Unable to capture:Is it my graphics card or my Firewire card?

[Theresa]

Hello all-
I am unable to capture using any program, and Windows Media Player won't play videos. I am able to play them with an HP program, though, and games play fine. I have defragged all my drives, I have plenty of space to work with, I have checked my capture card--Canopus ADVC 110--by running the signal through it from the VCR to the TV and I get the signal fine, I have removed all drivers for my NVidia GForce 6600 and downloaded the latest drivers. I have been able to capture with this card, so I'm totally confused as to what has changed. I have tried a system restore, but XP says it can't restore to an earlier date, which makes me think that maybe I have a registry problem, which again, I can't begin to figure out what changed. Could the Windows updates be changing things in a way that messes with this process? The only thing I really changed is I installed Age of Empires III for my son, but have now deleted it, and the problems persists. Should I pull out the Firewire card and graphics cards and put them in different ports? If so, do I uninstall all software before I pull them, reinstall them and then install the driver for the graphics card?
Thanks for your help in advance.
Theresa

[redwudz]

The graphics card and the FireWire card are two totally separate items. FireWire is a data transfer, similar to a data transfer between two hard drives. The format going into the computer and going out to the hard drive are the same. A analog to digital conversion happens in the DV box. (If you are coming from a analog source)

A capture card is doing the analog to digital conversion in the card or in the computer, depending on the card.

FireWire drivers are built into XP. Your video card drivers are added.

Some Windows updates with some computers seem to cause problems with a FireWire devices. But this is unusual.

OK. I would uninstall the video card drivers and reinstall. I assume your card is not a PCI card, so changing the slot is not an option. To tell the truth, I'm not aware of much of anything that would cause both your capture card and your FireWire card to fail at the same time.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Others may have some ideas. Keep us updated.

[Theresa]

Hi redwudz,
Thanks so much for posting. Yes, it is a PCI card--and I don't think both Firewire card and graphics card have failed at the same time; I just don't know which one. And if it's the graphics card, I don't know if it's the card or the driver. I just tried to play a video on Internet Explorer, and my system froze again, as it does when I try to capture or when I try to play a video in Windows Media player. So I'm stumped. I'm going delete the driver, change the slot the card is in, re-download the driver and install and see what happens. If that doesn't work, I'll try the card on my husband's computer. I just don't know what would cause it to stop working when it was doing fine. I had this same exact problem before, but deleting the driver that came with the card and installing the latest driver from online cleared up the problem.
Thank you so much and any other ideas you have will be most welcome!
Theresa