General
New Motherboard, New CPU, Problems solved?
0I was down MSY the other day with the intention of getting a new Wireless N Router, however as I was looking around I noticed there was a bunch of AMD 900 series based motherboards (the upgraded version of my current 800 series).
Among them was the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3, which is essentially the updated version of my 880FXA except I have the the UD5 model which basically is geared more towards Multi-GPU set-ups (SLI/Crossfire). Since I have just the one card, the UD3 was a reasonable compromise considering the $50 difference.
Anyway I ended up getting it in the hopes that my TV Tuner issues would be solved. Yeah right!
So out with the old and in with the new; well maybe it wasn’t quite as simple as that, but anyway long story short I successfully swapped them out but in the process I managed to lose 1 pin on the CPU (it stayed in the socket) so that then forced me to find a replacement.
Naturally I wanted to upgrade in the process so I sought out the highly coveted AMD Phenom II 1090T 6-core 3.2GHz. MSY was my first thought, but they didn’t have any in stock in Australia, then I tried Landmark Computers, apparently they don’t sell AMD. So I tried a couple of local shops – CNET Technology and Centrecom. Nope.
In desperation I searched my usual internet based stores, first I tried PC Case Gear, which had it in stock, and I could also drive down and pick it up. Unfortunately they took too long to process the order, I cancelled and searched for a store that had a shop front with stock.
Eventually I stumbled across Scorptec Computers (Scorpion Technology Computers) which had the 1090T in stock, and also a shop front (closer that PCCG too). So I trundled off to Rowville, about a 40min journey via EastLink, got the processor (exceptional service there too) and I got it installed later that night.
Now after all that, one would expect/hope that the problem I sought to seek in the first place would have been fixed. But of course, me being me, it was not.
First boot was fine, all PCIe cards showed up, installed the drivers, no problems.
Then after the reboot, one was gone.
At this point I was 100% sure this has something to do with the use of a 1x PCIe card in a 16x/8x/4x slot so I started to experiment.
Test 001:
SLOT # from CPU | Card Installed | Result | Notes |
1 (1x) | AverTV TwinStar | PCI Bus 5 | |
2 (16x) | GTX275 | PCI Bus 1 | |
3 (1x) | N/A | ||
4 (4x) | none | ||
5 (16x) | X-Fi | PCI Bus 4 | |
6 – PCI | none | ||
7 – (4x) | DViCo FusionHDTV | None/Not assigned | No card detected |
Reboots | 3 |
As you can see, the Fusion card decided not to work when in the 4x (full length) slot.
Test 002:
SLOT # from CPU | Card Installed | Resulting Bus | Notes |
1 (1x) | DViCo FusionHDTV | PCI Bus 10 | |
2 (16x) | GTX275 | PCI Bus 1 | |
3 (1x) | N/A | ||
4 (4x) | none | ||
5 (16x) | X-Fi | PCI Bus 4 | |
6 – PCI | none | ||
7 – (4x) | AverTV TwinStar | PCI Bus 5 | |
Reboots | 8 | ||
Day 4, think i’m in the clear |
As you can see here, I swapped the 2 TV cards around and strange things happened.
Firstly, the TwinStar card retained the PCI Bus number that it had in the other slot. But what is most interesting to me is the DViCo card now has a new Bus number of 10.
I don’t pretend to understand the way these bus numbers are derived, I have no idea actually, but if they are indeed static per slot, then why did they change ?
I guess the most important thing here is that I now have 4 working tuners and I have not seen any bluescreens, crashes or other anomalies I’ve experienced in the past.
Once again, here’s to hoping it continues that way!
Until the next problem,
Derryn
A look at Moodle
0So one of the tasks I’ve been given to do in my new job is to check out Moodle and find a way to give users the ability to get notifications when something changes in their classes weekly board.
I did some research and came across ‘notify-changes‘ on SourceForge.
It was pretty simple to install, just unzip it, drop it into the ‘blocks’ folder inside moodle and thats the basics of it.
Then you have to install it through moodle in Site Administration – Notifications.
So far it does seem to work, though I have noticed that the ability for users to enable/disable notifications disappears for no reason, or rather, doesn’t appear initially. It seems to be fixed by enabling in the blocks Administration and disabling it again, then re-enabling it.
Finally, a solution.
0
Scratch that… second tuner card just disappeared… *sigh*
It appears, though I will wait a few weeks before saying its ‘confirmed’, that my TV Tuner disappearances has finally CEASED!
In the end I did the old switch-a-roo with the Media PC’s dual tuner (DViCo FusionHDTV Dual Express2 PCIe) with one of mine (AVerMedia TwinStar PCIe). So far there have been no BSoD’s or problems with hardware disappearing randomly. I’ll reserve my happyness until ive used both machines a while, just to be sure this time lol.
As for the cause of the problem, I can only speculate, but it does indeed appear to be a specific PCIe bridge chip that causes problems when 2 or more exist on the same motherboard. Strange problem though, and Gigabyte are still adamant that it’s the chipset driver. I personally believe it has to do with the AMD800 series chipset, which should be fixable in the BIOS coding.
On further inspection, the DViCo card does not feature a PCIe A/V Capture Bridge, which is interesting. From what I’ve discovered from it’s datasheet, the SAA7160 A/V Capture PCIe bridge (on the TwinStar) is used to multiplex everything received (audio/video) and send it off via the PCIe 1x port to the Northbridge. It seems this would be the point where having two would conflict. That said, I’m no expert and its starting to give me quite a headache, so from now on… I don’t care about it!
Anyways, in the mean time I’ve also been working out the foibles of BSE (Big Screen EPG) and why I cannot get channel logos to work properly. In the end it was easier to just use MyChannelLogos (USD$3.40 donation) to get them working, so that’s that I’ve done, and it’s now looking great!
Until my next problem,
Derryn