Problems with 2 vbox cat's eye pci cards

[jhendrix]

I have 2 vbox cat's eye pci cards in my sage server. One is a DTA-150 and the other is a DTA-151.
My problem is only 1 card can tune any channels.
I had the DTA-151 card installed first and working fine, I then installed the DTA-150 card and I would get the "no signal" box.
The first thing I did was swap the antenna cables, but still only the 151 would tune.
I then pulled out the 151 and tried just the 150, and it worked fine.
I reinstalled the 151 and then the 150 was the only card to tune.
When I look under the device manager, it says they are using different drivers.
The 2 drivers listed are
VBox TV Receiver, BDA Tuner Driver (DTF8600 - ATSC)
VBox TV Receiver, BDA Tuner Driver (DTF8600)

What appears to me is that what ever card is currently working is assigned the (DTF8600 - ATSC) driver.
(but it is late, so it's possible I might not be right)

I tried to remove the DTF8600 driver, but I only succeeded in making windows think it was damaged and it insisted on installing the DTF8600 driver again.

Has anybody had a similar problem? (I scoured the forums, but couldn't find anything like it)
Does anybody have a DTA-150 and 151 running the in same box?

Thanks
-jeff

[hotwire]

I just ordered two DTA-150 cards for the SageTV server that I am building, they haven't arrived yet so I am waiting to finish the computer. Please let me know if you find a solution to your problem.

Kenny

[teknubic]

I have a pair of 151's
It would seem to me that both need to use the ATSC driver, since they're both ATSC cards, right? Last I saw, Microsquish had verified drivers for the vBox tuners and they didn't work. Get the drivers from the vBox site and update your tuners' drivers is the only thing I can think of doing.
Let us know how that works.

[jhendrix]

I'm currently running the latest drivers (2.1.705.7).
I pulled both cards out of my machine and tried to delete all references to the non ATSC driver, but windows wouldn't let me. I even tried it in safe mode with no luck.
I also tried to use an older driver (2.1.705.0), but windows kept saying I had the latest driver and wouldn't let me go to an older version.

[hotwire]

It's just an idea, but he writes in this post http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...57&postcount=9 that he has 5 Cat's Eye tuner cards working in one machine. He might be able to give us some tips on what he did to get them to work together. Teknubic, do your two DTA-151 cards work ok?

hope this helps,
Kenny

[dfitz43]

I've got 2x Vbox 151 and 1x Vbox 150 in my Sageserver running happily together. I don't recall doing anything special to make them work. The drivers are all 2.1.705.0.

In the device manager, I have the same thing as the OP: 1 instance of the VBox TV Receiver, BDA Tuner Driver (DTF8600 - ATSC), and 2 of the VBox TV Receiver, BDA Tuner Driver (DTF8600).

I know next to nothing about how drivers work (can multiples devices access the same driver simultaneously?), but what I do know is that all 3 cards can record ATSC streams simultaneously with no problem. In any case, since the Vbox is ATSC only, perhaps any tuner driver can work? I have no idea.

I'll attach an image of my device manager page for good measure.

cheers,
Dave

[jlabrue]

Originally Posted by dfitz43

I've got 2x Vbox 151 and 1x Vbox 150 in my Sageserver running happily together. I don't recall doing anything special to make them work. The drivers are all 2.1.705.0.

In the device manager, I have the same thing as the OP: 1 instance of the VBox TV Receiver, BDA Tuner Driver (DTF8600 - ATSC), and 2 of the VBox TV Receiver, BDA Tuner Driver (DTF8600).

I know next to nothing about how drivers work (can multiples devices access the same driver simultaneously?), but what I do know is that all 3 cards can record ATSC streams simultaneously with no problem. In any case, since the Vbox is ATSC only, perhaps any tuner driver can work? I have no idea.

I'll attach an image of my device manager page for good measure.

cheers,
Dave

I would have to concur. I have 2 Vbox 150's and they work fine at the same time. I did have problems with the 2.1.705.7 version of the drivers. I was getting a “No Signal” message on all of my HD stuff so I thought upgrading the drivers would have been a good thing but it completely messed my machine up so I rolled back to 2.1.705.0 I think if I would have just powered off my machine and restarted it would have reset the cards without messing with the drivers.

[teknubic]

Originally Posted by jlabrue

I would have to concur. I have 2 Vbox 150's and they work fine at the same time. I did have problems with the 2.1.705.7 version of the drivers. I was getting a “No Signal” message on all of my HD stuff so I thought upgrading the drivers would have been a good thing but it completely messed my machine up so I rolled back to 2.1.705.0 I think if I would have just powered off my machine and restarted it would have reset the cards without messing with the drivers.

Yea, that's what I was talking about. The new drivers don't work. Use the old.
@ hotwire: My 151s are working great. Thinking of getting more.

[jhendrix]

I see you have a driver for the MCE A180, do you have one of those in your box also?
I could not get my A180 and a vbox working in the same machine, so I gave my A180 to my brother and bought another vbox.
I will try going back to version 2.1.705.0 (so far windows won't let me load the older driver, but I'll try to spend some more time on it tonight)

[dfitz43]

Yeah, I have a total of 4 ATSC tuners (Vbox x3, Aver A180 x1). The Avermedia card was a little finicky on the install; I think I had to install it prior to any of the Vbox for some reason.

I tried for the longest time to get 2 fusion cards to work with 2 A180s. Could never get either pair to install properly. I gave up on that and went the Vbox route. Cheaper and better, IMO. I did keep the one A180, which works well individually.

As has been suggested, it seems the problem is the newer drivers. Definitely give it a shot with 2.1.705.0 and let us know how it goes.

cheers,
Dave

[jhendrix]

How do you remove old drivers?
I've pulled out the cards, made unused drivers visible, and removed them.
I also removed any inf file (or other file) that had anything to do with these cards. (I searched for 951, 8600, vbox, atsc, etc.). I did the same thing in the registery (searched for any keyword that had to do with these cards).
But when I put the cards back in and install from the CD (which is version 2.1.705.0) it says the driver is 2.1.705.7.
I did this at least 3 times, each time I got more agressive about deleting files that I even THOUGHT might have something to do with these cards and every time I reinstall them, it installs the 2.1.705.7 driver.

Anybody have an suggestions how to completely remove drivers? (I'm about to reformat my server, again)

[jhendrix]

Originally Posted by jhendrix

How do you remove old drivers?
I've pulled out the cards, made unused drivers visible, and removed them.
I also removed any inf file (or other file) that had anything to do with these cards. (I searched for 951, 8600, vbox, atsc, etc.). I did the same thing in the registery (searched for any keyword that had to do with these cards).
But when I put the cards back in and install from the CD (which is version 2.1.705.0) it says the driver is 2.1.705.7.
I did this at least 3 times, each time I got more agressive about deleting files that I even THOUGHT might have something to do with these cards and every time I reinstall them, it installs the 2.1.705.7 driver.

Anybody have an suggestions how to completely remove drivers? (I'm about to reformat my server, again)

Well, after spending many nights trying to remove the newest drivers, I finally gave up and reformated my server (again).
I deleted every trace I could find of the 2.1.705.7 version of the cat's eye drivers from anywhere on my network (I wanted to make sure they didn't get installed) and I installed the 2.1.705.0 version.
Now both cards work great together.
I've talked to people that are running from 2 to 6 of these cards together, and every one of them has said to avoid the 2.1.705.7 drivers and I want to add my name to that list.
I also could not get an A180 and a DTA-151 to play together when using the 2.1.705.7 drivers. I'm guessing they would have worked with the 2.1.705.0 drivers, but I have since got rid of the A180 thinking it was a card incompatibility issue.

[Steve52]

I am have problems getting two VBOX DTA-150's to run in the same STV server. With two of these cards installed in the computer windows XP will not boot up. It will if you take one out, but not with two installed. I used the new 32 bit drivers from VBOX. The above problems seemed to be with reception, but I can't get that far along. Any suggestions about how to fix my problem?