Lockups during playback with new video card

[davin]

I was experiencing lockups during playback which I thought were related to one of my PVR150-MCEs sharing an IRQ with my video card. I swapped PCI slots (which required motherboard surgery, see http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...d.php?p=134626 for details), which fixed the shared IRQ problem, but the problem persists.

Here's my problem: Screen freezes during show playback. This happens regardless of what's going on with my two tuners. It has happened which watching a prerecorded show with no recordings in progress, while watching a prerecorded show with one or both tuners recording other shows, and while watching Live TV. It happens at random times... it may go 20 minutes or 2 hours of playback before freezing.

The key piece of information here is that my machine ran absolutely rock solid with no sage-related crashes for a year when using the motherboard's onboard video (nForce2 IGP with onboard MX4 video). I installed an AGP GeForce 6600 card (AOpen 256M model) and suddenly I get the lockups.

Here is my setup:
MSI K7N2GM2 MB (nForce2 IGP)
Sempron 2200+
512MB RAM
Aopen GeForce 6600 256MB
Two PVR150-MCE
xmicro USB wireless G dongle
USB-UIRT
gyration compact wireless keyboard/mouse
seagate 250gb SATA HD
NEC IDE DVD-ROM
Windows XP SP2 with latest updates
nVidia PureVideo decoder
Latest PVR150 drivers (ran HCWCLEAN first)
Latest nVidia display drivers
Latest MB bios
Latest nVidia MB drivers

As I mentioned above, there are no longer any IRQ conflicts with the 6600 and the PVR cards. They all have their own IRQs shared with nothing else.
Moving slots around is not an option, as there is only one PCI slot left, and it shares a hardware IRQ line with the AGP slot.

I've been running VMR9 and really like the picture. My current plan is to try these things in this order:

- Run overlay with HW accel turned off
- Run different decoders with VMR9 on
- Run different decoders with overlay/HW accel off

I would really like to keep running with the 6600, as the picture is great and there is less CPU load compared to the onboard graphics. Does anyone have any hints?

Thanks in advance!

[aperry]

You might give a call to Hauppauge technical support. One time when I had them on the phone, the guy I was talking to referenced that their cards and the 6600 series of video cards have some issues. I didn't get any details since I don't have that card, but you may want to call.

Obviously, if you get any information out of them about this, be sure to let us all know...

[davin]

Hrm. That doesn't sound good. I'll contact Hauppauge and let you know what I hear.

[davin]

Update... I have an email in to Hauppauge tech support. Waiting for a reply (I sent it Fri afternoon PST, so I don't expect a response until sometime next week).

I switched over to Overlay with 3d acceleration turned off. No dice. Still got a freeze.

Then I switched back to VMR9 (no FSE) and used the SageTV decoder instead of the nVidia purevideo decoder. About 6 hours of TV watching yesterday, including 4+ of LiveTV (football games), and no crashes yet. I'm going to keep it on the Sage decoder for the next few days and see if it remains crashless. If so, then I think I've found the culprit. I'm disappointed, though, because the nVidia decoder looks significantly better than the SageTV decoder. The SageTV one is watchable, but the nvidia is much smoother, especially in sports.

After a few days I will switch back to the earlier pre-purevideo nvidia decoder (1.00.67) and try that both with and without hardware acceleration to see what happens. I think I will also call nVidia tech support.

[bash1979]

Funny you mention this....I've been having crazy freezing problems for the past while, and I just recently traced it to the Nvidia decoder. I am running decoder version 1.02.177. Switching to another decoder proves to eliminate the freezing (as far as I can tell), but all other decoders look like garbage on my TV. Nvidia is my only choice for a nice picture, so I've been putting up with the freezing.

Please keep us posted on your findings....I'd be very interested to know if your problem gets fixed.

Thanks!

[blade]

Originally Posted by bash1979

Funny you mention this....I've been having crazy freezing problems for the past while, and I just recently traced it to the Nvidia decoder. I am running decoder version 1.02.177. Switching to another decoder proves to eliminate the freezing (as far as I can tell), but all other decoders look like garbage on my TV. Nvidia is my only choice for a nice picture, so I've been putting up with the freezing.Thanks!

Not sure if it would help, but you could try upgrading to the newest version.

[davin]

bash, what type of vidcard are you using?

My system is still up and running with the Sage decoder. Lots of TV viewing yesterday, both livetv and recorded content, and no crashes at all. I'm 95% sure that it's the nvidia decoder causing the crashes especially now that there's someone else with the same problem. But I'll keep using the sage decoder for a couple more days just to be sure.

[bash1979]

I'm using an FX5200.

Btw, I upgraded to the most recent version of the Nvidia decoder....crashed after 20 mins.