TV Tuner Card Locking Up

[Extrix]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

I recently bought a new computer and put it together myself. With this new computer setup I made the switch from Windows XP to Windows Vista... since some of the hardware in my computer would work better in Vista. Like the ram, I have 4 GB's and XP only reads 3 GB's.

Anyways, after much tweaking and updating it seems to be working fairly stable finally, although I do have one outstanding problem that is driving me crazy, and is actually making me think I should make the switch back to XP if I can't get this working soon.

The TV.

I bought a new TV Tuner card with the new PC setup, a Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1800 PCI-E TV Tuner for Vista.. since it had drivers to run in Vista 64-bit. Everything was working fine until about a half an hour in to watching TV, the computer locked up... froze, then restarted. I tried multiple times with this card to get it to work with still the same result. Locks up and reboots the computer.

I ended up sending it back. I bought a new card, a Sapphire ATI Theater 650 Pro Theatrix card and still, the same locking up and crashing. I tried different TV software too... The WinTV software, PowerCinema, BeyondTV... still all the same result.. freezing and crashing the computer.

I am now using my old TV Tuner card, a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150 and it was working fine for about a day.. there was even a Vista update for it which gave me hope until it crashed today.. and now it won't even start or if it does it's really slow and choppy.

I have no idea what's wrong.. every card I try has issues, The software I use doesn't seem to matter.

Computer Specs:

OS: Windows Vista Ultimate - Service Pack 1 - 64-bit Operating System

CPU: Intel Quad Core 2 CPU Q9450 @ 2.66Ghz

Motherboard: ASUS P5N-D

Motherboard Chipset: NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT

Sound Card: ASUS Xonar DX Audio Device / Realtek High Definition Audo (Onboard)

RAM: 4GB

Current TV Tuner Card: WinTV-PVR 150

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm read to switch back to Windows XP if this problem persists!

Thanks!

[maplecookie Veteran]

Does it turn blue by any chance when it freezes? Ours freezes also, no matter what. I end the media center process tree, then restart it.

Your setup is completely different than ours, but we both have the same tv tuner card.

Now with ours, we've NEVER caught it in the act of freezing. We come home, I turn on the TV and it's blue. There are no errors in event viewer and no fixes that Flish or I can find.

There is also another issue that some have reported. The screen turns blue, you can't end the process tree because it's completely frozen, you restart a million times, then it tells you the guide is out of date but it won't update because it's messed up. We got past it after another million restarts, something finally kicked on and the guide updated and it worked again. That happens randomly and it seems to fix itself randomly also.

[Lord Zog]

Make sure you have very good cooling.. Most TV Tuners are bad for heat problems.. Out of all my TV Tuners and DVB's, only one runs nice and cool.. The rest I needed to add fans or heatsinks to them to use them for a full day. otherwise, they would freeze. These aren't like video cards, they only are used when the software initializes them.. Check your chips heat!

[winrez]

its not your tuner its actually your video card driver for the 8800 go to the nzone.com and download the latest beta driver for your card it should fix it.

[maplecookie Veteran]

Didn't fix our problem. We've done it numerous times, still freezes and still turns blue. We have a NVIDIA GeForce 7000 series somethingorother.

Cooling in our case is great. I really think it's something directly to do with Vista, but nothing fixes it.

[Rob2687]

Maybe it's something to do with the power saving options.

[Lord Zog]

its not your tuner its actually your video card driver for the 8800 go to the nzone.com and download the latest beta driver for your card it should fix it.

Using 8800's in 5 HTPC's and I didn't need a new driver.. Its working fine with a SkyWalker-1 and a Twinhan 102g in one of them.. I have changed drivers, codecs, etc.. The chips are HOT to the touch.. As soon as I added heatsinks, the problems disappeared.

Didn't fix our problem. We've done it numerous times, still freezes and still turns blue. We have a NVIDIA GeForce 7000 series somethingorother.

Cooling in our case is great. I really think it's something directly to do with Vista, but nothing fixes it.

Try it in Linux if its just a HTPC.. MythTV is a good distro.. If not, try to dual XP and see if it still does it.. Also, check your chip next tme it freezes to see if its hot.. I had 3 fans in my case flowing nicely, but they would still get hot. :( And vista shouldn't be a prob.. My basement PC is using Vista with MC and works fine..

Also, I know with some DVB software, ya can have issues using more than one core, maybe in Vista with your card, change it to use just one core on your CPU.. If its slow and choppy tho, thats either power issue or heat..

Edited May 4, 2008 by Lord Zog

[winrez]

try using MCDiag program (its designed for XP but will work for Vista) that might be able to locate your problem

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;DisplayLang=en

Also are you recording on the same drive as the OS?

[Extrix]

Hi Everyone!

Thank you for the quick replies!

I don't think heat is a problem, but if this beta driver does not work, I will consider trying a heatsink on the card.

What happens exactly when the TV crashes is first, I get lines in the TV picture and the display goes fuzzy. Then there is a stuttering noise I hear, then soon after the computer restarts.

@Triliaeris: Sorry you are having problems!

@Rob2687: Can you explain more?

@winrez: I am going to dry the beta driver shortly, just waiting for a few things to finish on the computer now. If the drivers do not work, I will try that MCDiag problem you suggested. I also record on a different drive then the OS is installed on.

Thanks again everyone.

[maplecookie Veteran]

Hi Everyone!

Thank you for the quick replies!

I don't think heat is a problem, but if this beta driver does not work, I will consider trying a heatsink on the card.

What happens exactly when the TV crashes is first, I get lines in the TV picture and the display goes fuzzy. Then there is a stuttering noise I hear, then soon after the computer restarts.

@Triliaeris: Sorry you are having problems!

@Rob2687: Can you explain more?

@winrez: I am going to dry the beta driver shortly, just waiting for a few things to finish on the computer now. If the drivers do not work, I will try that MCDiag problem you suggested. I also record on a different drive then the OS is installed on.

Thanks again everyone.

Let me know if you get yours fixed! I'd love to stop coming home for lunch to a frozen tv.

[neo158]

It looks as though that TV Card is only certified for XP.

It does have 64-bit drivers though and they are limited to less than 4Gb of memory

Heres the card I have, works very well on Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP1

[Dessimat0r]

Update your chipset drivers, and run Prime95 for an hour or so to make sure the PC is stable.

[GrimReeper]

My TV tuner card also had issues with Vista sadly, was a dvico one. It has been discontinued now but it hadn't been out long when I tried it. I couldn't use it or I would just freeze. I'm back on XP and it works fine again, my tv tuner card isn't new but its a shame when something like this happens imo.

[Napalm Frog]

I had issues on mine after I installed SP1, and nothing worked until the latest version of ChrisTV came out a few days ago. It's odd as to why it happened. I also updated to the latest Beta nVidia drivers around the same time, but every driver I tried before then had issues, so I wouldn't know.

[Extrix]

Hey everyone, again thanks for more replies.

I tried the beta drivers with now luck. Going to try more ideas mentioned in this thread tomorrow.

[Extrix]

Hey guys, just to let you know, I found out last night this problem happened with Windows Media Player as well (Lines spawn in the Media Player then freeze and reboot) ... so yeah maybe thinking it is the video card or something, still going to update my chipset drivers soon and see if that has any effect.

[#Michael]

I can tell you that I have the wintv hvr1800 and it works just fine with vista home ultimate sp1. It is in a dell xps 410 machine. I have never had a problem with it.

[tdrock]

Current TV Tuner Card: WinTV-PVR 150

its a known issue, with 64bit vista and 4GB ram. Their is no fix for it yet.

check their website, you will see it.

I have the same card. same issue.

[Extrix]

I can tell you that I have the wintv hvr1800 and it works just fine with vista home ultimate sp1. It is in a dell xps 410 machine. I have never had a problem with it.

Is it possible that more then just that card has a problems with vista 64bit and 4gb+ ram then?

Like I said before, I just got the symptom I usually get with my TV Tuner, but got it in Windows Media Player.. so it has to be something else, unless the TV Tuner card can make other programs crash... ? :huh:

Hmmm..

[#Michael]

Is it possible that more then just that card has a problems with vista 64bit and 4gb+ ram then?

Like I said before, I just got the symptom I usually get with my TV Tuner, but got it in Windows Media Player.. so it has to be something else, unless the TV Tuner card can make other programs crash... ? :huh:

Hmmm..

I don't know. Hauppauge hasn't always been know for great 64bit drivers, neither has microsoft been know for providing good drivers for the tv cards. My OS is 32bit ultimate and works just fine.

Do you have a system that runs xp/vista 32bit that you can try it on?

[Extrix]

I do but, I don't think it's a dysfunctional card since all the others cards I have tried all have the same symptoms... and seeing Windows Media Player crash just like how the TV Tuner crashed gave me the idea that it might possibly be my graphics card or outdated drivers instead...