Tuner Died, What are my Options?

[fidget]

I just had one of my PVR-250s die (SEEKER HAS DETECTED A HALT IN THE ENCODER...TRYING TO RESET IT). rebooting didn't solve the problem, so I assume it is dead . This brings up a few questions:

1) How do I know which physical card it is? I have three cards in the PC so is card #1 the first one that I installed? I ask this because Sage lists the card order as #2, #1, then #3. My installation process was to reboot after each was successfully installed into SageTV.

2) What is the best option for replacing it? All of mine are -16s and I really don't want to buy a WinTV-PVR-usb2.

and one issue:

Sage does not fail over to an available working card if it can not get a recorder to function properly (arg!).

For now, I have hooked the encoder of my PVR-350 into the server. It is a fallback position because I have had the Beta lock up hard (although not recently).

[kny3twalker]

RMA with hauppauge
the cards have a two year warranty

[gplasky]

You might try watching a show, see which tuner it shows up on and then physically disconnect your cable connection. This should allow you to figure out which card is which.

Gerry

[carlgar]

Originally posted by kny3twalker
RMA with hauppauge
the cards have a two year warranty

Where did you get this information? I have seached the Hauppauge site and cannot find any warranty information.

[kny3twalker]

talked with and registered my card with them
call them and they will tell you that
in the USA I talked with Peter in hauppauge, NY
they are actually really cool about that stuff
post at SHSpvr.forum for more info
Tech Support:
phone: 631.434.3197
techsupport@hauppauge.com
Click here to visit our support page

also they just changed the website but I am sure that will not change the warranty

you have not done anything to it to void warranty have you???

just kidding
and be smart use the warranty

[fidget]

I love computers . I removed my "non-functioning" PVR-250 from my server and plugged it into another PC to verify that it was dead. I installed the Hauppauge drivers and software and it worked without any problem. Because of this, I reinserted it into my SageTV server and, voila, it now works.

From this experience, I have learned two things: The minimum number of tuner cars that I can "live with" is three , and always verify the hardware is really not working first.

[Crowdx42]

I personally would still keep a close eye on it, sounds like it might be an intermittent failure, happened me a few years back with a PAL standard WinTV card, would work for a few days then stop, then reinstall everything and it would work again, finally one day it just stopped and never worked again.
Patrick

[fidget]

I also may try to play "three card monty" with it if it fails again. If it is a thermal problem, I will move it to the other end of the PCI bus so that the tuner and encoder chip are not obscured by another tuner card.