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Problem - Zoron chip on PCI bus with Intel 865 and 875 chipset

Problem - Zoron chip on PCI bus with Intel 865 and 875 chipset

Post by Tony » Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:29:51



Hi Guys,

Has anyone here seen issues with MPEG playback cards
based on the Zoron chipset running on Intel motherboard
chipsets 865 and 875.

I run these boards on Dell computers (Optiplex 270)
and the MPEG playback looses frames.

I tried an ASUS board with the Intel 865 chipset and
the same issue comes up - dropped frames.

It looks like an interupt issue.

Running the cards (Videoplex Express from Optibase)
on Athlon works fine.  VIA chipsets in various
incarnations all work.  Older Intel based boards
work fine.

The Optibase cards are busmastering cards, ie. they
generate interupts that need to be served.

Any ideas out there?

All the best and thank's in advance.

Tony

 
 
 
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Problem - Zoron chip on PCI bus with Intel 865 and 875 chipset

Post by Tony » Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:39:56



> Hi Guys,

> Has anyone here seen issues with MPEG playback cards
> based on the Zoron chipset running on Intel motherboard
> chipsets 865 and 875.

Just a followup to my own post:

Forgot to mention that the OS is Linux Redhat 9.0
running kernel 2.4.20-20 - don't wory about security,
these boxes are never on a network and are "headless".

Tony

 
 
 
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1. Intel 848, 865 and 875 chipset hardware incompatebility issues...

Hi Guys,

Hardware involved:

All motherboards based on Intel 865, 875, 848 and related
chipsets running with Intel CPUs.

The Intel 845 chipset does not exhibit these problems.
Unfortunately

Zoran based PCI cards (Capture cards, MPEG2 playback) as
manufactured by Optibase (Videoplex Express cards).

Operating system: Linux
Distribution    : Redhat 9, all latest updates.

Issues:  Video cards dropping frames about once every second
         resulting in "stagering" video playback.

Some motherboards running certain recent VIA chipsets
(PT800) with Intel CPUs also exhibited problems.
The VIA KT400 for Athlon is OK.

After several months of intensive testing and attempts
to resolve what looks like latency issues, I have found
that all recent Intel Southbridge chips, as shown above,
cause the drop frames issue.

Optibase, who make the cards, have "given up" solving the problem.

My theory is that either the DMA or the PCI implementation
with these chipsets are flawed.  There could also be issues
with the busmastering on the PCI bus.  The video playback
card uses busmastering.

A different theory goes along the lines of the interupts
not being serviced fast enough from the video cards.  Wether
this is a ardware issue or a linux kernel issue is not known.

It is also possible that the Zoran chips used on the video
playback boards, have some sort of flaw.

However using an NVIDIA 2 chipset does work as does VIA
chipsets for the Athlon CPU.

It has not been possible to determine what is different
between intel's implementation and Nvidia's or VIA's
implementation.

If anyone would like to comment on the above please feel
free.  I have no other ideas and the whole process has
been quite draining....

Now I shall use only Nvidia 2 chipsets which forces me to
use Athlon which may not be such a bad thing.

Tony

2. Advice requested:

3. hardware RNG in 865/875 chipset?

4. MediaVision SCSI and MediaVision CDROM - not good

5. Intel 865 chipset, HyperTheading P4 and Linux?

6. What's wrong

7. STB w/S3 865 chipset

8. Twin-CPU load type monitor (like xload) - where ?

9. hardware RNG on 865 chipset - need LPC support?

10. Asus PCI-875 PCI SCSI Adapter

11. looking for 865 chipset or higher, 800 mhz FSB, DDR 400, with that Hyper Threading

12. intel 865/875g extreme graphics 2 support?

13. S1365 pci-scsi (ncr 875 based) card


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