SageTV+WinTV USB PVR2 and computer hard lock up

[Air]

Originally posted by buf
I experience the same problems you mentioned with my WinTV USB PVR2, but unfortunately, your solutions don't work for my machine.
The crashes occur since I reinstalled Windows XP, as a result of changing my motherboard and gpu. With the old configuration (a slightly slower Radeon card and a ASRock mainboard with the same chip like the new one), SageTV and other tv-apps never caused a similar freeze. My computer seems to crash randomly when recording/ viewing, sometimes after some minutes, sometimes not until the end of a long pvr-day.
I tried the following things:

• Changing the power supply (bequiet 370w/ enermax 350w)
• Using different settings for SageTV/ GotTV
• Switching the usb-port of my WinTV PVR2, I also connected it to my external hub
• Updating WinXP first with SP1, then an USB-patch and finally SP2
• Using several versions of the ATI-driver
• Updating the hauppauge drivers
• Cooling the usb-box and even my harddisc with a fan

The drivers for my mainboard are properly installed. It only freezes when one TV-app is active, that means either viewing or recording in the background (for example Sage's sleep mode). Games etc don't freeze; the cpu & gpu don't get too hot. I don't suspect my ram, because a) both sticks worked fine with my 2 old mainboards and b) the pc doesn't crash when playing games or other complex apps.
I don't know what I could still try Maybe reinstalling Windows might help, but then I would have to start from scratch again, and it crashed on the "clean" Windows-installation, too.

AMD 1600+
Shuttle AK32VN (old board: ASRock K7VT2)
Radeon 9600 (old gpu: Radeon 8500le)
2x 256MB DDR
SB Live 5.1
WinTV USB PVR2
WinXP Home, currently SP2

I appreciate every advice which could solve my problem!

I have the same issue where either in Sleep mode while recording TV or while watching it my laptop freezes and I have to hard reboot (I can't even get the number lock light to change .

I've read some posts on this and wonder if anyone has solved it? My return grace period is almost up and I need to know whether I have to switch to BeyondTV .

Please no posts about your PC being rock solid, that's great but it just fills up space and doesn't really help any .

So if anyone has figured this out let me know! I'm running on a Sager 4750-V which has a ViaK8T800 mobo, A64 3400+ and a mobility radeon 9700 with 128mb ram as well as 1gig sys ram. My HD is a 60gb hitachi 7200rpm.

I'm using Omega 2.544 (radeon 4.5 since higher on mobility cards result in video studder), have all current drivers, and use NVDVD 2.55 for my video and audio decoding. I am using overlay.

A few days ago SageTV kept locking my machine when recording in sleep mode EVERY time so I uninstalled, deleted the folder, and reinstalled and it stopped locking my machine. It just happened while watching and recording TV now. Any idea?

Thanks for any help!

[Air]

It also happens using different decoders (Invervideo NonCSS). It happens using Over, DX9, and without graphics acceleration.

Not only this, but it seems to become worse as time goes on.

Any ideas?

[Opus4]

Originally posted by Air
Please no posts about your PC being rock solid, that's great but it just fills up space and doesn't really help any

Well, so far mine _seems_ rock solid, using a PVR-USB2 on 2 machines, so I'm not sure you want me to reply.

Have you tried using the Hauppauge software to record TV with your pvr-usb2? Does it lock up then? If so, it isn't a SageTV issue.

How long have you been uing the usb2 tuner? -- Have you checked to see if there are newer drivers for it?

How about your motherboard or USB2 card -- have you checked to see if there are driver updates for whichever one it is connected to? Perhaps there is something flaky with the USB2 support on the PC.

- Andy

[Air]

It doesn't always lock, just usually. I'm messing around with BeyondTV and WinTV to see if those crash it as well. So far it hasn't, I'll let you know.

All my drivers are updated (mobo, USB, and Hauppage), I'm going to mess around some more and report back. I LOVE SageTV and really don't want to give it up, it's far superior to BeyondTV in every respect (uses 1/3 memory, 1/2 cpu usage for same vid quality).

I've only been using the tuner for about 10 days on a windows install only 2 months old. Maybe SP2 is the issue although I doubt it.

Any more thoughts are appreciated.

[Grey_Goose]

SP2 was a huge issue for me. I had to use the HWCLEAR utility & reinstall all of my Hauppauge drivers after installing SP2.

Just out of curiosity, have you tried another PVR-USB2 to see if it acts the same? That would at least rule out a hardware failure.

[buf]

I finally bought a new mainboard, more precisely, a second-hand ASRock K7VT2. It was the mainboard I used before I had to reinstall my computer. Suddenly, SageTV runs without any crashes or freezes!
So it seems that my problem was based on a hardware conflict, because I nearly tried every driver/ software version for all the components.

[Air]

Well, that's not an option for me since I'm using a new notebook . I haven't tried another PVR-USB2 but I may if I do a return. I really prefer Sage over Beyond except for the crashes. I'm going to use Beyond and WinTV for a while and see if those crash my PC. If not, I don't think it's a hardware problem but something Sage does that crashes computers. If that's the case, I hope they fix it !

Buf, did you reinstall windows when you got your "new" mainboard? I'm wondering whether this could be a random windows issue?

I don't want to deal with a reformat in the third week of the semester though, takes too much time getting everything back to status quo. Hopefully the people at Frey have some ideas for me, I'm not a big fan of BeyondTV and I don't want to wait for a PVR solution until Meedio releases their TV plugin.

[Air]

Turns out it was the case design of the clevo that caused overheating. I can keep SageTV! YEA! Thanks all who helped!