Random pauses

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geekiegeek

2513 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#68494 23-Sep-2010 10:15

Hi all,

I recently upgraded my HTPC to Windows 7 with the following hardware.

ASUS sound card (PCI-E)
Nvidia 9600GT (PCI-E)
HVR2200 (PCI-E)
Nova-S (PCI)
Realtek NIC (PCI)

1x640 green power HDD (OS)
1x1TB green power HDD (music, music videos, TV timeshift and record)
1x1.5TB green power HDD (Movies)

I am running mediaportal (latest version) in a singleseat config.

It doesnt happen all of the time but every so often TV either recorded or live will pause for a second or 2 with the sound carrying on - the picture then jumps to the correct sync and carries on. Rewind and play the same section - no problem so reception is not the issue.

I am wondering if,

1. I have to many PCI-E devices on the bus and my TV card\GPU dont have enough bandwitdh.
2. Green power drives just arnt any good for 1080i recording\playback

I was running vista with a Nova-T 500TD and had no issues allthough at the same time I did the upgrade\rebuild TVNZ changed to 1080 so its not really the best comparison - I have never really watched TV3.

I have alsways suspected that one pause I get after 20min of viewing is due to the HDDs spinning down as part of power saving and I had this with my vista build as well. But now I get random pauses at other times as well.

Downloaded x.264 1080p\i content is fine.

Thoughts?

mm1352000

1149 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#383798 23-Sep-2010 21:54

It may be caused by your "green" HDDs. Check out this thread for more of a discussion...
Have you tried changing your power mode to "performance"?
Also, what do the MP stats tell you? Are frames being dropped or is there jitter? Press [shift] + 1 (exclamation mark) to show/hide these.

geekiegeek

2513 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#383898 24-Sep-2010 08:21

I did wonder about the green powers. I wonder if the increased bandwidth for 1080i has tipped the scales. I'll try moving my timeshift to a RAM Drive and if that doesnt fix it I have a 500GB Caviar Black that I can try for TV.

geekiegeek

2513 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#385070 27-Sep-2010 17:58

Well I worked out what the problem is after installing a 7200RPM drive and switching to High Performance power settings - The problem is actually caused by an issue with coming out of hibernation.

If the HTPC is rebooted it works fine but if it wakes from hibernation I get the pauses. Had a look at the MP forums and there are a few others with the same problem.

Next step is find a fix. Work around will be to reboot at wakeup - not pretty but it should do the trick while still saving power between recordings\playback.

mm1352000

1149 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#385134 27-Sep-2010 19:55

Interesting!
Have you tried simply restarting the TVServer process? There are a couple of options in the MediaPortal general configuration list that might be relevant, however (assuming you tried simply restarting the MediaPortal client) it is not particularly likely that they will fix your issue:

"Apply workaround to fix MediaPortal freezing on resume on some systems"
"Restart MediaPortal on resume (avoids stuttering playback with nvidia)"

Thanks for reporting back. I'd be interested to know what you find...

[Edit: the NXP SAA7162 are notorious for issues with >=4GB RAM and resume/hibernate. Haven't heard the same things said about the SAA7164 (which the HVR2200 is based on) but you might check for a driver update.]

geekiegeek

2513 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#385570 28-Sep-2010 17:45

I have found that if I use suspend I dont have any issues so the problems are only if full hibernation is used.

mm1352000 - I have the restart on resume set but not the other workaround. I figure that suspend is fine so will probably just leave it at that.

geekiegeek

2513 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#386261 30-Sep-2010 11:24

Problem is still there even after a fresh boot.

Now I am pretty sure that the problem is with the HVR2200 as I never had any issues until I upgraded to this card - I have also found other posts on the MP forums where others have fixed this same issue by swapping to a Nova-TD 500.

While I do have a TD 500 this would mean a downgrade to Vista as there are driver issues with this card and windows 7.

I have to say I have pretty much had it with Hauppage cards. Might be time to look for an alternative.

Kraven

729 posts

Ultimate Geek

#386278 30-Sep-2010 12:01

I had the same issue with my Core i3 setup, which I solved by disabling the C-state features in BIOS. Maybe look for a similar setting on yours?

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mm1352000

1149 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#386342 30-Sep-2010 14:22

You never said how much RAM you have. Try limiting the PC to 4095MB of RAM...

geekiegeek

2513 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#386345 30-Sep-2010 14:28

PC only has 4GB and is 32bit.

geekiegeek

2513 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#386346 30-Sep-2010 14:31

Kraven: I had the same issue with my Core i3 setup, which I solved by disabling the C-state features in BIOS. Maybe look for a similar setting on yours?

mmm, I'll give this a try tonight.

mm1352000

1149 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#386375 30-Sep-2010 15:41

Setting your PC to the performance profile should have disabled the use of the c-states. You can check this by running CPU-Z and seeing that your CPU never drops down below the specified speed rating. Thing is that that is unlikely to matter if you are using a codec that supports hardware acceleration (eg. Cyberlink). I only suggested it to try and stop your HDDs from spinning down, but maybe there is a better way of doing that? I think I'm pretty much out of ideas. I can keep on throwing out random things that you could check though:

- DPC latency (this would possibly tell you if you were overloading the PCI-e bus - very unlikely! Without getting too technical, t is designed to tell you whether your drivers are "bad".)
- different codecs (ffdshow, CoreAVC, Microsoft)
- different TV applications
- older/newer drivers

geekiegeek

2513 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#390362 11-Oct-2010 10:21

Finally fixed all of my issues by building a new HTPC.

Still using the same HVR2200 so that 2wasnt faulty - looks like it was just an issue when combine with the rest of the system. I suspect it may have even been caused by not having a big enough power supply.

I now have

Core i3 530
4GB DDR3 1600
Nvidia GT220
HVR2200
Nova-S 500
Asus Xoner SXT Audio
Corsair 520W Modular

all plugged into a Asus P7P55D-E LX running Windows 7 Ultimate x86 and Media Portal 1.1.1

Everything is now working perfectly. I must say that the GT220 is a big improvment over the old 9600GT, colors semm brighter and there is no stutter - de-interlacing is perfect.