Compatible WHS Tuner Cards?

[gdrider77]

So i am going crazy over this, i have tried working on this for about 4-5 days 12-15 hours a day. I am simply trying to get a tuner card to work with my WHS sage server. I have rebuiilt my computer 4 times, reformatted, clean install etc..

This is what i have bought/tried so far.

Hauppauge 1600
Hauppauge 2250
Hauppauge 1800

everyone of these cause my computer to Blue Screen with various error codes.

I have ran memory test and replaced/swapped memory sticks.
I have put the cards in various forms in different motherboards and computers, have reformatted every time.

Asus P5QL (less than a year old) Q9300 / 4gig memory - Blue screen with every card.
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR (brand new, bought today) Q9300 / 4gig memory - Blue screen with every card
Gigabyte 81k1100 (couple years old) Pentium 4 3ghz 2gig memory - 1600 works with one tuner but not both tuners, either the digital or analog. This was my original WHS server, but needed a bit more horsepower for comskip and needed to have both analog and QAM/ATSC channels and such so i swapped the drives into my fast Asus computer did a fresh install and have had nothing but problems since.

I know i have a good cable signal, as i have it hooked up to a plasma in the other room and get full analog cable channels as well as QAM. Plus i was getting signals on the original 1600 setup, just could get it to program right.

Anyone have any ideas as to what i should look for? Seems like many of you are running tuners on WHS systems. I cannot get a single one to run on these new computers. could they be too powerful, or too new or something?

Thanks.
Ryan.

[KarylFStein]

When does it blue screen? Did you try a different power supply?

[gplasky]

Try dropping back to 2GB of RAM for grins and giggles. Also make sure you have WHS updated with all the latest patches, PowerPack 3 and the latest DirectX. Then make sure to clear out the tuner drivers with hwclear or do a fresh install. Don't put the cards in until after the OS is loaded and totally updated.

Gerry

[will]

This is what i have bought/tried so far.

Hauppauge 1600
Hauppauge 2250
Hauppauge 1800


Ryan, are you using the cards for watching live tv or just recording. I am having BSODs on Windows Server 2003 with the 2250. Right now I am working on the theory that watching live tv/scanning channels are causing the crashes.

When I get home I will test out this theory more.

[gdrider77]

it blue screens when i go to the guide and pick a channel usually. sometimes it does it when i do a video source search for channels, but mostly its when i am in the guide and pick a channel to watch.

I have tried a different power supply with the other motherboard, i will try a new power supply with this motherboard next. I will also try pulling the memory and using only 2 gb.

WHS is updated 100% to pp3 and directx is 9.0c. I always did the hwclear before putting a new card in.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions guys!

I am giong to keep plugging away.

[MitchSchaft]

Are you trying to watch TV on your WHS box or a client/extender?

[gdrider77]

watching on client extenders. I have 2 HD200 boxes and also use the placeshifter software on a computer. I have been programming the software and setting the channels /testing from my test computer, not the WHS box.

I have installed a fresh copy of windows on the test computer as well, so its literally running windows7 and sageplaceshifter and thats it.

[gdrider77]

Try dropping back to 2GB of RAM for grins and giggles. Also make sure you have WHS updated with all the latest patches, PowerPack 3 and the latest DirectX. Then make sure to clear out the tuner drivers with hwclear or do a fresh install. Don't put the cards in until after the OS is loaded and totally updated.

Gerry

I cannot believe it! I pulled 2 gigs of memory, and all is well, tuners work flawlessly. I have a nasty feeling that i could have saved myself allloooottttt of work had i tried that first.

The other thing i did was go back to default STV when adding the tuners and scanning for channels, then after getting all channels going back to the custom STV. I read about this on the Homerun thread (http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=34196) on this site as well.

All seems to be working.

I now have a stack of equipment to sell/return. Might just keep it all and setup some additional tuners!

New gigabyte motherboard, 1800, 1600, HD homerun,

[gplasky]

I cannot believe it! I pulled 2 gigs of memory, and all is well, tuners work flawlessly. I have a nasty feeling that i could have saved myself allloooottttt of work had i tried that first.

The other thing i did was go back to default STV when adding the tuners and scanning for channels, then after getting all channels going back to the custom STV. I read about this on the Homerun thread (http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=34196) on this site as well.

All seems to be working.

I now have a stack of equipment to sell/return. Might just keep it all and setup some additional tuners!

New gigabyte motherboard, 1800, 1600, HD homerun,

;)

Gerry

[IVB]

don't feel too bad; when i was building my WHS box, i went through a few mobos, a few hardware RAID cards, only to realize that 4GB doesn't work quite right on it.

Oy, did I lose some $$ there. I still got a $300 hw/sw hybrid RAID card that I haven't had the energy to eBay/lose my shorts on...

[MattHelm]

Anyone have a good link to why (I know why, just not good at explaining things, and suck at typing) you should NEVER put 4GB RAM in a 32bit OS. We really should add a tread, and the sticky it!!!

It seems like every hardware problem I've read here in the last few months has been solved by lowering the RAM to 3G or less!

[Djc208]

My guess is that some program or driver (I'm looking at you Hauppage) is trying to use the address space above 2GB for itself, and putting 3 GB causes problems with the driver and Windows try to use the same memory addresses. That's why 32-bit Windows can't see more than 3GB. A 32-bit memory space is capable of addressing up to 4GB but windows reserves at least some of that space for itself.

At least that's my guess, take it for what it's worth. :confused:

Glad you got it working.

[heffe2001]

Guess I got lucky then, I'm running 2 2g sticks in my WHS server, but went ahead and reserved 256m for the onboard video (not that I use it at all), so had no issues with my 2 2250 cards and memory. I am using the original drivers that came with the cards, not any of the newer drivers. Never had ANY luck with the newer versions, had blue screens with the few I tried, so I just stick with what's working...