How do I know if my Tuner card is dead?

[Bruce22]

Hi, I'm running MCE 2005 on XP and I can't get the TV to work. It used to work just fine but now I get a message saying there has been a malfunction or that the hardware may not be present (or if I go into the TV section and click live TV from there I get a message saying video error). My system is detecting the tuner card so does this mean the card has died? I took it out and had a look and there are no obvious signs of a problem (not that I expected to see any) but it just doesn't work now.

I'm not an advanced user of MCE so haven't been fiddling with any settings, etc, so am not sure why it no longer works.

Any advice would be great. Also - if I need to buy a new one is there anything I should watch out for?

[nikko1974]

Hi Bruce,

Able to pin down when it stopped working with anything you did?

Tried uninstalling the drivers for the tuner card and then reinstalling them?

So your tunercard is showing up in the Hardware Manager part of the Control panel but you're getting video error?

Maybe you just need to uninstall and then reinstall your MPEG2 decoder (PureVideo, PowerDVD etc)?

Postup which tuner you're using and also your decoder. Are you using the latest available drivers?

[Bruce22]

Able to pin down when it stopped working with anything you did?
Not really, but I think it was a few months back when I installed a few DVD burning/editing type programs. One of them was the Cyberlink DVD Solution4 suite of programs, not sure what the other were - just from disks a friend shared (probably a bad idea in hindsight).

Tried uninstalling the drivers for the tuner card and then reinstalling them? Yep, tried this.

So your tunercard is showing up in the Hardware Manager part of the Control panel but you're getting video error? Yep, device manager shows it and says it's working ok

Maybe you just need to uninstall and then reinstall your MPEG2 decoder (PureVideo, PowerDVD etc)? Tried this, I have a disk with PowerDVD which came with the PC and have just re-installed but didn't help.

Postup which tuner you're using and also your decoder. Tuner card is: Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II, re the decoder - do you mean PowerDVD? If not where should I be looking (I note several audi, video, etc, decoders are listed in device manager
Are you using the latest available drivers. Yes

Thanks, appreciate your help.

[nikko1974]

Bruce,

Hmmm not really sure mate - its sounds like you've done most of the things I'd try myself.

If you've access to another system you could try and use your card on it and see if it works. Otherwise if you can return easily to the retailer it might be worth that - as it does sound most likely that the card is faulty in some way.

I'm assuming that you're running legit MCE 2005 and have all the major updates etc applied.

This is why using imaging software is easy as you could have 'restored' back to a time when you KNOW the card was working fine........thus if it was still not working its clearly a hardware fault.

But I'd say there's still a fair chance its a software issue somewhere - but more likely hardware.

This can be VERY frustrating......I have been through myself.

Try and get in the habit of using an imaging program - there are free ones that work well....and paid ones that are better.

Good luck with the tuner....not sure if I can offer any more advice.

:-)