Two Tuner Cards == Crash

[Nebula]

I can't get a second tuner card installed and stable. Sage TV crashes during setup or soon after when I try to access a tuner such as via Live TV.

The two PVR-250-MCE tuners came direct from Frey via a multituner bundle just this last week. I downloaded the latest drivers and the prodinfo is as follows:

Model 32552 Rev. C168
Serial #2780176
Tuner Formats: NTSC (M/N)
Tuner Audio: Stereo (MSP4448)
Video Formats: NTSC ( M ) PAL ( B G H I D K M N NCOMBO ) SECAM ( L L' )
Audio Outputs: None
External Inputs: 3
S-Video Inputs: 2
Teletext: Yes (Software)
Radio: FM
Decoder: SAA7115
Tuner Model: LG TAPE_H001F Mk3

EEprom Contents:
84 09 00 04 20 77 00 40 10 6c 2a 00
73 05 9b 00
84 08 00 06 28 7f 00 00 98 15 8d
72 07 70
73 09 13 5f
73 0a 08 44
74 0b 98 18 0c
72 0e 01
72 10 01
72 11 00
79 91

hcwAud32.DLL 3.26.21058 PVR II
hcwAV.DLL 1.46.20346 PCI PVR II
hcwI2C32.DLL 2.7.20296 PVR PCI II
hcwPNP32.DLL 4.21.22155
hcwTuner.DLL 3.23.20338
hcwChan.DLL 3.20.21322
hcwTVDlg.DLL 3.16.21311
hcwTVWnd.DLL 2.61.22036 PCI-USB PVR
hcwUtl32.DLL 3.8.22159
hcwSplit.ax 1.13.21197
hcwFRead.ax 1.5.22035
hcwFWrit.ax 1.4.22036
hcwSnap.ax 1.11.21107
prxypage.ax Not Available
hcwPVRP2.sys 1,18,21,22168
=============================

I installed one tuner card card under Windows XP SP2 and then installed Sagetv. After verifying that it worked and playing for awhile, I installed the second card and set it up. Both cards were setup using the tuner via cable with the EPG. It worked for about a day. I actually had an instance where both tuners were recording simultaneously. Yeah.

Then I tried to add a third device in setup. This was the s-video input port on card #1. So I had three devices: Card #1 tuner, Card #2 tuner, and Card #1 s-video. I had difficulty getting the s-video input working. As part of problem solving, I removed one of the cards by deleting it from Sage and physically removing it from the PCI slot.

After I got the s-video to work, I tried to reinstall the second tuner card. When I set it up in Sage TV again, Sage crashed. I have exhausted all my standard problem solving techniques:

(1) Uninstall SageTV, restart, reinstall SageTV, and resetup the tuner cards in SageTV. Crash after the 2nd.

(2) Uninstall the drivers for both cards, physically take them out, and reinstall them one at a time. Set one up in Sage, restarted, shutdown, physically installed the second, reloaded the drivers, restarted, and setup the second tuner in Sage. Crash.

(3) Attempted complete reinstall of all hardware and software. I was impeded by the fact that I can't figure out how to do a complete vanilla install. When I use the SageTV uninstall utility and then reinstall, it retains setup and property info; not a clean reinstall.

So two questions: (1) How do I do a completely clean vanilla reinstall? and (2) What is causing the crash after tuner two is setup?

When the product is stable it is wonderful. I had it working ....

[stanger89]

What's the rest of your system like? Specifically motherboard/chipset.

[Nebula]

Abit NF7S motherboard (Nvidea Nforce2 chipset) with AMD 2800 CPU and 2 GB memory. Using Java 1.4.2. Only one tuner is installed at this time.

I have attached an almost complete System Info listing that includes all hardware and driver details. I also left in a section of the Windows error reporting data that shows the fault address for the SageTV crashes with the second tuner installed. They are all the same location.

Having just looked at this listing I uncovered something. Recently before SageTV, I was using a Leadtek Winfast TV 2000 XP (Deluxe) tuner board. The Winfast PVR software started to crash soon after startup. I loaded the latest drivers and application software and the PVR continued to crash. It turns out the fault address for the Winfast crash is the same as for SageTV. The circumstances are the same also. The software starts and runs for a short but variable amount of time then crashes.

SageTV with one PVR-250-MCE tuner card is stable. Adding the second causes the crash. Winfast had been working for months before the PVR software started to crash with a single Leadtek tuner card.

I tried to isolate the driver and software changes but could not. I had previously installed software with new video codecs, upgraded the Nvidea Nforce platform drivers and the Nvidea Geforce MX440 card drivers, and I upgraded to Windows XP SP2. I THINK the SP2 upgrade was after Winfast PVR started to fail but I am not sure. XP SP2 was installed before the first SageTV install.

[kny3twalker]

do you have a video card you can try to use in the system just to see if it can run stable with two tuners if you put in a real video card

[stanger89]

Originally posted by Nebula
Having just looked at this listing I uncovered something. Recently before SageTV, I was using a Leadtek Winfast TV 2000 XP (Deluxe) tuner board. The Winfast PVR software started to crash soon after startup. I loaded the latest drivers and application software and the PVR continued to crash. It turns out the fault address for the Winfast crash is the same as for SageTV. The circumstances are the same also. The software starts and runs for a short but variable amount of time then crashes.

Just to make sure I understand what you're saying:

Both the WinFast software AND SageTV are crashing?

That to me indicates a hardware/driver problem since two different apps are having difficutly the same way.

So the first question I must ask is how well did you remove the WinFast drivers/software (or did you)?

Also, when having trouble with two cards, do you have one of them in the same slot as the WinFast was?

Are your motherboard bios and drivers up to date?

Oh and to answer your original two questions:
1) Deleting the Frey Technologies directory and uninstalling Sage is usually sufficient for a completely clean install.

2) I don't know, but based on your last post it sounds like something hardware/driver related outside Sage. Quite possibly some sort of conflict I notice your 250 is sharing resources with a few things including your video card. I'm guessing you have it in the first PCI slot next to the AGP slot. Try moving the card/cards.

[Nebula]

Originally posted by stanger89
Just to make sure I understand what you're saying:

Both the WinFast software AND SageTV are crashing?

That to me indicates a hardware/driver problem since two different apps are having difficutly the same way.

So the first question I must ask is how well did you remove the WinFast drivers/software (or did you)?

Also, when having trouble with two cards, do you have one of them in the same slot as the WinFast was?

Are your motherboard bios and drivers up to date?

Oh and to answer your original two questions:
1) Deleting the Frey Technologies directory and uninstalling Sage is usually sufficient for a completely clean install.

2) I don't know, but based on your last post it sounds like something hardware/driver related outside Sage. Quite possibly some sort of conflict I notice your 250 is sharing resources with a few things including your video card. I'm guessing you have it in the first PCI slot next to the AGP slot. Try moving the card/cards.

SageTV is working fine with only one tuner card. No crash. The current single card is in PCI Slot five.

The crash occurs with the second card in slots 4, 5, 6 or 7. I have tried various combinations. The Leadtek/Winfast card was in slot 3. I have tried having the two Haupaugge PVR-250-MCE cards in slots other than 3.

I uninstalled the Winfast software using the Add/Remove Software service and I uninstalled the drivers before taking the card out.

The Abit motherboard drivers are the latest Nvidea Nforce2 drivers.

Yes, I think there might be a driver problem but I cannot isolate it. I have already done a Windows XP SP1 repair install and a reapply of SP2. I am trying to avoid the brute force fix of a complete Windows reinstall.

I will try reinstalling the second card and checking the interrupts and resources. Other than that, ???

Any more suggestions?