Looking for an Ultraplus x9200HD motherboard

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Looking for an Ultraplus x9200HD motherboard

AlanL

20 posts

Geek

#271879 30-May-2020 17:17

The tuners on my motherboard appear to have been fried.The Tuner 1 slot is dead and the Tuner 2 slot freezes the system. The receiver cards seem to be ok.

So I am on the hunt for a motherboard for it, or perhaps if someone has an old X9200HD in the wardrobe you want to pass on that I can scavenge one out of.

Otherwise, any suggestions for a replacement? You know, minimum two tuners allowing four concurrent channels (as opposed, it seems, to the two concurrent channels you get with the Panasonic HST270). Broadband functions are less important because we have unreliable telecoms, poor ADSL speeds, no line of sight for UHF, and no cell phone signal. So yeah, satellite is the preferred option.

fe31nz

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#2495477 31-May-2020 00:10

What sort of tuners are they? Could you just plug them into a PC and use some freeware software to record from them?

AlanL

20 posts

Geek

#2496474 2-Jun-2020 09:46

Possibly, if I used a PC (my place is full of Macs these days, and they are MBPs). I had not thought of that.

As for the type of tuner, the box is down in Auckland now so I can't look directly. They are similar to this on this link but obviously from an earlier generation

I suspect they may require specific software/drivers. I know the Ultraplus OS is a linux variant but I don't know what changes were made to it at the time.

Any suggestion here may be helpful, for anyone that has done it before :)

In the meantime, it does seem the only two satellite receivers on the NZ market are the Panasonic and the DishTV (which looks pretty sucky)...

PS, there's no way to subscribe to these threads is there?

Apsattv

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#2496833 2-Jun-2020 15:35

Did you try ultrapower the agent?

https://www.ultrapower.co.nz/

fe31nz

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#2497166 3-Jun-2020 02:29

AlanL:

Possibly, if I used a PC (my place is full of Macs these days, and they are MBPs). I had not thought of that.

As for the type of tuner, the box is down in Auckland now so I can't look directly. They are similar to this on this link but obviously from an earlier generation

I suspect they may require specific software/drivers. I know the Ultraplus OS is a linux variant but I don't know what changes were made to it at the time.

Any suggestion here may be helpful, for anyone that has done it before :)

In the meantime, it does seem the only two satellite receivers on the NZ market are the Panasonic and the DishTV (which looks pretty sucky)...

PS, there's no way to subscribe to these threads is there?

I doubt that your tuners will be like the one you linked to - those are fairly modern using recent chipsets. That board is PCIe x1 though - so if your tuners are also PCIe x1, then they should work in any PC that has PCIe bus. Don't Macs also have PCIe bus now too? So if your cards are PCIe x1 the problem then is the drivers. Windows drivers should not be a problem unless your cards are so old that they are not supported in Windows 10. With Linux drivers it depends on the exact card. But since they were running in a Linux based box, the chances are pretty good that they have Linux drivers. Mac drivers I know nothing about - and you have no chance of fitting a PCIe card in a laptop.

If you do have an ancient PC hanging about in a dusty corner that has PCIe bus, then you should be able to install a Linux on it and try the cards. There are versions of Linux for old PCs that still work with small amounts of RAM. Recording should work on such a PC, but playing back requires a decent video card and may need more RAM. Recording from DVB-S(2) cards is pretty much just being able to copy data from the tuner to hard disk - not a particularly resource hungry operation. And you can play back, at least for testing purposes, on a different machine via a network connection or by copying the recording files.

It is also possible to pick up old PCs from TradeMe or a local shop at very reasonable prices. It would be best to know exactly what the tuners are before contemplating that option though.

You get subscribed automatically to a thread if you post to it. I get emails letting me know about new posts on subscribed threads. Maybe there is a setting in your profile for this that you have turned off.

AlanL

20 posts

Geek

#2498987 5-Jun-2020 13:22

Apsattv:

Did you try ultrapower the agent?

https://www.ultrapower.co.nz/

There was a conversation, but I prefer not to be abused over the phone.

AlanL

20 posts

Geek

#2499063 5-Jun-2020 13:53

fe31nz:

I doubt that your tuners will be like the one you linked to - those are fairly modern using recent chipsets. That board is PCIe x1 though - so if your tuners are also PCIe x1, then they should work in any PC that has PCIe bus. Don't Macs also have PCIe bus now too? So if your cards are PCIe x1 the problem then is the drivers. Windows drivers should not be a problem unless your cards are so old that they are not supported in Windows 10. With Linux drivers it depends on the exact card. But since they were running in a Linux based box, the chances are pretty good that they have Linux drivers. Mac drivers I know nothing about - and you have no chance of fitting a PCIe card in a laptop.

If you do have an ancient PC hanging about in a dusty corner that has PCIe bus, then you should be able to install a Linux on it and try the cards. There are versions of Linux for old PCs that still work with small amounts of RAM. Recording should work on such a PC, but playing back requires a decent video card and may need more RAM. Recording from DVB-S(2) cards is pretty much just being able to copy data from the tuner to hard disk - not a particularly resource hungry operation. And you can play back, at least for testing purposes, on a different machine via a network connection or by copying the recording files.

It is also possible to pick up old PCs from TradeMe or a local shop at very reasonable prices. It would be best to know exactly what the tuners are before contemplating that option though.

You get subscribed automatically to a thread if you post to it. I get emails letting me know about new posts on subscribed threads. Maybe there is a setting in your profile for this that you have turned off.

Cheers, very useful reply.

I will need to have a closer look at them when I am back down in Auckland. I dumped all my old PCs years ago. I may grab a cheap ex-enterprise PC from somewhere if there is a chance to reuse the the old cards. I've used linux since '95 so it a familiar platform for me. Then it is a question of what software to use. Could be some interesting fun. :)

Found the problem on my profile. It had a Yahoo address. Changed now.

HP

Shop now for HP laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

fe31nz

1294 posts

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#2499310 5-Jun-2020 22:58

AlanL:

I will need to have a closer look at them when I am back down in Auckland. I dumped all my old PCs years ago. I may grab a cheap ex-enterprise PC from somewhere if there is a chance to reuse the the old cards. I've used linux since '95 so it a familiar platform for me. Then it is a question of what software to use. Could be some interesting fun. :)

When looking for a PC, check if the tuner cards are full height or will fit in a low profile PC. There are heaps of cheap small business PCs on the second hand market, but a large proportion of them only fit low profile cards, and not many of them.

AlanL

20 posts

Geek

#2499369 6-Jun-2020 07:49

Yes, true that. ;)