Re: voltage coruption

[Ralph Metzler <rjkm@netcologne.de>]

Michael Holzt writes:
 > On Tue, Mar 30, 1999 at 04:32:35AM +0300, Nick Bashev wrote:
 > > [dish]-------[linux(Hauppauge wintvdvbs)]
 > > in this case the linux mashine dies in different periods ( 10 - 30 min.)
 > > when i say dies i mean that driver stops to receive ip packs.
 > 
 > Hmm, this is strange. The problem of the driver stopping to receive is
 > known for some time now, but we always thought, the reason would be some
 > internal counter in the driver or similar, as the problem seemed to occur
 > faster when doing faster transfers.
 > 
 > Maybe a good hint to find the reason finally. 

Hmm, interesting.
IŽll also do some tests with different setups and see if I can
reproduce this.

I had problems before with the supply voltage. Part of our setup here looked
like this: (warning, bad ASCII art ahead!)


                   -----------------  ... 
    Astra dish     -----------------  ...  
                   -----------|
                   --------------------|---------|   
                              |        |quadrupel|
                              |        |DiSEqC   |---------- Siemens card
                   --------------------|_________|
    Eutelsat dish             |
                              ---------|---------|   
                   -------|            |quadrupel|
                          |            |DiSEqC   |---------- DVB-S receiver
                          |------------|_________|


a quadrupel LNB (separately switchable) on Astra, a dual LNB on
Eutelsat another one on Thor (omitted in the drawing) and the DiSEqC switches
connected as above.
When the other receiver was set on Astra, the Siemens card could not switch to the
lower frequency band on Eutelsat but to everything else, also to the
third LNB or the upper band on Eutelsat. 
Only when the receiver was also tuned to the lower band on Eutelsat
the Siemens card could tuner there too.
One could even keep watching on this LNB/band, even when the other receiver tuned 
away. The problem only occured when switching to it.
(This really gives you a headache at first, especially if somebody else is
playing with the other receiver in another room ...)

We exchanged the dual LNB with a quadrupel LNB and all problems went
away. The satellite dealer confirmed that the (older) dual LNB used a
lot more power than the new one. (Why the problem only occured on the
lower band he could not say.)
All receivers I saw so far also have a limit of 500mA on the LNB
power, the DVB-S card is limited to 400mA. (maybe due to some PCI limit?)
So, this might be the reason for this.
I should also mention that the Skyvision card had exactly the same
problem with the old LNB. I donŽt know what the LNB power limit on
this card was.

I would like to know if anybody who uses one of those bigger switches
(e.g. 8 lines in, 8 or more out) with separate power supplies has
experienced any lockups with EON.


Ralph