more thoughts on PVR-350 sage saga

[sub]

Hi Jeff, I think some of these UI corruptions were people running SageTV after they had used GB-PVR. I've seen the same thing on my machine here.

In GB-PVR I explicitly set the PVR350 OSD pixel format to what I require each time I start the application, wheras SageTV seems to expect it to be set to the default. Simply setting the pixel format to what SageTV requires when it starts up would correct the problem.

[Deadbolt]

I see the UI corruptions and have never run GB-PVR.

I hope progress is made on the chipset issue...people won't be drawn to Sage if they can't be sure it will work on their system.

Deadbolt

[sub]

I really dont think Frey/Sage can be held responsible for any chipset issues.

I'm sure the guys are doing the best they can, but at the end of the day some things are just going to be out of their control.

Hopefully Hauppage and Conexant are also doing their part and looking these driver/firmware/chipset issues.

[Deadbolt]

The reason the chipset may be an issue is the level at which the OSD "trickery" is programmed. It would be nice if the developers developed and tested on different machines...you would think that the Intel 865 chipset would be a major one to test!

Deadbolt

[sonoman]

I also have an 865 chipset in a machine I built exclusively to use with with Sage and am very disappointed that I cannot use it reliably with this software. I have been very patiently trying each beta as it's released hoping for a resolution of this issue. I sincerely hope this is resolved by the time Sage is released in full. Please continue to keep us informed Jeff.

sonoman

[krutaw]

Originally posted by sonoman
I also have an 865 chipset in a machine I built exclusively to use with with Sage and am very disappointed that I cannot use it reliably with this software. I have been very patiently trying each beta as it's released hoping for a resolution of this issue. I sincerely hope this is resolved by the time Sage is released in full. Please continue to keep us informed Jeff.

sonoman

Well, while I was upset at first, now I'm thinking it was a good thing that I didn't have to use my powerhouse machine as a SAGETV. I like the fact that I could go on ebay and buy a pc for less than $50 and use it along with the PVR-350 and get better TV out than my buddy's TiVo that cost him way more than my home brew system.

[nielm]

Worf:

I have problems just turning on the 350 out on my EPIA M1000 system. It will work for awhile and then the machine will hard lock.

Which PSU are you using on your M10000: a common one is the 55W Morex PSU which gives a lot of people problems because the AC/DC converter cannot actually maintain 12V supply voltage at 55W, leading to bizzare lockups, network failures, hard-disks powering down unexpectedly at runtime... Check the internal voltages using FlightDeck...

[fidget]

Originally posted by nielm
Worf:Which PSU are you using on your M10000: a common one is the 55W Morex PSU which gives a lot of people problems because the AC/DC converter cannot actually maintain 12V supply voltage at 55W, leading to bizzare lockups, network failures, hard-disks powering down unexpectedly at runtime... Check the internal voltages using FlightDeck...

I agree 110%.

For a bare minimal configuration, I would recommend having at least a 100W PSU. My EPIA-M 1000 has 256 MB RAM, the PVR-350, a seagate 80 GB HDD, no FDD, no CD/DVD ROM and it had problems powering up with a 60W PSU (it would boot, but not activate the network interface). It runs just fine with a 135W, but the fan is rather annoying. The 60W was an external DC "brick" PSU and the 135 (and now 200W, because of the noise) is a standard PSU.

[Worf]

I am using an old Gateway 250 W power supply. I built my Sage box into an old subwoofer cabinet, so cooling might be my problem. I added another case fun this afternoon, so we'll see if that helps. The encoder issue that Jeff mentioned could also be my problem. I turned on IR, but I have my favorites set to a higher encode quailty, so I still might have an issue. I'll give an update when I've had a chance to observe it more.

[Worf]

Just thought I'd report back. Sage has yet to lock up since I added the additional case fan. So far so Good!

[maximumpig]

so i still have problems just running sageTV with pure video (as opposed to vid + UI) on the 350 hard-out. It doesn't run for more than a minute or so without locking up and me needing to reboot to shut the sage thread down (so I can run it again). This is true with hardware decode only on as well, so it's not a software decoder issue.

i am debating whether to start with a clean winxp install on this machine to troubleshoot or just move the card to my still-dormant old dell/440BX and see what works there. I guess I am just bothered that I seem to have a problem that no one else has--and I have the same issue regardless of which beta, or even 1.410--hardware out = lockup.

narflex, any thoughts or advice on what could be causing that?

FWIW, i tried putting a spare case fan blowing directly on the pvr-350 but still no go.

i am running winXPsp1a + all updates, chipset = Intel 875P (asus p4c800E-dlx) and i also have a sigma x-card in the machine (which is what I have been using to watch the mpegs that sage records, using the supplied xmedia software, which is cruddy, since I also can't get sage to work with my xcard). Is it possible there is some hardware conflict with the xcard?

I also am using a Creative Audigy 2 soundcard. Vid card = ATI 9600 Pro 128 mb.
there's some other stuff in there but I doubt any of it is causing the problem.

[krutaw]

Originally posted by maximumpig
i am debating whether to start with a clean winxp install on this machine to troubleshoot or just move the card to my still-dormant old dell/440BX and see what works there. I guess I am just bothered that I seem to have a problem that no one else has--and I have the same issue regardless of which beta, or even 1.410--hardware out = lockup.

FWIW... I would recommend the 440BX. Moving the PVR-350 into an older (better known / supported ) motherboard was the cure for my problems. And believe me, I was the biggest pain until I figured it out.

Anyway, on another note, I finally had a lock-up on the i815 chipset. The machine had been running for approximately 2 weeks at that point. I know it wasn't a heat problem, because I checked the cards etc. But I'm thinking that it is just a driver issue (still using Beta 20220 drivers.) But, I must say, I'm more than willing to schedule a reboot once a week to work around the problem.

[maximumpig]

Yes, I may very well be the biggest pain on this board. . . for now.
Thank you for your psychologically sound advice.

I would be delighted with one reboot / 2 weeks
right now it's about 12 reboots/day as i am in full-bore experiment troubleshoot mode.

Anyway, my new hardware arrives today--m-audio soundcard and big phat harddrive for dedicated home theater 440bx pc. The Dell XPSR-350 will rise again! If I can get this to work, my brother will no longer laugh at me with his tivo . . .

For the record, I'm still annoyed that my home-built pc can't do what everyone else's can.

[krutaw]

Originally posted by maximumpig
Yes, I may very well be the biggest pain on this board. . . for now.
Thank you for your psychologically sound advice.

I would be delighted with one reboot / 2 weeks
right now it's about 12 reboots/day as i am in full-bore experiment troubleshoot mode.

Anyway, my new hardware arrives today--m-audio soundcard and big phat harddrive for dedicated home theater 440bx pc. The Dell XPSR-350 will rise again! If I can get this to work, my brother will no longer laugh at me with his tivo . . .

For the record, I'm still annoyed that my home-built pc can't do what everyone else's can.

I completely understand the annoyance. I personally think that there will come a day when Hauppauge / Frey tech. / Intel resolve the issue. This has got to be a code issue of some sort, whether it be the implementation of the OSD or a driver gone astray.

I'm considering buying another PVR-350 so that I can setup a client with astounding video out as well. I think I've got alot better chances of talking the wife out of another PVR-350 than an HDTV. hehe

[maximumpig]

actually i'm becoming more and more convinced that my video-hw-out problem (as opposed to the shared-by-everyone ui-out problem) is a heat problem--the more directly I have a fan blowing on the card, the longer I can go with hardware-out turned on without a crash.

sooooo I'm going to look into some sort of heatsink fan solution for the card to see if that will help.

off to newegg I go.

[stanger89]

Might want to check Silicon Acoustics as well. They've got all kinds of cooling stuff, and with an emphasis on quiet. Almost sounds like maybe your HS isn't attached well.

[maximumpig]

thanks stanger
that's what I was thinking. I'm gonna pull the card out tonight and give it a thorough inspection. I never really looked at it closely anyway (was too eager to plug it in). So I hope the fix is as easy as tightening a screw or reapplying some thermal grease or something like that. I'll be overjoyed if this is all solvec by a $10.00 chipset heatsink/fan combo.

[stanger89]

Hopefully.

[maximumpig]

I know you're all waiting with bated breath for further updates, so here goes:

installed sage tv and my pvr-350 on my old dell xps-r350 with the 440BX mobo and a 1.2ghz celeron

once I figured out that you need both (a) a sound card installed and (b) directx 9 in order to use sage tv (or wintv2000 for that matter--this slowed me down for about 30 minutes) I was up and running and everything was working great!!!

in particular,
- hw out worked
- hw out + ui out worked (!!!)

it was hard to believe it was the same program as when it was on my 875P chipset machine!

but then . . this morning I:

- installed the client on the machine that previously was my sage box
- added my USB-UIRT and
- fiddled with some settings in sage (i hope I can remember which--like 3d accel enabled, global preroll for ir timing to 0050, etc.)

and somewhere along the way messed things up for myself because now I get this green screen and the hw-out freezes but the prog itself does not lock up and I don't need to reboot to kill the frozen process or quit and restart sage--but I do need to reboot in order to get hw-out working again.

This may be a heat issue, it may be a conflict with USB-UIRT or it may be one of the settings I messed with this morning--further experimentation will no doubt reveal more. But for a bright, shining moment, at around 1 am last night (this morning) all was as it should be.

I'm tired. It's gonna be a long day here at work.

[Worf]

If I enable 3d accel after enabling the PVR-350 tv out it disables the pvr tv out. Disabling 3d accel turns the 350 out back on. Hope that helps.