Tuner stops working

rikin · **6th August 2008, 09:02 PM**

Hi all

I've had a look around to see if anyone else has this problem. Seems to be variations of it but not the same.

Having problems with running TV in vmc. I can view TV for approximately 1/2 hr ~ 1 hr before the pictures stops and is replaced by the error message "Tuner Not Available: The tuner is currently in use by another applcation or is not working. Please close all other applications , restart Windows Media Center, and then try again". Sometimes following these instructions will work, other times a reboot is required but even this does not always fix the problem and I get the same message.

I've replaced all drivers I can think of and the pc is set up to never go to sleep or hibernate. The pc is set up purely for HTPC and does not have much else in it apart from Vista. Have no problems watching DVD; both disc and recorded on hard drive, and have no problems with other MCE components such as online content, MyMovies, Bigscreen Weather etc. Have no problems finding channels if I re-scan and picture quality is generally excellent. No issues with stuttering picture etc as reported in other posts.
System is Vista Home Premium with Service pack 1. Intel DP35DP MB, 3 Gig Intel Core2Duo Processor, 2 Gig ram, NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT. TV Tuner is a DNTV Live!Dual PCI-Express S2 Card.

Anybody having similar experiences or point me in the right direction?

aceman · **6th August 2008, 10:35 PM**

I know exactly how you feel mate, I have the same card and it does exactly the same thing.

Unfortunately I think I may have purchased the wrong card. It's unreliable. If I had my time again I would get a Hauppage 2200

rikin · **8th August 2008, 12:12 AM**

Ah, well thats not a good start. I've had it since Jan but have only got round to getting serious with it now, hence the post. Plan is to do whatever neccesary to make this HTPC do what I want it to do, so I'll see if there is any help here. If no luck here I'll drop DigitalNow a line to see if they have a fix. If no joy there then look at another card and start again.

Skissors · **8th August 2008, 05:14 PM**

I had this happen to me and a restart would not fix it. I had to Ghost back to a later image to get it working again. I'm using HVR 2200 though.

It started doing it right after I installed MCE buddy, and when a program kicked in to record I changed channels. Popping up with the same error you get. Nothing I tried would get it going again.

Not saying MCE buddy had anything to do with it, Its just the only thing that I changed before it happened, More like changing channels and a recording starting at the same time corrupted something in mce for me.

After the Ghost everything runs fine, but have not installed MCE buddy again yet

rikin · **9th August 2008, 12:31 AM**

I haven't heard of MCE Buddy. I'll have a bit of a look and add it to the list of add-ins to try.
Funny thing is, I set up MCE to record about 2 hrs ago while I was watching Foxtel (which is not run through MCE) and I just checked, it hasn't missed a beat and is still recording. Haven't done a lot of recording but found the same thing was happening if I watched it while recording; the tuner would stop working and I had to re-start.

CowBoy Bob · **10th August 2008, 12:22 PM**

I have the same card, works well for weeks then unexplainably decides to no longer work one day.
I have to play with reinstalling drivers and eventually it works again.
I did some research here b4 buying the damn thing and have regretted it ever since.

rikin · **15th August 2008, 12:38 AM**

Bit of an update. Thought it had come good. It's been running happily for about the last 4 hours then shut down just minutes ago. There were about 10 windows updates to install and I thought maybe they had sorted it out but I guess not.