Re: Anybody's machine working most of time?


"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:LqednTRsPYEMiPPfRVn-hA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> JW wrote:
>> Here are two ideas that may or may not help
>> 1. Be sure you do not have a series scheduled to be recorded.
>> 2 Be sure you do not have your system set to automatically do a defrag,
>> virus scan, spyware check or any other operation at the same time each
>> day. unless the time is such that you know you won't be using the system.
>>
>> "Joe Horton" <joe@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:eJm$E0aSFHA.2132@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>>Does anyone's machine just work all the time? My Tivo never crashed,
>>>hung
>>>up, or failed to record anything - and I'm always fighting with my new
>>>MCE.
>>>It's super cool when it works - but it seems every day it's slowly
>>>getting a
>>>bit worse. Last night while watching a DVD, the hard drive light went
>>>nuts
>>>and the DVD started playing choppy and freezing. It checked everything I
>>>could think of.
>>>
>>>I have a new Gateway - should I have bought something else - or do most
>>>of
>>>you have issues too?
>
> I think it's clear what the OP was saying--TIVO is designed and tested
> to operate reliably and repeatably as long as the hardware works.
>
> Unfortunately, this seems not to be the case with MCE.
>
That may be so. But to compare a bespoke system in which the designer has
complete control over all aspects of hardware and software and in only one
configuration amd which only performs one function with a system with myriad
combinations of hardware and almost unlimited abilities to play games,
process spreadsheets, databases, documents, graphic design etc etc. is not
really comparing apples with apples. a Tivo is to a bicycle as an MCE PC is
to a turbocharged car. One is inherently more complex and hence needs more
effort in setup and maintenance.

Nobody should pretend that an MCE PC (or any PC) is suited to people with no
knowledge of how to use one properly.

> A system designed to record video should never need to be defragged,
> since it can use allocation units of constant size for the video, and
> allocate all video disk at one end of a partition, while everything
> else is allocated at the other end (the system should be designed so
> that frequent long seeks are also unnecessary because of buffering
> of shorter files).
>
Proper knowledge would lead one to record TV to a separate partition or even
a separate disk. That would remove the problem of excessive fragmentation.
Even if recorded files are fragged there should not be a need to defrag them
in order to use them. I certainly don't need to. I have a dedicated drive.

> TIVOs, ReplayTVs, and UltimateTVs (not to mention several Windows and
> non-Windows-based sofware solutions) routinely record multiple programs
> while playing back another, so certainly three simultaneous video
> streams should be no problem.
>
True. I didn't know it was a problem for MCE. Is there evidence to suggest
it is?

> The problem is that the designers apparently did not think much
> about how to level the load and how to minimize wear and tear on
> the hardware--primary considerations for any long-lived design.
>
Which designers? MCE designers or system builders? I've built my own system.
It works for me :-) Empirical evidence suggests many system builders are big
screw-ups. Have you ever seen the crap that Packard Bell install on their
machines? It's a real pig's ear.

I have friends who bought a brand new Packard Bell MCE PC recently with AMD
64 3400+, 1024MB RAM, 2*160GB HDD. It runs much much much slower than my
homebuilt Shuttle with an Athlon 64 3000+. From a cold boot it is running
something like 56 processes. My Shuttle has just 30, while watching and
recording live TV.

> The problem that MCE addresses is not an unsolved problem--though
> MCE attempts to support more combinations of hardware and software
> (like Windows in general)--but apparently little research was done
> into how others have solved the problem (unfortunately, also a common
> Microsoft practice).
>
> I'm afraid that the ultimate source of the problem of MCE reliability
> is a level of complexity beyond the ability of its designers and
> implementors to master. This complexity is not a characteristic
> of the problem, but of the means MCE's designers chose to solve it.
>
MCE is just an application laid on top of Windows XP. In principle it should
really be no different to Snapstream, MythTV, Beyond TV, GBPVR etc. etc.. I
must admit there do seem to be hurdles to overcome that are unecessary. Of
course, as I built my own system I would expect to face more of those than
someone buying a pre-built solution. Frankly it is a disgrace that customers
of HP, PB, Dell, Gateway etc. face as many problems as they do. But does the
fault lie with MCE, the system builders or the end users just being dumb
f##s and stuffing all sorts of virus and spyware laden crap on their PCs and
failing to run regular Windows updates and so on? I suspect most of the
fault lies with the latter two.

> To paraphrase Dijkstra, if you run out of neurons before you run out
> of complexity, you're toast.
>
> -michael
>
> Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/


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