Dissapointed

[davkenrem]

I just built a new PVR, that I have been wanting for several years now and so far I am completly discouraged. Here is the saga so far. I

purchased all new hardware,

Chaintech 7NJL6
Athlon XP 3000
512mb pc 3200 ram
PNY GeForce MX440 w/ tv out
Hauppauge PVR350 w/ remote
Hauppauge PVR500MCE
Silverstone Lascala LC17 case
SilverStone SST-ST40F. 400W PSU
Seagate 200gig PATA HD w/8mb cache


Everything went together smoothly and system booted right away.
I did a clean install of Win Xp Pro w/SP2 and ran updates.
I downloaded all the latest drivers and BIOs for every device and installed them in the following order.

1 chipset
2 audio
3 video
4 pvr 500
5 pvr 350 and wintv and IR app

Rebooted the machine and the Hauppauge IR app crashed unable to initialize the the IR device. After a quick search I found out that most

people can't get the hauppauge remote to work, so I uninstalled it and moved on.

I then installed SageTv v2.2 trial rebooted and began detailed setup. I read every option in the manual and choose the option that seemed to

suit my hardware best. Upon completion of the configuration I launched the app and was really pleased how it looked and worked, it was a

pretty fast interface and seemed to have all the features I wanted. The first hour went fine until I tried to record something, actually

tried to record two things at once and watch a third, bad Idea. I got a reboot about 5 minutes into recording. The machine would restart and

it would do the same thing every few minutes. I finally figured out, I can do one or the other, watch or record, but not both at once. Really

dissapointed, I had hoped to have this up and running by now. The hardware I have is far above requirements and I seeing after reading the

forums a bit that this is not unusal. Is there any PVR software that works as advertised. I tried MCE2005 and Knoppmyth but they both had

real problems, and I was able to get farther with Sage than the other two but these reboots are completly unexceptable. Anyone have any

ideas?

Dave

[jominor]

Originally Posted by davkenrem

I just built a new PVR, that I have been wanting for several years now and so far I am completly discouraged. Here is the saga so far. I



forums a bit that this is not unusal. Is there any PVR software that works as advertised. I tried MCE2005 and Knoppmyth but they both had

real problems, and I was able to get farther with Sage than the other two but these reboots are completly unexceptable. Anyone have any

ideas?

Dave

Well, for me, Sage has worked as advertised. Have you tried not using the 350?

[Opus4]

I would try one of the tuners at a time to see if it is one of them that is causing the problem. Perhaps try the 500 by itself first, since the 350 is a bit accident prone.

Also, I'm not entirely sure whether the v3 beta has improvements regarding using the 500, but I think the latest beta can be installed as a trial now.

- Andy

[spike5884]

Did you install both the 350 and 500 cards at the same time? From my experience, you should install one card, drivers, and get it working. Then move onto the next one. So, my suggestion would be to go back to a clean install of WinXP with just the video card installed. Do all the updates. Install one of the PVR cards, drivers, then sagetv. Once this card is working, move onto the next one.
Don't rush your build, take baby steps.

[blade]

Are you using the 350 for TV out or the MX440? Could heat be an issue?

[night]

you should have a small OS drive and then data drive(s).
i would leave out SP2 as well. i just... dont like it. i have the original pro release and only use SP1 and never have problems.
the 350 i believe is on the verge of 'legacy' now, so dropping it for another 150 if you really want 3 would be better in the end.
then splurge for a pronto remote . i got a cheap IR keyboard and so dont even have to screw with the ir blasters and all that mess, just learn the keyboard codes straight into the remote

[davkenrem]

Thanks for the ideas guys I will try your suggestions. I already have a pronto TSU2000/01. Is that the model your talking about?

[dagar]

You could have a PSU issue (e.g. it's dead or was crap to begin with). Or a heat issue.

Have you ran some burn-in utilities yet? Memtest, 3dmark, etc? Sounds like a system (sans PVR issue).

[michelkenny]

The rebooting could definitely be hardware related. Whenever I build a new system I always run some burn in tests to make sure each components works well under heavy use. Like dagar said, try memtest86 or memtest86+ to check your memory and prime95 to test your CPU.

[kelemvor]

What size power supply do you have (or did I miss that in the post)? That's a lot of hardware to be running all at the same time....

[davkenrem]

Originally Posted by dagar

You could have a PSU issue (e.g. it's dead or was crap to begin with). Or a heat issue.

Have you ran some burn-in utilities yet? Memtest, 3dmark, etc? Sounds like a system (sans PVR issue).

No, the system runs fine until I tried to record. If I don't record it won't reboot.

[davkenrem]

Originally Posted by kelemvor

What size power supply do you have (or did I miss that in the post)? That's a lot of hardware to be running all at the same time....

SilverStone SST-ST40F. 400W PSU

[cmaffia]

It may not be fair to blame any of the software. If you built this machine yourself, it is possible that something is faulty (memory or even a bios configuration) It could be anything! I agree about trying one card at a time and definitely leave out the 350.. I'd try that last being that the PVR350 and SageTV have a Looooooong history of not playing nice together. I can say that once I got more familiar with SageTV and got help from the many great people in the forum, my SageTV setup has been rock solid for almost 2 years (and it is not a plain vanilla setup either). You may also want to take a look at other people's signature tags to see what hardware others are using successfully.

Originally Posted by davkenrem

I just built a new PVR, that I have been wanting for several years now and so far I am completly discouraged. Here is the saga so far. I

purchased all new hardware,

Chaintech 7NJL6
Athlon XP 3000
512mb pc 3200 ram
PNY GeForce MX440 w/ tv out
Hauppauge PVR350 w/ remote
Hauppauge PVR500MCE
Silverstone Lascala LC17 case
SilverStone SST-ST40F. 400W PSU
Seagate 200gig PATA HD w/8mb cache


Dave

[salsbst]

Did you install the latest drivers from SHSPVR.com?

[davkenrem]

I pulled out the PVR350, reformatted, installed WinXP w/SP1 on a 10gig partition and reinstalled with the latest drivers.

Viola' no reboots, so I'm RMAing the 350 and getting another 500.

Thanks guys.


DAvKenRem

[waltraud]

To get the remote working you might need to set a registry key. It seems like the Hauppauge remote software gets a little confused when you have more then one card in the system.
Search for "I2Ctype" in the Sage Forums and at http://www.shspvr.com/smf/

[Opus4]

BTW: With 2 PVR-500s in the system, there won't be a Hauppauge remote to worry about at all. Some other remote + receiver will be needed.

- Andy

[cmaffia]

A cheap and very reliable solution is the Streamzap. Never had a problem although I do love using the USB-IRT and my Tivo Remote

Originally Posted by Opus4

BTW: With 2 PVR-500s in the system, there won't be a Hauppauge remote to worry about at all. Some other remote + receiver will be needed.

- Andy

[davkenrem]

I have a tivo remote I think I'll try that, I never really liked the Pronto. I think I'll order a USB Uirt right now.

[takeshi]

Originally Posted by davkenrem

I have a tivo remote I think I'll try that, I never really liked the Pronto. I think I'll order a USB Uirt right now.

I've been really happy with my MX-350 from Universal Remote Control . Had I known how much I would have liked it I probably would have spent a bit more for a model with PC progammability.