bad things I've heard about VIA chipsets, I've never experienced a problem myself (I'm running 2 VIA boards)....and supposedly the pvr150 + VIA is bad.

CLE266/8235 Chipset is what it uses. Like I said, installing the latest 4 in 1 drivers made a significant difference but I'm still not able to use it with two tuners. What the update did was make 1 tuner completely stable and quick. I"ve already got a Tyan dual processor server on the way thanks to eBay so this really isn't an issue yet I still hope someone else can benefit from this thread.