ATI 3650 AGP need help

[sleonard]

My womans PC just didn't have enough power to play any of the HD-PVR recordings whether SD or HD so I bought this PowerColor AGP 3650 video card.

So far I can't get the drivers to d/l from Powercolor. Download speed drops quickly to 26 kbps and time out after about 10 minutes, the 3650 drivers from ATI's website will not work, and the drivers from the install CD don't appear to enable H.264 decoding in the video card. (it won't even play SD H.264 as well as the 5 year old ATI 9600 in my old client PC.)

Also, the drivers installed a HD audio card with a backpanel output but the card does not actually have any audio outputs at all and it disabled the onboard soundcard so now there is no audio at all.

S

[cychou]

Originally Posted by sleonard

My womans PC just didn't have enough power to play any of the HD-PVR recordings whether SD or HD so I bought this PowerColor AGP 3650 video card.

So far I can't get the drivers to d/l from Powercolor. Download speed drops quickly to 26 kbps and time out after about 10 minutes, the 3650 drivers from ATI's website will not work, and the drivers from the install CD don't appear to enable H.264 decoding in the video card. (it won't even play SD H.264 as well as the 5 year old ATI 9600 in my old client PC.)

Also, the drivers installed a HD audio card with a backpanel output but the card does not actually have any audio outputs at all and it disabled the onboard soundcard so now there is no audio at all.

S

Try the hot fix from ATI .


Also try disable the HD Audio to see if you can get back your onboard audio. HD audio will only work with pci-x card.


Please post back your result, as many people (including myself) are looking at this particular upgrade path, and wondering is it worth it?


Vince

[sleonard]

Disabling the ATI HD Audio restored the onboard sound so that's working.

Hopefully Powercolors download speeds will be working by tomorrow and I can get the latest drivers. If that doesn't help I'll try that hotfix.

I forgot to mention that Sage gives me a video decoder error when I try to play any H.264 from the HD-PVR. Something like "There was a playback problem. Unable to render video." I'll get the exact error message tomorrow but fyi, I have added the arcsoft decoders to the sageclient.properties and setup is exactly like my working client. The Arcsoft player plays the video although it studders.

S

[sleonard]

Well the latest driver finished d/l from PowerColor but no joy. The PC seems to be running slower overall than before the vid card. Maybe I should of payed attention to the reviews of this card at Newegg.

S

[phelme]

Hmmm. the 36xx is beefy enough to play HD-PVR files and I've seen some people successfully use them. i'm using older ATI cards, the X800 & X1600 with the ArcSoft decoders and they work OK.

for the moment let's take Sage out of the picture. what happens when you record a capture using ArcSoft's Capture and open the file with GraphEdit? what decoders does it say are being used? it sounds like hardware acceleration isn't enabled or maybe a decoder merit problem. did you install the ArcSoft software from the HD-PVR disk or somewhere else?

is this under XP or Vista? I've heard there are some issues with Vista.

[sleonard]

XP Pro SP3.

This is a client system so the HD-PVR's are not attached to it. I did try using the Arcsoft program to try playing some recordings directly from the Sage network share and also copied them over and tried playing them locally. No Joy.

I'll have to load GraphEdit and a filter manager when I get home tonight.

S

[sleonard]

I think I just thought what could be the problem. My power supply is only 240W and that is probably not enough for the P4 2.4Ghz, the rest of the PC, and this video card.

If I have to upgrade the PS in order to run this card I think I'll just return it instead and tell the woman she can't watch Sage until we can afford to build her another PC. Hmm, that's gonna be fun

S

[sleonard]

I'm not so sure about the power anymore this post at another forum has a table of actual power draws from various cards including the ATI 3650 that draws between 12W and 42W. This should be low enough for my power supply to handle.

Anyway, I installed Graphedit and the graph is attached.

I also installed the hotfix and still no joy.

I am getting no hardware accelleration at all. zero. zip. nada.

Anything else to try?

S

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by sleonard

I'm not so sure about the power anymore this post at another forum has a table of actual power draws from various cards including the ATI 3650 that draws between 12W and 42W. This should be low enough for my power supply to handle.

Anyway, I installed Graphedit and the graph is attached.

I also installed the hotfix and still no joy.

I am getting no hardware accelleration at all. zero. zip. nada.

Anything else to try?

S

Have you tried the ATi drivers from ATI's website? Often times the manufacturer drivers are several versions behind.

[sleonard]

The Hotfix drivers were from ATI's website but other than that ATI no longer provides drivers for the other manufacturers. ATI's drivers refuse to install saying there was no compatible HW found.

S

[cychou]

Just a suggestion that maybe you should try download DXVA Checker to check the DXVA capability of both your driver and decoder. Because it sounds like your system with new agp card is working, but you are just not getting DXVA working. This utility will show you a list of the driver DXVA capabilities, as well as a list of the decoders which support them. Only when there is a match, and then DXVA will work.

[sleonard]

I gave up and got an RMA from Newegg. $8 to ship here, $8 to ship back, $13.50 restock fee and I got nothing but wasted time and frustration. I guess I save enough $$ with online ordering over time that I'm still ahead but it don't make me feel any better at the moment.

S

Oh, and thanks for all the suggestions.

[SHS]

sleonard the problem is you do need a min of 30Amps on 12 volt rail for both HD3850 and HD3650 and higher is alway better in long run and you do need a good power supply not some e'l cheap'o brand and you should have gotting the one's made by Sapphire both Powercolor and HIS are bad news which are not base on ATI reference design board.
If your going to go with the AGP HD3650 look at Corsair CMPSU-450VX is highest single rail amps which has 33amps on 12 volt rail most other brands I look at are only have round 16 to 25 personal I think the Corsair 650 is the best deal.

[sleonard]

That PC was not worth spending any more money on. I will just have to build another one down the road.

I have this PSU in my server and since I'm temporarily using it as a client also I was thinking about a PCI-e 3650 or 4850 to take the load off the processor when watching HD-PVR recordings.

The specs only list 52 amps combined for 4 12V rails not what's available on any single rail. Do you think that it would be OK?

S

[SHS]

That should work find

[ChemicalAgent]

Originally Posted by cychou

Also try disable the HD Audio to see if you can get back your onboard audio. HD audio will only work with pci-x card.
Vince

I have the ASUS version of the AGP 3650, and my HD sound is working. It outputs the sound through the HDMI connector. If you're using DVI you won't be able to access it.

I agree about the PSU though, you'll need at least a 400W to run everything.