PCTVpro+WinXP+HyperThreading=DISASTER???

[king_by_mistake]

Hey all,

I am new to this forum, but I hope that you'll treat me as if i were your oldest pal, cause i need all the help I can get....

First of all, my rig:

P4 2,6C/800MHz/HT enabled
AOpen AX4SPE Max, BIOS R1.02
2x256MB DDR400 Apacer w/ Samsung chips
2xHDD Maxtor 80GB, ATA/133,8MB with IWILL I2S parallel-to-serial converter, stripped on Intel ICH5R RAID Controller
Jou-Jye Aluminum Case & Antec TruePower 550W
AOpen DVD&CDRW
SUMA GF FX5900SE 256MB
SB Audigy2 Bulk
Pinnacle PCTVpro
WinXP Pro SP1, DirectX 9.0b

Here is my problem: I CAN'T GET THE TV-TUNER TO WORK!!!
After starting the tv-tuner program, it takes about 0-1 min to completely hang, while most of the times it brutally restarts my PC! I have tried all PCTVpro driver versions, from 5.01 to 5.55 and also DScaler 4.17 but the same thing happens: Shortly after accessing the TV-Tuner, the system hangs!
While browsing the internet desperately looking for an answer, I came across this MS Knowledge Base article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;817589

It seems, that it's an XP problem, combined with HyperThreading Technology. BUT: Where can I download this fix from???? I've looked everywhere and I couldn't find it. The closest I got to it was a "stream.sys" file with ver. 5.3.2600.1164 that is supposed to fix a similar problem with Hauppage products, as it is described here: http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;812035. I installed this but it did nothing (i need version 5.3.2600.1193 apparently... ).
However, there are a couple of things that trouble me:
1. The problem isn't solved when I disable HT.
2. At first, the tv tuner worked fine for a period of time. After it started showing these problems, it never worked again and I already reinstalled Windows 3 times without being able to pinpoint the problem....

Any ideas??? Does anyone else have this kind of issues??? Does anyone know where can I get this !@$%^ MS fix????

Thanks in advance guys and please excuse me for the abuse of space.

[gambler2611]

Basically-Win xp is a bitch when it comes to ANYTHING. If the video card you're using is old i would upgrade. If you dont feel like it try going to the cards homepage and consider looking up new drivers there. If neither of them work try removing it from the device manager (control panel/system/device manager) and then reinstalling it with the PREVIOUS dirvers when windows says that its found new hardware.

If i was you i would dump the card and get a TV - alot easier

[king_by_mistake]

Hey gambler, thanks for posting.

1. The card is brand new.
2. Latest drivers are being used from the beginning.
3. Already tried the remove&reinstall-with-anything-that-comes-and-goes routine...
4. Come to think of it, I dumbed my TV to get this card.....

[beany]

Basically-Win xp is a bitch when it comes to ANYTHING

win-xp + pinnacle products = impossible
have you tried 4.0 drivers yet? they some times seem to work better then the pos 5.0 drivers.
i saw ur post in the pinacle forum, but if u have ever read that msg board it is just people ranting about how bad pinnacle is and how much better any other tv tuner is.

[king_by_mistake]

Hi Beany,

Yeah, I found out that about Pinnacle forums the hard way...

After browsing through almost every tv-tuner related forum I could find, I came across some "candidate" answers:

1. The hotfix I was looking for was eventually sent to me by Microsoft (!)

2. A nice fella over at tv-cards.com messageboard was kind enough to ket me know that there is an issue between DirectX 9.0b and PAL-based TV Tuners (also acknowledged by MS), so I should try again using ver. 9.0 or 9.0a.

After having all the "tools" at hand, I gathered my strength and reformarted my HD for a fresh setup. All went wel and clean, installed SP1, latest drivers for EVERYTHING (intel inf, Audigy, Detonators 45.23, Broadcom Gigabit etc) and, of course, I didn't touch DirectX. BUT: (oh yeah, there is still a f*$#@ BUT)

When I installed PCTV's drivers and rebooted, again there was the "New hardware found" notification from XP!!! The system wouldn't recognize the driver!!!! It's always "Multimedia Controller found" and I cannot install the drivers by any means!!!!

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON NOW??? I tried the tuner on another Computer and it works perfectly, so, it's not a hardware issue! I even removed the Audigy and left the tuner all alone and also tried on any other available PCI slot! NOTHING!

I'll go crazy... How the hell was it able to work ok for a month and then just stop!!!?????