Can't get 2 tuners working

[gplasky]

Desperately seeking help. I've tried to install two PVR250's in 2 different PC's with the same result. One of the cards will play perfectly. Great sound and video no matter what decoder I chose. (Hauppague's Intervideo or Sonic Cinemaster) The second card gives me nothing but grief. Basically a checkerboard type b&w screen. Like tiny b&w ants dancing all over it. No audio and no general errors. First board was older ASUS nForce 1 board with Athlon processor. Both PVR250's kept coming up with IRQ 18 and I thought that was my issue. Reinstalled Win XP as a standard PC (not ACPI) so I could set the IRQ in BIOS. One card was IRQ 5 and one was IRQ 12. Same symptoms. Have another PC ASUS nForce2 board. Put the cards in and loaded drivers. One was IRQ16, the other IRQ 18. Same symptoms. Both PVR250's are the newer IVTC16 type with no heat sink. Originally had one IVTC 15 and one IVTC 16 and thought that was the issue. Going crazy quickly here. ANy help/suggestions would be appreciated. Trying not to buy new motherboard but maybe an issuse with nForce chip or ASUS BIOS? Latest BIOS versions and Hauppague driver 2177 from shspvr. Single card, any of them work great also. Beta 1.4.7. Am I missing a step here?
Help!

Gerry

[SHS]

Did ever stop to think that it maybe a bad card?.

[gplasky]

I'm thinking that now. I will be taking it back today and picking up a replacement. What's the best way to do this install? I'm going to do a new install of XP.
1. Should I have one or both card in while installing the OS.
2. Should I install the OS first with none of the cards in.
3. Once the OS is installed and functioning, should I install one card at a time, install the driver, run setup and install video decoders.
4. Or put both cards in, install the driver for each card and then run setup and decoders.

My thought was to do the new OS install complete, install the new card, driver, decoder and WinTV. Then test the new card with WinTV.

I'm thinking it is a bad card because WinTV wouldn't discover any channels. The bad thing is I also had an ITVC15 version previously working before I bought this and it has the same symptoms now. So maybe this went bad also. What crappy luck.


Thanks for the help.

Gerry

[Cazador]

I also am having problem with the second card. After a little while the recording on the second card starts become slightly snowy. To get it back to normal i have to restart sage.

[gplasky]

Just so everyone can sleep at night I have solved my problem. The problem I was having was basic stupidity.

After returning the card I still had the problem. I even went as far as locating a totally diffferent motherboard. Same issue. Then I noticed when I swapped the cable around the problem showed up on the other card. AHA! In my infinite wisdom, one of the cables was the slide-on type. I had finally noticed that the core was actually wedged down inside and never making contact. I went back to the original motherboard, carefully assembled and installed the cards and now have the Super Duper 2 Tuner System that was a Comedy of Errors for 2 days. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get up in the morning. Thoroughly embarassed but I had to share. Thanks for all the help. (Don't laugh too hard.)

Gerry

[gplasky]

Quick question on my 2 tuner setup. Currently I have a D: partition formatted with 64K blocks. Is this good for my 2 tuner system or should I create 2 partitions, one for each tuner. Is that possible and is it better?

Gerry

[salsbst]

Extra partitions will do you no good. Use one.

[fidget]

Originally posted by gplasky
Quick question on my 2 tuner setup. Currently I have a D: partition formatted with 64K blocks. Is this good for my 2 tuner system or should I create 2 partitions, one for each tuner. Is that possible and is it better?

Gerry

I have a 2 tuner system and only one partition. Since the only thing that it is doing is recording TV, I have it formatted for 64K blocks. I don't see what having a second partition would do. I think you would run out of PCI slot before you would overload your HDD.

[gplasky]

Thanks-didn't know for sure. Just wanted to hear from the experts.


Gerry