New mainboard, heatsink & fans for Aria MythTV PVR

RagaWu · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 5 Location: Glasgow, scotland

Hello all,

Currently mid way through building a mythtv based pvr in an Antec Aria case. Aside from a nightmarish introduction to Linux, on the hardware side I've reached a point where I'm frustrated with my lack of options for making it all quieter.

Living in the UK and using an Athlon processor seems to be drastically limiting my choice of decent Micro-ATX mainboards. I'm interested in using undervolting and possibly underclocking as my capture cards require very little cpu power (dvb cards, therefore direct dump of mpeg2 stream to hard disk.

I think I'm all right on the video out side of things (using the radeon with a vga to scart cable to drive the tv directly), so am not looking for any particular graphics capabilites from the mobo.

Currently no space for a quality PCI soundcard, not keen on USB (given the linux issue) and any way moneys tight, so the built in sound quality is relatively important.

Have heard about problems with VIA chipsets and DMA in Linux, would prefer to go elsewhere.

All the good Athlon heatsinks seem to require the 4 mounting holes, though I could possibly place my hands on a Samurai Scythe in the next few days - so maybe this issue's not that relevant.

Basically to cut a very long story short, I need advice on the right motherboard and heatsink for my circumstances.

I'm spent days on this to no avail, I'm still as clueless as when I started...

Rory Buszka · Joined: 04 Oct 2005 Posts: 175

Don't use the passive Scythe heatsink - it needs to be used with a vertically-oriented motherboard to let the air flow upwards between its fins. If you use the passive Scythe heatsink, you need some kind of airflow duct over it or something to keep from toasting your processor.
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RagaWu · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 5 Location: Glasgow, scotland

stupid · Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 544 Location: NYC, NY

Before buying the Scythe Samurai make sure that the CPU socket is not under the PSU. If the PSU is even partially over the CPU socket then this HSF maybe too big. In my Aria the placement of the CPU socket is partially covered by the PSU. The HSF for my Athlon XP is 65mm tall or about 2.6 inches tall. The Scythe Samurai is 85mm tall or about 3.34 inches tall. That means the Samurai is another 20mm or about 0.79 inches taller than my HSF. There is definitely less than 0.5 inch clearance left between the motherboard/HSF combo that I have.

My suggestion is to first buy the motherboard to check if the socket is clear of the overhanging PSU. However, all m-ATX motherboards typically have the same design so the Samurai may not be an option since it is too tall.

Do nVidia chipset have any issues with Linux? If not then you cna get the MSI K8NGM2-FID if it is sold in the UK. It has a bracket for TV-out so you can place that where the PCI-E graphics card would normally go.

Kythe · Joined: 20 Dec 2005 Posts: 34

RagaWu · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 5 Location: Glasgow, scotland

stupid · Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 544 Location: NYC, NY

RagaWu · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 5 Location: Glasgow, scotland

So I'm nearly set on ordering the Biostar, however I've got one or two questions.

I've noticed that certain revisions of the board do not allow undervolting. Are you aware of this and can you shed any more light on this, like which revision I should be going for/which you have?

SPCR Recommended table says "rev. v7.1 not working".

I've now spent a fair bit of time investigating the nforce2 chipset (for my sins), and noticed that quite a few micro-atx boards come with spdif, firewire and tv-out headers. All sound appealing though I'm not certain how much I'd actually use these technolgoies - I would use firewire certainly, but no plans for a digital amplifier and I'm still keen on using my ati radeon to drive a vga to scart connector. Problem is, I've yet to find any mention of undervolting with any of these motherboards. Is the Biostar fairly unique in this case?

On a side note, one thing I've noticed with nearly all the onboard sound cards I've experienced is the quality of the line out socket and the level of noise in the signal - when compared to my regular card [an m-audio delta 44] - though I've never experienced an nforce2. Do you use the onboard sound? Is it any good?

Lots of questions! My typical jitters before any purchase, probably due to my eternal struggle to avoid finding something better atfer I've bought the thing...

thanks
Alasdair

stupid · Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 544 Location: NYC, NY

Off the top of my head I do not know which board revision I am using. Yes, I have read about certain Biostar revisions that do not underclock, but since that was about 2 years ago, I do not remember which revision. I would assume that it would be an older revision. Besides, you won't know exactly which revision you will be getting until you receive it.

I guess you can say that this Biostar is somewhat unique in it's undervolting abilities. I remember I had to do a couple of months of research for a socket A m-ATX motherboard that allows undervolting. I think VCORE adjustment in modern motherboards are more or less standard now.

The BIOSTAR M7NCG 400 doesn't have spdif and firewire as they were considered "premium" options back in its' day. Now they more or less are included in a higher priced mainstream MB. As for a TV-out bracket, the only current MB that offers these that I know of are based on the nForce 6100/6150.

Basically all onboard sound solutions are crap, even today. There are a handful of exceptions like any board using the nForce 6150 and higher end nForce 4 Ultras. The onboard sound is considered "good enough," but I use an Audigy 2 5.1 sound card (it has Firewire too, but I don't use it) to connect to my surround sound speakers since I watch movies on my little HTPC.