Stability in windows MCE 2005.

Post by **AmIdYfReAk** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 6:51 pm

i mean really, i am formatting this thing for the 8th time in the past ~3 months of having it..

it will eather Freeze, Lock, or pause during Recorded show playbacks..

All i am loading onto the god damned thing is the Drivers ( MCE 2005 CERT! ) THATS IT! Nothing Else! no Dvd-playing Software ( needed to actually PLAY dvd's ) No anti-virii, NOTHING

yet itsstill doing this..

if i load Regular Xp on it, and run Seti, Etcetc, it will go without a hitch. i backed off the clock speed a wile ago ( it was running at 2.85 for those that where paying attention ) back to its stock 1.8.

this is starting to drive me insane..

any suggestions?

system:
Intel P4 1.8A
512 Kingston Pc-3200
Asus p4p800-e Delux
Nvidia Geforce Fx-5200
WD 200gig SATA Hdd
Saphire Theater 550 PRO
PSU: 350watt

i'm using everything that is built on ( optical for sound, Nic, etc )

Any suggestions? tips? links? ANYTHING? all i want is this fuckin thing to work.

Post by **Giraffe }{unter** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 9:11 pm

"it will eather Freeze, Lock, or pause during Recorded show playbacks.."

I'm currently dealing with the same problem. It will randomly pause durring playback. Then after a few seconds the screen will go black. RESET and I'm back and running again.

It's annoying the piss out of me it happened immediately after I installed powerstrip.

Did this start after installing newer video drivers? See if on your next format you can install Drivers from around the time you set it up (if it was problem free back then)

I havn't had the time to format and reinstall everything yet, but I hope to do it before my shows kick in to the new seasons...

http://www.xpmce.com
http://www.thegreenbutton.com

Their forums helped me through a few issues, you have to be patient though answers come slowly and like every web forum you are hit with a birrage of idiotic questions and better ways to set up your media center.

Post by **AmIdYfReAk** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 7:15 am

yea, i'll check into that man..

The Freeze up shits started after my last format where i installed the intel Chipset drivers ( something i dident do for the others ).. formatted, then it did it again when i installed Dcut ( an editing proggy that is MCE 2005 Cert

)

bah, i'm trying to eather find this, or an alternative.. but none of wich are presenting them selfs.

Post by **AmIdYfReAk** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 5:59 pm

Grrr, after this new format.. the Tv tuner Card is not installing properly ( well acording to MCE 2005 its not ) i put in a replacement in a diffrenct PCI slot.. same thing..

fuckin wow.. this is getting out of fucking hand.

Post by **Giraffe }{unter** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 6:13 pm

It's prolly something silly too

Try this man... Get your hands on a copy of PowerQuest's Drive Image (I'm using 5.0) Install in on any computer and create the rescue floppies.

Remove all cards, disable all Mobo features.

Format and Install MCE2005 leaving about 10 - 15 gig on a partition or another drive.

Once the install is complete and you are on the windows desktop create an image using the rescue floppies.

Now you have a reference image win nothing done to it. It will only take about 10 - 15 minutes to restore it to that point from now on.

Install cards and drivers one by one. Once you are done make another image.

Now configure the MCE program, make another image.

you can go back to any image at any time if you mess something up.

When I installed Powerstrip I fooked up and didn't create an image before I did it so all my hard work wne to shit

Post by **plained** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 8:50 pm

some softies that may help

SageTV SageRecorder

WinDVR2
PowerDirector Pro
ShowShifter

Post by **Giraffe }{unter** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:43 pm

I think I have solved my Problem, no crashes since my fix...

BIOS
Disable AGP Fastwrite
Slow the AGP Bus speed
Dropped my frame buffer from 512 - down to 128mb

I also removed all my Hauppauge WinTV Pvr 250 drivers, then reinstalled each card 1 at a time using the latest Hauppauge drivers.

Post by **Giraffe }{unter** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:44 pm

one question... What DVD decoder are you using?

Post by **AmIdYfReAk** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 9:37 pm

i WAS using Power DVD 6.0 Deluxe.

I'll try that stuff out though Graffe.

Post by **Giraffe }{unter** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 4:22 pm

Going on 2 days no crashes :icon14:

Post by **D'Artagnan** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 6:18 pm

Did you format with windows XP? if so, it's not really formatted...when you format with windows XP, windows always keep some stuff, like some kind of back-up.
If you really want to format from scratch...use PartitionMagic.
One last advice, when you reinstall winXP, before installing anything, try to do youre [Recorded show playbacks] and install one by one the rest and check back again...maybe it's a incompatibility of a driver ...

Post by **Tormentius** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 7:43 pm

dan1407 wrote:Did you format with windows XP? if so, it's not really formatted...when you format with windows XP, windows always keep some stuff, like some kind of back-up.
If you really want to format from scratch...use PartitionMagic.
One last advice, when you reinstall winXP, before installing anything, try to do youre [Recorded show playbacks] and install one by one the rest and check back again...maybe it's a incompatibility of a driver ...

Windows doesn't keep "stuff as a backup". NTFS marks the file as deleted and allocates it again as free space. When that "free space" is overwritten its gone. Those remnants don't interfere with the OS operation in the slightest.

Post by **AmIdYfReAk** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 8:32 pm

actually, Each time i formatted.. full format.. not a quick. ( 2 fucking hours.. jesus.. )

And i am going to try what GH said.. ill report back.

Post by **AmIdYfReAk** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:06 am

well, this is very irratating..

i formatted and installed all of the latest and greatest drivers.. did everything that GH said.. and my Tv tuner card is not being detected by Media Center... windows its self see's it.. Power Cinama see's it ( can can use it ) but Media Center cant..

Now this is a fucking HHUGE Piss off.

tommorow, i'm going to e-mail ati in reguards.. allthough i have a feelling that its Microwanks fault..

Post by **Giraffe }{unter** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:12 pm

Did you grab the ATI drivers for Media center, (not Windows XP) ?

Post by **AmIdYfReAk** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:22 pm

yes

Also, i have two of the cards ( tiger direct funed up and sent me two instead of one ) and the other Card is doing the same.

i have JUST posted at sapphire's Site in hopes for them to have somthing for me, other then refering me to Microwank.