Improved HD PVR Stability with v7?

[ewelin]

I had been running v6 with the 1.0.5.301 driver for almost 8 months with maybe a handful of lockups in that time. I did strugle to get it stable initially but I got there. Earlier this week it turned downhill for some strange reason. Nothing on my WHS changed, it just started locking up a couple times a night. Last night I took the dive and updated to v7.... hoping the hdpvr fixes in v7 would resolve my issues. Woke up this morning to see that i had a lockup. Did some reading and looked like I should update the driver to the latest version 1.5.6.1 which I did first thing this morning. Not 10 minutes ago, i got another lockup... I just want the HD-PVR to be consistantly stable... how come that's too much to ask for?

[ewelin]

and I awake to find another lockup...

[dead_ferrets]

Have you checked the system messages in the event viewer?

I started getting lock-ups out of the blue that were actually causing my WHS to crash. In my case the problem ended up generating a system message on my WHS that seems to have been caused by the CPU. I swapped it out for an older CPU I had kicking around and I've been lock-up and crash free for almost a month.

Not to say your problem is the CPU, but you might find a clue in the event viewer.

[ewelin]

yup... nothing in there either...

[darcilicious]

My HD-PVR set up has never been stable (E1 version since Aug '09). It's no better running v7 beta. After three days, it just gave up during the last 30 minutes of the US/UK FIFA match. Not. Amused.

I suppose I'll have to see about going the USB UIRT route and in the meantime, try a daily reboot

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by darcilicious

My HD-PVR set up has never been stable (E1 version since Aug '09). It's no better running v7 beta. After three days, it just gave up during the last 30 minutes of the US/UK FIFA match. Not. Amused.

I suppose I'll have to see about going the USB UIRT route and in the meantime, try a daily reboot

Why would the USB UIRT help, if it locks up during a recording? This can really only be a help, if there are problems related to channel switching.

[MrD]

I will say that (knock on my big block head) that now that I am running linux with v7 life has been much more stable (3-4 weeks now). I have not had any lockups where I needed to reset the hd-pvr through power toggle. Life was stable under v6 but I had the occasional lockup every week or so.

I have had plenty of "Halts" detected in recording messages -- but the HD-PVR has always recovered. I did need to turn off DD on one of my directv boxes: but I believe that it due to a bug in the v7 beta (something about waiting for an advertised stream that never sends data).

I am running server class hardware though.

[darcilicious]

Originally Posted by Rico66

Why would the USB UIRT help, if it locks up during a recording? This can really only be a help, if there are problems related to channel switching.

Apparently I have no idea what I'm typing today and should step away from the keyboard before somebody gets hurt...

[eopian]

Using 1.0.5.3 I've been stable for almost a year and a half. I've learned NOT to update when new driver versions come out. I'm running winxp pro on my server and I have my DCH3200 hooked up with toslink/DD audio. My cable box is locked at 720p (one of my clients was having a problem with 1080i at the time); I don't even know if these boxes can be set to source as it coudn't when I got it.

I haven't tried v7 of sage yet, but I hope there aren't any issues. I'm also looking at adding a second hdpvr and dropping the hauppauge pvr500 from my system.

[eric3a]

Using 1.0.5.3 I've been stable for almost a year and a half. I've learned NOT to update when new driver versions come out.

In the same boat here, with about 9 months of stable HDPVR use on XP.

Starting to think I'm going to upgrade from XP to Windows 7 and also to SagTV 7, but worried that I'd risk losing the stability in the process. So for the time being "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
Eric

[ytulpan]

I have the HDPVR extremely stable using the last drivers in under windows 2008 server after a long period of instability.

My take on the instability of the HD-PVR is that most is related to USB issues. The device is extremely sensitive to any USB stuttering; it is enough to have the USB root hubs reconfigured by the OS (such as when another device is plugged in or removed) so that the HD-PVR will die on you. Also if one has flaky USB hubs.

For cleaning up the USB configuration do the following:

1) make device manager show disconnected devices (set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1 in the boot environment - must reboot - and set "show hidden devices" in dev manager)

2) disconnect all usb devices *including keyboard and mouse*; control the PC remotely.

3) delete all USB nonpresent devices from device manager.

4) reconnect the USB devices one by one and make sure you wait for a device to load its driver and stabilize before connecting the next.

5) Try not to move devices between USB ports afterwards or connect and disconnect them, or power off and on an USB device. This is inconvenient but necessary.

Using a separate USB controller on a PCIe slot may be a solution around these limitations, but I suspect the problem relates to the kernel processing USB reconfigurations and so even that may not help. In short, keep the USB configuration of your server stable.

Another thing might be covering the IR sensor of the HD-PVR. I have not researched this, but it's easy to do. Anyway who uses the HD-PVR remote ?

[sportera]

Originally Posted by ytulpan

My take on the instability of the HD-PVR is that most is related to USB issues. The device is extremely sensitive to any USB stuttering; it is enough to have the USB root hubs reconfigured by the OS (such as when another device is plugged in or removed) so that the HD-PVR will die on you. Also if one has flaky USB hubs.

Using a separate USB controller on a PCIe slot may be a solution around these limitations, but I suspect the problem relates to the kernel processing USB reconfigurations and so even that may not help. In short, keep the USB configuration of your server stable.

Another thing might be covering the IR sensor of the HD-PVR. I have not researched this, but it's easy to do. Anyway who uses the HD-PVR remote ?

I agree with this logic totally, but i'd add one more problem that can happen when USB connections "change".....

DirectvSerialControl - I use Patterson USB to Serial devices to change channels vs IR (I believe that is why I do not have lockups from IR problems). But the one that drove me crazy for a weeks was I found my HDPVR 1 and 2 USB port assignments switched and got crossed with my Sage DirectSerialControl setups. Everything would work IF I was changing channels on ONLY 1 client AND NOT recording anything. But as soon as I tried to record 1 channel and watch another, everything reversed and I was recording the wrong channel and couldn't change live channels correctly. After banging my head against a wall for weeks and trying everything I could think of, finally it occurred to me to switch USB cables between the 2 HDPVR's. Wah lah! That fixed it!

If you use DirectvSerialControl with Pattersontech USB to Serial devices, this one can happen to you without notice and will have you unintalling and reinstalling Sage, deleting and reconfiguring Video Sources in Sage, and doing it over and over to no avail because Sage thinks its "talking" to Directv receiver #1 but is actually "talking" to #2.

I think this problem may have occurred when I was plugging and unplugging a USB jumbdrive in another port on my WHS PC

[teedublu]

This 1.5.6.2 WMC beta driver made a big difference.
So far (a few days), no problem and I use the IR remote port and IR blaster.

(in Sage7b10, Win7-64)

Don't run setup (unless you want the WMC stuff), just update the driver from device manager.

see:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?p=430573


TW

[ewelin]

link is wrong, should be:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?p=430573

[ewelin]

I just installed the drivers on my WHS box... it gave me a warning that it wasn't signed hardware driver, but I accepted it. Watching live TV and all appears good. I also did a quick test and if you save the Driver folder to your PC and then copy the HcwDriverInstall.exe file from the 1.5.6.1 driver download into the same folder you can use that to install the software. I did both methods and both worked well. We'll see if this is any more stable as I've been having atleast daily lockups for about 1.5 weeks now.

[derringer]

I haven't started trying v7 yet, but since this is mostly about the HD-PVR and stability, I thought I'd chime in for some others on another item to try..

The HD-PVR is extremely sensitive to noisy power. I had to move it onto a more conditioned power source when, by accident, I moved its power source to a different power strip and noticed an audio feedback I was having went away, as well as a certain amount of lockups.

So.. if you're on your last leg with troubleshooting, try conditioning the HD-PVR's power source with a nice UPS or even running power from a source you know is quality, and see if that helps..

I agree with many here who think that 95%+ of the HD-PVR problems are USB port related, but don't forget the power quality one.. I didn't have any other computer or htpc components taht were being effected by this noisy power strip except the HD-PVR, so it actually is more sensitive to power noise than most other home theater equipment, to be sure.

[Rico66]

I uninstalled the new driver again, since I ran into problems related to channel changing, which I didn't have with the previous driver. The new driver seems to try somewhat faster channel changes, but that caused a lock-up in my case. You probably will see this problem only when watching live tv.

[appelm]

Originally Posted by ewelin

I had been running v6 with the 1.0.5.301 driver for almost 8 months with maybe a handful of lockups in that time. I did strugle to get it stable initially but I got there. Earlier this week it turned downhill for some strange reason. Nothing on my WHS changed, it just started locking up a couple times a night. Last night I took the dive and updated to v7.... hoping the hdpvr fixes in v7 would resolve my issues. Woke up this morning to see that i had a lockup. Did some reading and looked like I should update the driver to the latest version 1.5.6.1 which I did first thing this morning. Not 10 minutes ago, i got another lockup... I just want the HD-PVR to be consistantly stable... how come that's too much to ask for?

I am having similar issues now. But my problems didn't worsen until I upgraded to V7. I used to have lots of lockups months ago. Then I replaced the recording drive I was using. It seems if the drive is starting to fail, even in early stages, HD-PVR recordings are very sensitive to it. Two other things I'm doing include using component rather than component+spdif (which is a shame but seems more stable for me), and using a USB-UIRT. This setup seemed to cause everything to work smoothly, until v7. Now I'm having regular lockups. Reseting the HD-PVR usually fixes the problem but these lockups are driving my family crazy. I tried the latest driver but it didn't make a difference. I may be reverting back to v6 soon as well.

[ewelin]

My lockups arrose on v6, so I went with v7 to see if the cahnges they made in regards to the HD-PVR made any improvements and nothing changed. I've actually been on 1.5.6.2 for 24 hours without a lockup so far. Longest stretch since they started reoccurring again.

And my setup is 2 hd-pvrs, each on seperate PCI USB addon cards both being control via null modem serial control.

It is strange how it can work great for months then go to hell out of the blue.

[jorton]

Since installing the 1.5.6.2 Drivers on th 11th of June on the 7.0.10 beta I have not had any lockups (but was stable with the 1.5.6.1 drivers from June 3 to 10 on 7.0.10 beta). Over the weekend I recorded about nine 3 hour World Cup games without error so i to say that my stability is probably the best it has been. I have also had Showanalyzer running on live recordings and have not had any issues, in the past this always seemed to give me problems. I have no idea of what changed in the 1.5.6.2 drivers if at all, just gave them a try since I was in the Sagetv Beta mode already.

I keep getting the red error icon and rush to make sure it isn't a HDPVR issue, it's always been the "can't find metadata" metadata error... I wonder if there's a way to change the color of the messages... I only want to see red if a tuner is crapping out.

Currently I am running Win7 Home Premium 64bit on a Quad Core Intel Q8200 with 6GB ram on a P5Q Pro Turbo motherboard. I currently use two PCIe USB 3.0 NEC addin cards (overkill) to connect to my three E1 HDPVR's. My channel changing is done through a USB-UIRT using 3 zones, one for each Motorola STB (2 x 6216's and one 3416). I reset the HDPVR's each night by stoping the sagetv service at 3AM (net stop, windows scheduler), power cycle the HDPVR's with cheap power strip with built in timer set to 3:05am (home depot), and restart the service (net start, windows scheduler) at 3:10. The daily cycling of power on the units for me seems to have helped with stability. I just have be make sure I don't record a show around 3-3:15. I have the Motorola boxes set to 1080i output and use spdif 5.1 via optical cable.