Files Become Corrupt, Stop Midway in Playback and Freeze Computer

[kirkio]

I am running SageTV V4 and have recently had about 1/3 of my recordings stop in the middle of playback and freeze. One file played for about one second and then froze. Sometimes I can get it to exit Sage, other times I have to force a system reboot. I have defragged, but it does not seem to fix the problem. I have also tried playing the files in Winamp, and they do the same thing, so this leads me to believe that the files being written are corrupt. I am playing the files from the directory they were recorded in (i did not move them). Any suggestions as to how I can fix this?

Thanks,
Kirk

[Opus4]

You said this recently started? Did your recordings work correctly all the time previously? Can the files play correctly on another PC?

I would try using the mfr's software to see if the tuner will create good recordings that way - that might give info about whether the tuner is going bad.

- Andy

[kirkio]

Could this perhaps be a heat issue?

I have recently begun running the PC 24/7 (although it does not tune 24/7) and after some research, I have read of similar problems being related to the board getting too hot. If it is an issue of the device getting too hot, what measures should I take to cool it (add a heatsink, add casefans)

Thanks

[hemicuda]

I've been running my computers (6 on the LAN right now) 24/7 for years and the only issues I've had are a couple of drive failures due to old age. I always add an extra case fan or 2 and never use the OEM cpu fan if I expect to do and real work on a machine. YRMV as always.

I prefer the always-on scenerio to reduce any adverse thermal cycling effects; and of course not have to wait on the M$ boot process. If your motherboard supports monitoring software I'd recommend setting it up. There's a plugin or 2 for STV that will put a lot of info on the OSD. Most 'modern' boards have 2 thermal sensors built in: CPU and the board itself. I don't have anything to monitor the HDD temps, but there's a case fan near enough to them that I'm not worried.