Screen Keeps Freezing very Frustrating

Question

Hello,
    This is my first time using a forum, from what I have read in other postings, this seems to be the best place to start. I recently had a computer built at a local shop who said they could build me a system with all the bells and whistles I wanted including the ability to watch and record TV. "I was tired of buying off the shelf and Happy with my decision so far" Well, they did except for one problem with the TV@nywhere Master series Card. To defend them they really have done just about everything to get it to work. So I thought I  would  see If I could find a solution before I have to call them back to fix it and suffer through a detox period without my computer .
     I recently received the computer back from the shop and was watching TV when the problem started again.  The problem description is as follows: The  TV screen seems to lock up or freeze  on the monitor and you can still hear the sound even after you force it to shut down; sometimes the  TV picture freezes and does not go away. In order to watch TV you have to reboot and sometimes it locks the whole computer requiring a cold boot. At other times it will freeze again while adjusting the settings, as you can see this very frustrating. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
Intel P4 3.0 GHz HT
ASUS P4p800DX MotherBoard
Intel 865PE Chipset
MSI TV@nywhere Master8606-020(bundled software MSIPVS Intervid)
GeForce4Mx4000 128MB DDR
Lite-on DVD/CD/RW/ +-
512MB RAM
OS XP

Answer 1

I agree. I followed some of the links and there is a wealth of information out there. The trick however is to translate that information into something a non-engineer can understand and then apply it to specific troubleshooting actions to isolate the problem to specific components without having to reinvent wheel and sell car to finance the troubleshooting.
Ron, here is what I did, with some recommendations (I would appreciate if the engineers in the crowd correct me if I wander off into uncertain territory):
1. Recommendation: Return the card and get your money back . Read the GlennVidia's signature and buy another video card. If you can't do that or are stubborn enough to want to fix the problem, warning!, you may dig yourself into a hole and end up far away from your original problem. Get yourself a beer and forget about the rest of this post.
2. My first goal in troubleshooting this problem was to try to determine if this was a hardware or software problem. Not necessarily to identify the specific component, but at a very high level to identify the likelihood of the cause being one or the other.
In order to do this you need to create a base line testing environment. Simply power off the computer, power on and reboot. Shutdown all non-essential applications. This should reduce any excess baggage from influencing your tests. I assume that this non-stressed cruising state of the computer is how the tuner card is typically used. I do not expect that anyone would be stressing their computer by watching TV and playing Halo at the same time.
3. If you want to get right to the crux of the matter go to step 4. If you want to see more of what is happening when you run MSIPVS proceed.
There are a number of computer resource monitoring programs available. I use the Motherboard Monitor available at http://mbm.livewiredev.com/. If you install this, you can monitor your processor usage, temperatures, and voltages.
Since most of the work (video decoding) is being done by the tuner, and all we are dealing with is video streaming to the video card, and audio transferred directly to sound card, I would not expect the processor to be overly taxed. You are not using any installed modem, CD drive, floppy drive, the hard drives may in fact have stopped spinning, etc. during the test, so power usage should be at minimum. On my computer the 2.4 GHz Intel processor cruises at about 90% idle when I am running MSIPVS. This does not cause much of a temperature change in the processor or the case temperature which cruises at about 16 degrees C. This doesn't say anything about the temperature of the tuner card and power supply though. The voltages that are shown, I think, are the processor voltages and not the PCI voltages and it may not be accurate to make any inferences here (help me here guys} but my +3.3 voltage cruises at 3.25 V and my +5.00 at 4.89. The most I have seen this varying is + or - .02 even when more resources are being used on the computer. I do not see any unusual fluctuations at or around the time that MSIPVS freezes. This shouldn't be to surprising since almost all of the peripherals are in a stopped state. The system should not be stressed. I have an Antec True Power 380. OK, good brand name, but on first inspection maybe 550 might be better. But then 550 would always be better than 380, but not necessarily the cause of the problem.
4. Here is where we hit the pavement. To prove that hardware is not the problem, all we have to do is get one TV tuner program, to work even under stress, without fail for a reasonable period of time. I mean, we're still using the same power supply, memory, and tuner card, and if they are at fault we should find similar symptoms using other programs. There is a good thread started by Tveith,  "Software That Works with TV @nywhere". Ron, try some of the other programs. What I found was that the Intervideo programs, WinDvr3 and Home Theatre, had the same symptoms (freezing picture, wouldn't shut down properly). So here we have same hardware, using same WDM driver, application written by same company (MSIPVS is WinDvr 2), same symptoms. Coincidence? Use any other program on TVeith's list, except DScaler, and you have same hardware, using same WDM driver, and no freezing of picture. OK so maybe its Intervideo code related.
Don't do this at home, DScaler currently corrupts the tuner card EEPROM! I have used DScaler, same hardware, bypasses WDM drivers, no Intervideo code, and have never, ever, had it freeze on me. I have run it continuously for days without freeze up, while stressing the machine running other programs in foreground.
On my machine at least, that strongly suggests that the hardware is not the cause of this problem. Ron, if you try some of these options please post your results.