Hauppuage 1800 Clear QAM Install

[OldPCGUY]

I thought this post would be helpful to anybody interesting in
the Hauppuage 1800 Clear Qam install.

The web forums are filled with reviews that say your QAM works and some that don't. I got everything working in 4 hours!!!! But not without a few major issues. So I constucted this email to help other People.

I live in Oakland, CA 94619 and I have Comcast Digital or Extended Digital (I still need to figure this out). I own a VIZIO 42" HDTV with Clear QAM and ATSC(8VSB) integrated receivers. I performed a channel auto search on my TV and your board once I debugged my hard drive noise problems.

VIZIO Clear QAM Auto Search - 56 channels (the VIZIO does analog and digital all at once)
VIZIO Analog Cable Auto Search - 75 Channels
WinTV-HVR1800 Clear Qam Auto Search - 60 channels (This can take up to 20 minutes so please wait)
WinTV- HVR Analog Cable Auto Search - 75 Channels
Sage TV Auto QAM Search (58 channels) It took 30 minutes to scan

My System Config
--------------------------------------
Windows XP (32bit)
Antec Solo Silent Case with HD suspension(be careful)
Antec Phantom 500 Watt Silent Supply
ASUS M2N-E Mother Board
AMD 2X 64bit 5600 (2.8 Ghz)
4 Gig Main Memory (XP limits to 3.6G with 32bit OS)
2 500G Maxtor Sata II drives in Raid 0 Config (Source of my EMI problem)
Diamond HD 3850 with Dual DVI out Graphics
ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI
WinTV-HVR1800

The ATI TV Wonder does not support Clear QAM in XP

Install Procedure and Problems
1. Downloaded all Key Drivers Software from Hauppuage Web Site
2. Installed Board
3. Installed Drivers and WinV6 app
4.Run WINTV
5. Performed Analog Search with no problem and 75 channels
6. Tryed to do a QAM scan the The app hung for 15 minutes with no reponse. I could not even kill the app through the Task manager. had to power down and reboot. I decided not
to try seaching QAM again since I suspected another issue.
7. Observed TV channel reception and noticed a major screen interupption at 3 second intervals. ATI's Tuner card had a more subtle issue due to same root cause.
8. Stumped by problem I sat and thought and then noticed the HDD light was blinking at 3 second intervals. WOW !! EMI interfernce from the Hardrive.
9. I had installed the Hard Drives inverted (upside down with board electronics facing up). The drives are mounted through the elastice HDD straps with no additional grounding. This greatly reduces vibration and HDD Sound Noise but the lack of additional grounding comes at a cost.
10. I inverted the drives downward and the Analog Video was 95% better. I will get another 5% by adding some ground wire connections between the Hard Drives and the steel case.
11. Tried the QAM auto search and found 60 channels but it is a very slow scan.

This is a very scary email since EMI is a very very tricky issue to solve. There are many new drives showing up now that are designed to reduce sound noise, vibrations and I will hope EMI. Older drives that are very very noisy can be a source a noise and EMI that might prevent a user from getting clear qam to recieve properly.

I want to install more hard drives in my system so I can have 5 Terabytes but I will be choosing the New Hard Drives optimized for low noise by Western Digital or Seagate.
The Maxtor Drives were the noisiest drives(in terms of noise) I have seen in 5 years.

I hope this post helps

[ljames18]

Hi OldPCGUY,

Did I understand that you did get Clear QAM to work using a TV Wonder 650 PCI card running in Windows XP? I've been told that XP doesn't have a component that Vista does, and can't be made capable of receiving Clear QAM. Have I been mislead?