HD-PVR Stops Responding ~Once/Day

[Chriscic]

The older drivers have stopped the lock-ups apparently, but I'm not getting good quality recordings. Periodic one-sec or so buzzing sound, audio noticeably out-of-sync, and occasional infamous underwater sound and screeches. At least the recordings are finishing and watchable if annoying at times.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

The older drivers have stopped the lock-ups apparently, but I'm not getting good quality recordings. Periodic one-sec or so buzzing sound, audio noticeably out-of-sync, and occasional infamous underwater sound and screeches. At least the recordings are finishing and watchable if annoying at times.

Analog or optical audio?

If it is optical switch to analog.

If it is analog, change your cables.

[Chriscic]

Optical. Looks like I am going to have to suck it up and try stereo only.

[gateslinger]

Back in post #200, I had an issue where the HD-PVR would just give up when the system went idle. Finally figured the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 4240HDC STB was the cause.

I connected the HDMI output to my receiver, in addition to the audio/component out to the HD-PVR for alternate viewing of the STB without Sage. When the receiver shuts off, the STB detects the HDMI input is down and therefore shuts off the output signal to both the HDMI and the component video- even if the STB is powered in an on state. Sage was correct that the input stream was dead. Simple solution was to disconnect the HDMI connection, box always puts out a signal.

Would be nice to configure the box to not drop the output signal. However, now that it's reliable (using the latest drivers), I really don't need the alternate viewing method anyway.

[Chriscic]

The 1.0.5.301 drivers seem to be working for me. Outside of the first recording with the new drivers, I haven't noticed any significant glitches. I haven't watched a lot of TV, but what I was was good and hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here on out (knock on large piece of wood).

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by jerryt

1. Do a clean install of the drivers
2. Revert to 1.0.5.301 drivers after using hwclear
3. Keep the HD-PVR cool
4. Don’t use SPDIF for audio, use RCA
5. Don’t use hardware versions earlier than E1
6. Defragment your hard drives
7. Lock component output to 720p
8. Use a NEC PCIe USB card
9. Filter power through a UPS
10. Increase Java memory
11. Isolate the HDPVR on its own physical controller
12. Use ferrite beads on the USB cables
13. Upgrade firmware running HcwDriverInstall.exe separately for each HD-PVR
14. Tape over the HD-PVR IR port
15. Enable "Tell me if this device can perform faster" for all your USB ports.

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My 5.5TB raids array was fragmented to 25%, never thought a raids array needed to be defragged.

[richie549]

Well after months of dealing with system lockups I found the following setup is working better.

First I run SageTV as a service
Downgraded to the 1.0.5.6 HDPVR drivers

Not other changes... USB port is being shared and HDPVR box (rev E1) is not being externally cooled.. but I did remove it from top of cable box to keep heat down. Maybe it got weather got cooler so temp is less of an issue.

So far sage has been up for 1 week no crashes and no system messages.

To watch TV, I found the DIVX codec is working best. Turnning off Post Processing, and turning off any HDTV HW (ATI) acceleration. I also turn off de-interlace option in DIVX and Direct SHow playback is on Video Overlay Renderer.

The only time sage crashes is doing extreme Fast Foward and Rewind, like the codec is crashing.

Im going to attempt using ffdshow to see if occasional crashes still occur. The service stays up and still records, just the client crashes...

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by jerryt

Free give away of the day; O&O Defrag Pro
http://www.oo-software.com/home/en/s...komputerswiat/

My 5.5TB raids array was fragmented to 25%, never thought a raids array needed to be defragged.

can it defrag an NAS??

[haxer11]

I first invested in the HDPVR unit over a year ago.

Since I have purchased it, I have continually changed the way that I used my SageTV. Originally I had an HTPC hooked up directly to my living room TV.

I installed a Nvidia 9600GT and Riveria Turtle Beach Sound card to take care of hardware video acceleration and digital 5.1 sound. The HDPVR was connected via on on-board USB, and the USB-UIRT was used to change channels on my SA 3200 cable box.

I moved to a Server and network client model and purchased the HD200. Since then, I have removed the 9600 and sound card, installed a HVR2250 for additional tuners.

I started to get very inconsistent HDPVR results after moving to the server/client environment. Reading all these threads, I tried many things.

1. Moved to Analog sound (RCA)
2. Purchased new HDPVR unit
3. Removed the top cover of the HDPVR and placed a fan on it
4. Installed PCI usb card and moved HDPVR to that USB card
5. Plugged HDPVR into Monster Power strip
6. Taped IR sensor

Needless to say, none of these worked. I was a little hesitant to "re-install" the drivers, as I have had issues with Sage being picky in the past, and have had to do entire re-installs that took many hours to bring back to the proper state.

This time around, I decided I would try a reinstall. I took an image of my entire drive, just to be safe before I did. Here is what I did.

1. Ran Hauppage HWCLEAR
2. Reboot PC.
3. Uninstalled SageTv
4. Rebooted
5. Installed Hauppage HVR 2250 drivers (Lastest from website)
6. Rebooted
7. Installed HDPVR 1.0.5.301_whql drivers
8. Rebooted
9. Installed SageTV
10. Rebooted.

Needless to say (crossing fingers), I have not had a HDPVR crash for almost a week now. Previously they were occuring about every 24-48 hours.

I highly suggest fresh driver installation, as it worked for me and I believe all the other things I did had no effect.

Just thought I would share my experience, as I used many of these posts to help me get to this point.

[sic0048]

Thanks for the update. That pretty much validates the directions in the "how to" I've compiled with help/feedback from users like you.

[Chriscic]

I had my first lockup yesterday in three to four weeks (since I installed the 1.0.5.6 drivers). Hopefully not the start of a trend. I can definitely live with one a month.

[korben_dallas]

The HD PVR does seem delicate. I've found that if I power off or reboot my SageTV server pc, then I have to test the HD PVR to make sure channel changes are working. If they aren't, unplugging then replugging the IR blaster cable has fixed it every time.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm thinking a PCI/PCIe card version of the HD PVR might be a more rugged device. A breakout bracket could provide all the same inputs/outputs, and we wouldn't have to deal with the USB fuss.

[OldPCGUY]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

Since I changed my cable setup (exceeded 16.4 Foot Max USB 2.0 Spec and now using 3 footUSB Cable+USB 2.0 repeater 10 Feet).

My HDPVR has not locked in the last four days.

I am using Rev 1.5.6.1 for the HDPVR and SAGE 6.6.2

I use a USB UIRT with IR blaster to change channels on a DISH VIP622.

I am also using STKeepAlive to send a select command my Dish Receiver every 2 hours and after program updates through the USB UIRT.

If this works for more than 2 weeks without an HDPVR lockup then I am done.

I will update again next week.

We went on vacation and scheduled a bunch of recordings and the HDPVR never locked up. Sage Locked up 2 nights ago when my Wife scheduled a recording at 3:00AM (ie during a Dish update)

My Dish is set for program updates at 3 AM and the USBIRT +STKeepAlive send a 'Select' command after the program update has been completed.

This works perfectly fine but if Sage is recording a show when the DISH does its update then it hangs the Service. The HDPVR does not lockup.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

My Dish is set for program updates at 3 AM and the USBIRT +STKeepAlive send a 'Select' command after the program update has been completed. This works perfectly fine but if Sage is recording a show when the DISH does its update then it hangs the Service.

Exactly my experience, so I never schedule recordings at 3:00am anymore.

Recorded two shows at the same time last night on two HD-PVR's, and it worked... Yah

[joe123]

Originally Posted by jerryt

Exactly my experience, so I never schedule recordings at 3:00am anymore.

I don't have Dish, but for those who do and a Favorite schedules a recording at that same time, are they screwed?

[sic0048]

I personally haven't seen a problem with Dish, but perhaps I am lucky. I do know that I do occationally get favorites that record at 3pm (or whatever my update time is) because the recording ends up being the Dish update screen instead of the actual show. However, the recording is the full scheduled time (ie I can fast forward through all 30 minutes of the "show") and does not seem to freeze my SageTV service or the HD-PVR.

[Chriscic]

My experience has been the same as Sic0048's. Occasionally the Dish update screen (really bummed me out when it switched to update screen *right* before one of the spicier moments in "Yu Tu Mama Tambien"), but no lock-ups from it as far as I know.

[jerryt]

I had an interesting discovery today.

I was installing Eric3a's Automatic HD-PVR recovery scripts which use Sagealert to relay the recording Error to Growl which forwards the message to Scripty, which then runs a series of 5 batch files to recycle the power on the HD-PVR with the error by way of an IP remote power strip. Kind of like a nine step recovery program

But every time I would fail a HD-PVR while it was recording on purpose to test the scripts by either disconnecting the power or USB cable, the computer CPU would jump up to 80% and Sage and the computer would become unresponsive. Plus the scripts would never run.

Although the HD-PVR's have been running solid on the ICH10R motherboard controller without any recent lockup, I did have a NEC 2 port USB PCIe card. So I tried both HD-PVR's on the NEC card and gave the automatic recycle scripts another try.

Failed a HD-PVR again, this time no change in CPU, and the script runs and recycle the failed HD-PVR. The Automatic HD-PVR recovery scripts worked perfectly.

Moral of the story = Some Motherboard USB controllers and the HD-PVR are a bad combination. This is an Intel problem because this is the same behavior I had on my last motherboard with a ICH9R controller. Certainly Sage and Hauppauge can not fix a USB controller that locks up the whole computer.

Easy enough to test

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by jerryt

Moral of the story = Motherboard USB controllers and the HD-PVR are a bad combination.

Well, I think we can all agree that the HD-PVR seems to be very sensitive and certain USB controllers have caused problems. But to be fair, not every motherboard USB controller causes an issue however.

But without a doubt, there have been many people that have solved their HD-PVR problems when they bought a good quality PCI USB controller and plugged their HD-PVR into it.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by jerryt

Moral of the story = Some Motherboard USB controllers and the HD-PVR are a bad combination.

The HD PVR is very sensitive indeed, but I had the opposite experirence.

I re-installed XP pro from scratch and SageTV and now, my HD PVR is working 99.99% flawlessly. I am not one to re-install the OS, that's my last option and it was. I did it as a last resort when I started getting weird HD PVR lock ups.

My HD PVR now works great connected to the USB on the motherboard and I have a cheap ECS motherboard that has worked great for 5 years.

Go figure.