Help - Any local Wellingtonian please lend me some gear for testing

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euanandrews

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#68258 17-Sep-2010 19:27

I have been having some serious issues with my beloved HTPC for some time now......
Its not software related as far as I can tell.

Problems:
- Starts when changing channels, fast forwarding recorded TV, I am getting random and frequent blue screen flicker
- After much time watching TV, the screen pixelates really badly, until virtually unwatchable
- Lastly, every now and again get a fatal result, the blue screen of death, complete system crash and auto reboot
All that appears to happen only when viewing TV....but...
- I have also noticed a systematic pause throughout the system, happens in all programs

I dont think its the video card, as I have a brand new one in there, and some of the blue screen flicker was there before I replaced my last video card

It appears most the issues appear when I use the TV....so I am wondering if the problem is the TV tuner card...
But the brief 'pausing' I have noticed throughout the system would not appear to be TV tuner card related but something else?

So I am wondering....is my TV tuner card slowly dying?
Is it the CPU?
Motherboard?

But I cant test anything as I dont have any spare parts lying around

Does anyone have any suggestions?
Or better still, is there any local Wellingtonian (who knows me) who could lend me some parts to test my system, so I can try to find where the fault lies....then I will be able to go out and buy a replacement.

martyyn

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#381543 18-Sep-2010 09:09

Ive got some spare bits and pieces lying around, what exactly do you need ?

euanandrews

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#381661 18-Sep-2010 18:37

A terristrial TV tuner would be the best place to start I think....

Otherwise a compatiable CPU, or a motherboard....

Not worried about specs, purely for testing to find which component of mine is the faulty one, as long any parts are compatiable with what I already have (see signiture)

Any help appreciated.

k1wi

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#381822 19-Sep-2010 11:28

Hey euanandrews,

I have a couple of questions:

1. Are your components all @ stock speeds?

2. What sort of CPU load do you have on your computer? In particular, do you get the system hangs when there is something hitting your CPU or HDD hard?

3. Is your Windows updates up to date?

4. are your temperatures out of range at all?

I've got a suggestions for you.

1. Go to folding@home and install MemtestCL and if you want, StressCPU http://folding.stanford.edu/English/DownloadUtils

You might need to fiddle around with the MemtestCL parameters to get it to test the system RAM, but if you struggle just send me a PM, I'm around all day. That should help isolate the issue to either the whole system (when under load) or the TV tuner (if there isn't a problem when running those apps).

I've got a win7 64bit & I've noticed that I occasionally get system 'pauses' when I'm either hitting the disk hard or the CPU hard. They've probably only been happening for the past couple of months. As a result, when I'm recording something from Freeview, I make sure that nothing else is running on my computer (normally I have folding@home running).

I've caught it a few times during the system 'pause' found the computer locks up, and then there is a flurry of disk activity, almost as if it gets hung up waiting for something to happen and then catches up.

[Add] : I have wondered whether it's due to a windows patch or something, the main time it happens is when I'm hitting the disk from a remote winXP machine (and Windows7 has allll sorts of problems with networking with sub Vista machines!).

Nety

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#381873 19-Sep-2010 14:00

I think the first thing you need to do is set windows to NOT automatically reboot on blue screen. Then you can see what exactly what the error is.

Windows key + break -> Advanced system settings -> startup and recovery. Deselect automatic restart.

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

martyyn

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#381878 19-Sep-2010 14:04

euanandrews: A terristrial TV tuner would be the best place to start I think....

Otherwise a compatiable CPU, or a motherboard....

Not worried about specs, purely for testing to find which component of mine is the faulty one, as long any parts are compatiable with what I already have (see signiture)

Any help appreciated.

Im not sure I have anything suitable then. Sitting around I have a couple of old P4's with motherboards and a Hauppauge PVR-500 if thats the kind of tuner you need.

If they are any use flick me a PM.

Cheers
Martyn