dead board advice please guys

[gilbates]

guys is it possible in any way that a capture board can die from installing drivers not native to it

personaly i dont think so but after i used the bt8xx drivers with my pctv board , it just refuses to work again with the original pctv software

i have uninsatlled the software , run regedit , from pinnacle site , moved the board to a different slot , tried dofferent version of there software , cleared the registry of any mention of bt8xx and pctv , checked the hard disk for any rogue files , run the machine without it and then put it back in with still no joy , even re-installed xp pro

i shut everything down running in background when i install and re-install
when i install an older vesion of there software the pctv assistant that checks compatability gets to the capture stage and fails and when i try to install the newer vesion 5.5 update it fails at the start of the assistant saying the software is faulty , i have re-downloaded all versions of there software and nothing seems to work

i know you lot arnt pinnacle specialists but with your knowledge of drivers and other capture files , do you think i have missed something

or is it coincidence that it just may hve given up the ghost when the bt8xx drivers where being used

been to there forums section but its as good as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

[Abbadon]

Hi

I am not an specialist in any way, but in Electronics it is possible to burn a piece of hardware when sending incorrect eletrical signals. I am afraid it is what happened in this case, you clearly mention that you install the wrong drivers; as an example, when you install linux, you must be very careful about the drivers you use for the video card, because you could burn your monitor.

P.S.
A second opinion is advisable though.

[gilbates]

hmmm

cheers mate

worst fears realised maybe then , i have been going round in circles with this , finaly got to capturing in a decent format and the board lets go on me

i do remember pulling in the bt8xx drivers from device manager to run pctv software with them

maybe thats the point where it just went bang , odviously having diferent drivers on your machine has no affect but pulling them into the card to run it , in hine site is not good

someone said before , have a mess about and see if you can get both sets of drivers running together , looks like i messed about too much

if it has gone i wonder whats good for capturing and watching telly thats not got a pinnacle badge on it

seen up pcworld a packard bell one and wintv ( i think ) dont know which would be best

[bobbysox]

I'd try the installing the card in another machine if you can. It's very, very rare indeed but it could be blown because of the wrong driver but in a modern pc it's almost a non issue. As far as Linux goes...yea, well...

Sometimes just taking out the card and putting back in again can fix such an issue. My Geforce4 video card can do just that and it won't fire up my monitor. Also make sure your pc is properly grounded.

Good luck!!

[Abbadon]

Gilbates,

I am very happy with my AverTV card, check the manufacturer's homepage: http://www.aver.com/products/

I can watch TV and capture directly from my satellite receiver up to 720 X 480 using the tweaked drivers for the BT878 chip. The card is very cheap but very good.

[ironwood321]

The installer for the BT8xx has a remover if I remember correctly which will remove all reference to Brooktree drivers from your computer.

Your computer could be using the most recent drivers still becuase they still in place within your computer (windows\inf) etc they could be setup with the wrong settings for your card.

You did not mention what was wrong with you card other than the fact that it now does not work! More infomration please i.e in what way does it not work.

I have a jetway card which is based on the Fusion 878A chip and I have installed generic drivers rather than the one which came with it.

[gmatov]

I have PCTV, V4 and, I think , V 4.2. V 4.2 was too big for them to allow as a DL, and you had to have V 4.1 installed, as it was 6 or 7 years ago. You do realize it is an antique card?

Nevertheless, it was adequate. Did a good job, and much cheaper than the ATIs. And it did not drop frames.

Should you want the SW, PM or mail, I will see if it can be split into mailable pieces.

Cheers,

George

[proxyx99]

The best advice was given by BOBBYSOX. The only way to determine if it's alive is to test it in another system (you reg. may still have some entries that will disrupt the card, you ended up with a mix from both drives - quite common). Rather unlikely to fry the card this way, but since you can also overclock video card via software... anything is possible.

[gmatov]

Proxy,

As I mentioned, the card is 6 or 7 years old, no processor built onto the card, can't be o'c'd.

Pinnacle's site sucks. Every time I went there to access their FAQs, I got a line of maybe 10 lines of type overlayed on top of each other. Kinda like if you can decypher this, we just might help you..

I think I made an FCC type threat to get an e-mail answer from them.

Cheaper than an ATI, but really a bad company to deal with.
Cheers,

George

[proxyx99]

Proxy,

As I mentioned, the card is 6 or 7 years old, no processor built onto the card, can't be o'c'd.

That I know. I just gave an example of kind of features that are controlled by software (like overclocking).

[aguillon]

Another tentative answer: IRQ sharing...

The new drivers might have a different behaviour towards IRQ sharing (since it s a PCI card that s a very valid concern).

On most boards I would make sure the card is neither in the first or the last PCI slots, and I would consult my board's manual to see which PCI slots are free of sharing. You may only have one or two slots that are truly safe for older cards in that regard (some share IRQ with the IDE bridge or controller for instance...).

Of course another possibility is that your card underwent a major fry-up at the same time you were updating your drivers (it happens).

Doubt that your card has been killed by new drivers. Very unlikely.