[Solved] TBS5922 ~ Weird occurrences

[mpmc]

Hey all.

I'm not quite sure why this is happening but it is rather weird and I'll try to explain the best I can, First some info.

I received a TBS5922 as a replacement for a QBOXS2 that was overheating (thanks to support for sorting that out for me!), anyway, I'm currently using the 5922 connected to a HP N40L Microserver (AMD Turion(tm) II Neo N40L) running Debian testing (Kernel 3.2.0-2-amd64) with the latest drivers (120216).

I intended to use the box with TVheadend which runs perfectly fine on the system with other tuners (DVB-T) but whenever I use the 5922 with TVheadend the 5922 gets hotter than it should and it gets worse if I actually watch something over the network via TVheadend, the picture glitches (VLC) and it takes about 10 seconds for the box to change channels, sometimes failing and blurts out "tbs5922fe - Current Delivery System and Mode are unknown" to dmesg.

I left the box alone for 10 or so hours, when I went to touch it, It was bloody hot enough to actually burn you, If you let it.

Now this is where it gets interesting. I also use DVBStreamer, The 5922 barely gets warm, takes 3 seconds at max to tune to a channel and captures freesat EPG data no problem, when I stream a service over my network I get no glitching (again using VLC) whatsoever.

Once again I left the box well alone for 7 hours or so running DVBStreamer streaming "BBC One HD" to my media center. The 5922 remained barely warm.

Isn't that odd?

Now I don't know that the difference is between the two software but there clearly is something not quite right, I suspect different tuning methods? Although I'm pretty sure most DVB software on Linux uses the same DVB API.

Could it be the driver? I just don't know, at the moment the box is only usable with DVBStreamer which means I have to manually set the service via telnet!

[cody]

Hi, yes, that's completely weird. so, let me tell you what i think - the error message "tbs5922fe - Current Delivery System and Mode are unknown" means literally what it says - that the hardware can't detect the signal type and modulation (i.e. if it's DVB-S or DVB-S2 and with QPSK or 8PSK modulation), which could be caused by something wrong with the tune requests sent by TVheadend and maybe since it can't acquire lock, because of that, it keeps sending those requests over and over again, which causes the box chips to overload and the box to get hotter. so, that's at least the only explanation that came to mind, but it shouldn't happen - i need to try if i can reproduce the problem and gain better understanding of what's going on. however, it would be helpful if you can try some other Linux environment like Ubuntu 11.10 and see if the same happens or not. thanks.

[mpmc]

Hi Cody,

I'll try to give as much info as I can, I apologise if I'm repeating anything, I'm just trying to make sure I've explained things without causing confusion. I really want to help TBS fix these little bugs.

I have two HP Proliant micro servers. The N36L is running Ubuntu Server 11.10 (linux-image-3.0.0-17-server kernel) 64 Bit with 4GB ram. I recently bought another Micro server, the N40L (3GB ram) specifically for the QBOXS2.

The N36L originally had the QBOXS2 (Not the 5922 but the QBOXS2) attached to it, again running TVheadend (using the last driver release for the QBS2, 2011 something or other) which would become unresponsive when the QBOXS2 died due to overheating (I assume) after a few days. The same thing happened when using DVBStreamer, the QBS2 no matter how I configured the software (No idle scanning etc) would overheat. It was quickly and promptly replaced by TBS Support with a 5922.

Now with the 5922. It works perfectly fine with DVBStreamer, doesn't even get remotely hot and will happily stream a service over my network, with TVheadend I swear I could fry an egg on the box with the heat.

Even with idle scanning/transponder discovery off the box gets hot, nowhere near as hot as the QBS2 but its still bloody hot, I'd say at least 60c, It takes a while for it hit that temp though.
The frontend error I assumed was because TVheadend was trying to get the box to tune to: [S2 99999000 V 27500000 3/4 35 QPSK], hence why I turned the idle scanning and automatic transponder discovery Off.
Software really shouldn't cause these problems with hardware and I've no clue as to what makes tvheadend so unique in causing this. TVHeadend works fine with my four DVB-T tuners

It's such a shame as I really like TBS products, I will of course do anything I can to help resolve these problems, I will connect the box to my N36L (I'll also try an intel desktop) and see how I get on and report back here with my findings.

[mpmc]

Aha! Good news!
Since I've re-built the drivers and updated TVheadend to the latest git version, everything seems to be running fine (touch wood) on my N36L, not tried it on my N40L though, don't think I'll bother it's running fine.

Not sure what the problem was but it seems to be running a lot cooler now

Although I've stopped TVheadend from constantly trying to tune to 99,999,990 kHz, so that may be the reason like you'd originally suggested.

It's so random I can't explain it

[mpmc]

Just thought I'd post an update to this thread.

Everything is still running fine, no heat issues, nor any tuning issues, I did notice something strange though, before the last kernel update (3.0.0.17-server) channel switching would be extremely slow 6-10 seconds, and the only fix was to change the tvheadend process nice & IO priority to the lowest possible. But since the kernel update I no longer need to do this, channel switching takes about 1-3 seconds now.

After all the issues I've previously had I'm extremely happy that it's resolved and I can't thank TBS Support enough for all their help.

I'd like to ask TBS to consider stop selling the older QBOXS2 model, I'm not sure whether the newer driver has fixed the overheating issues I experienced, but the 5922 is a much better box IMO.