Glitch with 2 tuners...force/move an IRQ?

[rotaryracer]

Hey guys, I just put two IVAC-16s in my Sage 1.4.10 box. I have an NF7 mobo running XP SP1A and the tuners are in slots 2 & 4. I had problems last night with my second tuner, with choppy video and pixellation on recordings/live TV.

I did a quick system check and it looks like one of my tuners is sharing an IRQ with my video card - probably not good and (I'm hoping) the reason for my problems. Is there any way to force my video card or 2nd PVR to different IRQs without playing "musical PCI slots" with the tuner card?

Thanks!

Jason

[gplasky]

Start dancing.

Gerry

[rotaryracer]

Yeah, that's what I thought. No big deal....my wife just gets nervous when she sees me taking the Sage box off the audio rack.

Funny thing is I purposely stayed away from PCI #1 to avoid conflicting with the AGP slot. I heard ASUS boards worked best with multi-tuners on slots 2 & 4....guess ABIT doesn't play as nice.

Thanks Gerry!

Jason

[gplasky]

Other thing you can do which may help is disable any other ports you don't use but has an IRQ. I've disabled both serial ports, and parallel port. This frees up IRQ 3,4 & 7.

Gerry

[rotaryracer]

It's pretty weird - I have my serial ports disabled and my floppy controller disabled to try and free up IRQs. I can't disable my parallel port because it drives my VFD.

That said, I've got a huge span of IRQs between 5-15 that appear to not be used. Why the heck couldn't my tuner or video card grab one of them rather than trying to share?

If I also disable USB for the time being (I rarely use it on my Sage box) and freed up another IRQ, any chance the tuner or video card will move automagically without bouncing hardware around? Anything I can force in the BIOS?

Thanks!

Jason

[Crowdx42]

Install as Standard Computer if the box is running Windows 2000 or XP, that will the OS will redetect all hardware and put them on seperate interrupts.
Patrick

[rotaryracer]

Thanks guys....I ended up taking the box down and playing "Dance of the PVR Encoders". I also disabled my onboard USB - I never use it unless I'm rebuilding the machine and I noticed it was sharing an IRQ with my onboard sound. I ended up with everything greedily hoarding it's own IRQ, just like I wanted. Now to reinstall and hope for the best!

Just out of curiousity (since I think I'll be stopping at 2 PVRs), how do people manage IRQs that have boxes loaded with PVRs? Since I'm considering a HD card (as soon as Sage supports one!) and I know the ADTV takes two IRQs, is this something to be concerned about in the future?

CrowdX/Patrick, I couldn't remember how to swap over to 'Standard Computer' - can you give me the quick and dirty lesson for next time?

Thanks!

Jason

[Crowdx42]

Got to the device manage, then click on the + sign beside COMPUTER, then select ACPI ... and then update driver, select install from a specific place and then "don't search" after that you will get a list of compatible hardware and at the bottom you will see Standard COmputer, select and install like any other driver. Now when the macine reboots it will rescan all the hardware and assign seperat IRQs for everything. The downside is you will loose some of the more advanced features of power management BUT it can solve IRQ issues.
Patrick

[rotaryracer]

AARRRRGGHHHH!!!!

Okay, I've got the everything on it's own IRQ. I reboot, fire-up Sage, everything seems to function okay. I come back downstairs to watch Survivor and I've got a black screen - something locked up the box.

Reboot, try to relaunch Sage. I get 100% CPU utilization and can only do a couple of commands before it freezes. Reboot, try again. Go into Sage, remove both tuners, go back through setup...still get 100% CPU ute. Exit Sage, delete both tuners in Windows, let XP find and reinstall (newest SHSPVR drivers), go back and try to setup Sage...STILL getting 100% CPU ute and Sage locks up.

Looks like Sage has an updated .JAR, but it apparently is supposed to fix multi-source (i.e. cable and s-video), not multi-tuner issues. I have not tried uninstalling and reinstalling Sage...yet. Any thoughts before I go thermonuclear?

Thanks guys for any and all help....

Jason

[Crowdx42]

Have you cleared all the hauppauge drivers with HCWClear?
If things are still locking up, then you might be looking at a format and reinstall, some reg settings may be screwing you up. Maybe use Norton Ghost and do an image first, then format and reinstall and setup Sage, if it doesn't fix the problem you can just restore the image.
Patrick

[rotaryracer]

Okay, I *think* I have it fixed....maybe....for now.

I backed up my wiz.bin and wiz.bak files, uninstalled Sage completely, and deleted the Frey directory. I then reinstalled Sage and went through the setup again. Seemed to go okay, so I got brave and moved my wiz files back over to the new install (after backing up the new ones - just in case). All my pointers are back to my taped shows, my favorites are back, and I appear to be able to use Sage without getting 100% cpu ute.

When I moved the tuners, deleting and readding the tuners in Sage must not've been quite enough to fix it. The full monty reinstall I *hope* will do the trick....keep yor fingers crossed!

Thanks everyone for all the help with this....

Jason

[Crowdx42]

So a question on this subject, the Wiz and properties files in Sage, if I was doing a fresh install and had these backed up, what settings would get saved? Would all my recorded shows be saved as long as their location remained the same? Also what part of the hardware settings would get saved? Could an improper hardware setting get saved and so restored when these files are restored?
An insight into these files would be cool.
Patrick

[rotaryracer]

I think the properties files seems to save everything in the 'Detailed Setup' button, as well as recent searches and possibly some tuner info. I tried reading Wiz.bin in notepad - that's a good way to go blind - but I believe that's mainly favorites, pointers, and scheduled recordings...not sure if it contains any tuner data or not.

When I was reasonably sure that Sage was stable, I moved just my old wiz.bin file over (not properties file) and (as far as I can tell) it restored all my favorites, scheduled recordings, and pointers to previous recordings.

Anyone else that can chime in on this?

Jason