FIXED: Hauppauge 2250 Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

[will]

After a lot of research and experimenting I believe I found the solution to my Hauppauge HVR-2250 crashing my Windows 2003 Server. I have been running my server for well over 24 hours without any instability. This fix should also work for Windows Home Servers as they simply stripped down Windows 2003 Servers.

In Windows 2003 32bit, if you put 4 gigs of RAM in it will show up 4 gigs of RAM (by default with modern hardware) and in some versions you can use more than 4 gigs of RAM (up to 32 gigs). Microsoft accomplishes this by remapping memory use through PAE (Physical Address Extensions). PAE enables the 32bit OS to handle more than 4 gigs of RAM even though 32bit software/drivers won't be able to see anything more than 2 gigs (3 gigs with the /3GB switch).

I had a theory that having PAE enabled with my 4 gigs of RAM was causing the Hauppauge cards to crash the system. I disabled PAE using the instructions in MS KB900524. I added "/execute /NOPAE" to my C:\boot.ini file and restarted. My system has been running perfect for over 24 hours with heavy recording and live TV watching use. Before disabling PAE I have never been able to use my system for more than a few hours.

After disabling PAE Windows only reports 3.37 GB of RAM available however I can live with that and it is certainly better than the alternative of pulling 2 gigs out. Also, by disabling PAE you will disable DEP (Data Execution Prevention) which is a security precaution introduced by Microsoft with Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003 SP1.

This MS article about PAE Memory actually references driver/PCI Bus issues with PAE and gives guidelines to driver developers on how to properly write drivers.

Note: an easy fix that others have been using is simply reducing the physical amount of RAM in your system to a maximum of 2 gigs. While this is an acceptable solution to some I need more than 2 gigs as my server is virtualized and does more than host SageTV.

[pot_pie]

I know this is an old post but thanks for the tip. Saved me having to pull a bunch of memory out of my WHS box. Hopefully Hauppauge has a functional driver for the 2250 before WHS Vail rolls out later in 2010 (I'm an optimist).

[will]

Originally Posted by pot_pie

I know this is an old post but thanks for the tip. Saved me having to pull a bunch of memory out of my WHS box. Hopefully Hauppauge has a functional driver for the 2250 before WHS Vail rolls out later in 2010 (I'm an optimist).

I'm glad I could help.

[rgroves]

...Hope there is still some chips left....

I found this thread many months ago, because I was having the same issues. I haven't applied the changes till now because I used the extra RAM I took out for an HTPC... that has now been retired since I got an HD300. I decided to start the New Year with the added RAM and "/execute /NOPAE" in the boot.ini. That and the fact that the fan on my PSU decided it couldn't it anymore and committed suicide today.

So far It's been up and running for about an hour without any issues. *edit* Several hours, no issues now. SCHWEEEETTTTT!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


Well, I celebrated too soon. Ever since I added the RAM back to the server and added the "/execute /NOPAE" to the boot.ini My server rebooted twice over night, and again this evening. All of the reboots are for the same error... "Error code 0000000a, parameter1 0d4013f4, parameter2 d0000002, parameter3 00000000, parameter4 80859826.".

I'm going to rip the HVR-2250 out and replace it with something else. I'm tired of dealing with only 2GB RAM, BSOD's, and issues with this cards incompatibility with WHS and 4GB of RAM.

[ojosch]

Sorry to wake an old thread, but I found a solution for this as well, which I thought I should share in case others are wanting a prime solution.

I did a kernel hack like this one: http://www.unawave.de/windows-7-tipp...r.html?lang=EN

...which allows the system to address more than 4GB RAM and the BLUE SCREENS HAVE STOPPED.

After doing the hack, now if I go into Task Manager and look at Performance it shows physical memory at 4030 MB. No more blue screens. I've had it installed for a little more than 3 months now with nice solid operation. Before, I used to get a blue screen every few days.

Of course the other option is to install Win7 x64, but I have only x86 programs I wanted to run for that server so for me I wanted performance to be high as possible, so I am running x86 and the kernel hack works fine with my Hauppaugge 2250 card installed.

I just thought I'd update this solution as I've always had this problem with my old Vista SageTV install but couldn't get the kernel hack to work on it so I just installed Win7 32-bit and had the same issue, which brought me here after searching "SageTV bluescreen". Once I realized it was caused by the 2250 (which needs to stay and so does the RAM), I went on ahead and did the hack same as I've done to several other computers I own. I've ran this hack for more than a year on 2 of my other laptops as well with no side effects.

This was the patch I ran (the russian one): http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/...an-4gb-memory/ ...but the first link above claims to do the same thing and may be easier to understand for some since it is in English. It's a free hack and installs in a couple minutes. You can still boot with the original kernel as well if you prefer, as the hack only creates a copy of your original kernel, mods the bit to unlock the 4GB+ addressing limit, then adds an entry into the BCD bootloader so you can choose which kernel to boot from.
.
.
.