Display in SageTV is garbled...any way to fix it?

[salsbst]

If you can clock it to standard, then perhaps you should do that (as well as some of the cooling tips) until you have isolated the problem. No reason to futz directly w/SageTV until dxdiag runs properly.

Personally, being a quitter (or maybe just a guy with a long list of projects that are halfway done), I probably would already have tried to return the thing for a different model card, not because I wouldn't expect to make any progress on the troubleshooting -- even if other people are having success with it, the point would be that *I* wasn't having success with it. Often times, the hardware that rears its ugly head early within a PC is going to rear its ugly head a few more times. I guess I'm one to cut my losses rather early when it comes to PC administration.

It would be nice to find some evidence to support the idea that it is definitely the video card, though. Perhaps you could go to CompUsa (or Frey's), temporarily buy another PCI-Express video card, and try it in your machine (with case open, no heatsink funny business until you've isolated the issue)?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by salsbst

It would be nice to find some evidence to support the idea that it is definitely the video card, though.

FWIW

Back when I was the, overclock anything and everything just for the heck of it type, display corruption was about the first thing you'd run into, usually when the ram stopped being happy. After that you'd get lockups when the GPU got unhappy.

[geogecko]

Well, results for the evening weren't very promising.

I placed an 80mm fan directly over (at an angle) the video card to cool it down. My memory didn't serve me well, the RAM sinks were not all that hot, I could touch them without feeling like I was losing my fingerprints.

With the fan installed, running temperature on the core was 44C (I know that's not the temperature of the RAM, but better than 52C without the fan).

I installed (or rather, had the registry updated) CoolBits, and rebooted the PC. When trying to underclock the card (or overclock, didn't matter), I was given the error message that the test failed, and the clocks would be set back to their default. I am not sure why it will not let me underclock the card. I couldn't even under or overclock the card by a 1MHz increment. So, not sure why that isn't working. I downloaded the file from softpedia.com. I know I've seen a review site overclock this card, so there must be a way to overcome this problem. Maybe I need to see if they mentioned the way they were overclocking the card.

The only response I got from BFG so far, was a question about if all the direct tests passed. This could be a long process...but looks like I may not have an option.

[geogecko]

I downloaded a newer version of Coolbits from 3Dguru, while it added some features, it still did not allow me to under or overclock the card at all. The 6600GT roundup that AnandTech did some time ago, Coolbits was the way they overclocked the card. It would be interesting to find out why I am not even able to do this...

Oh, actually, they didn't use the BFG card. Maybe that's why it doesn't work. I wonder if there is a way that BFG was able to disable that feature somehow.

[stanger89]

Are you running BFG or nVidia drivers. BFG may have their own tweaked ones, that allow you to over/underclock.

[geogecko]

BFG Tech Graphics Cards use pure NVIDIA® Unified Drivers for the best performance and stability.
Follow this link and then select Graphics Driver – GeForce and TNT– and then your Operating System:

So I guess they don't have their own versions of the drivers.

[dex1]

What seems to have helped on my system is disabling the NVIDIA Desktop (so far). Have you tried that? Also, i've noticed that DVDs will play fine but STV recorded shows were having the problems. So maybe my issues are different from yours even through the symptoms look so similar.

[geogecko]

Originally Posted by dex1

What seems to have helped on my system is disabling the NVIDIA Desktop (so far). Have you tried that? Also, i've noticed that DVDs will play fine but STV recorded shows were having the problems. So maybe my issues are different from yours even through the symptoms look so similar.

Will try disabling the nVidia Desktop (if it's enabled, can't remember), and see if that helps. Thank you for the suggestion.

[dex1]

Well, i finally figured out at least a workaround for my situation. I switched from the Nvidia decoder to the intervideo decoder for STV recorded shows and have not had the freak display for a day and a half. The nVidia decoders still work fine for DVDs.

[geogecko]

Glad you got things workable.

I removed the video card today, to reinstall the HSF on it. Once it was reinstalled, I thought I would try the card again (with HSF in place), just to see if maybe the card was monitoring the fan connection to the card. I ended up getting the same results as before, so I'll have to wait until the new card comes to see if it makes a difference.

nVidia's Desktop was not enabled (by default), so no solution there.

I plan on trying the new card in my case just like the one I have now is installed, with it's stock HSF. That way, at least I will know if it works straight from the company, or if it will be something I did.

[geogecko]

Well, got my replacement 6600GT in the mail today...not good news.

I installed it into the HTPC, powered up, and I never got ANY video out of this card. Waited about 30 seconds or so until I knew XP would be fully booted, and powered off, then swithed to the second DVI port just to make sure, did the same thing.

I then uninstalled the card, put the one that has been giving me problems (but at least showing video), and I still get video with that one. Just amazing. I swapped out the old one with the replacement again, and still no video. DOA, I guess.

And get this, after paying $15, to have them send me the new one first, (they send a postage paid box to send the old one back), they want me to pay for postage to send back the DOA one! I was like, so what happens if you guys send me another DOA board? Basically, the guy said I'd have to call back during business hours and talk to the RMA manager to get it cleared for them to let me return the DOA one in the postage paid box, and let them send me another card, with another postage paid box.

Am I wrong for this? I mean, they could just keep sending me DOA cards all day long, meanwhile, I'm paying to send the things back to them...

Hmm...starting to question my reasoning about the "lifetime" warranty. What's the point of a lifetime warranty, if the thing never (or hardly) works?

Anyway, looks like it's going to be another week before I can try it again. I wish they could pay for the depreciation in the other parts in my HTPC for having them sit around for 2 weeks.

[geogecko]

Well, after 10 days without hearing back from BFG, I e-mailed them, (with a little persistance in my e-mail), and they said it would be another 3-4 days before I got my "second" replacement card...

Well, I saw that wonderful "Unholy Package Squasher," (a.k.a., UPS) box sitting on my porch when I got home from a full hour of mountain biking in 103 degree weather.

Plugged the card in, with the stock HSF, and booted up. Got POST this time, and then Windoze. (Wow, only 2 days left until I had to activate Windows, I got lucky.) Then double clicked on the SageTV icon, and there she was, SageTV in all her 3D glory.

Problem solved, 4 weeks later, and $17.47 poorer.

Now I can get on with the fun stuff, tinkering around with Sage 3.0 and the new SageMC from mlbdude, and ShowAnalyzer...can't wait. Looks like a busy weekend!

Thank you all for your help and assistance.

[dex1]

That's great. I think the problem jumped from your system back to here because i'm now getting the freaky screen again. Watching the same files from WMP, quicktime, and other programs is just fine. I'm beginning to think it's something with the JAVA implementation because it seems to run in spurts where it will happen, i close/reopen sage, it's good for a little while then happen again. but if i reboot the machine then it's good for longer......

Everything was fine till i went to 1680 X 1050

Enjoy Sage now that you can!!!!!!

[frogger90]

Just letting you know that I am running across the exact same issues. Running the 3.07 beta with a ATI 3d Prophet 9700 and the ATI HDTV Wonder card.

Will try the fixes and see what happens. All sorts of display corruption happening, but only in the SageTV window. The corruption seems to only happen during the TV guide and Live TV screens.

[frogger90]

Disabled 3d Acceleration and DX9 encoding within SageTV and all the corruption problems went away. =)