High CPU Useage after adding Tuner

[htpc_user]

I installed a tuner card in the PC that I use outside with my projector in case I wanted to watch something on the big screen some time.  I copied some blurays in ISO format to it today and was going to watch something tonight.  But when I tried playing something before taking it outdoors, the movie was stuttering like crazy.  I checked the cpu useage and it was at or near 100%.  I was at a loss, and at first I couldn’t figure out the problem.  So I decided to take out the tuner card since it had worked fine before I put it in.  After I took it out and restarted, the PC was fine.  The card is a VistaView DA-1IN1-I, and I was using Windows 7.  When I installed it and started up, Windows installed the driver by its self.  So you’d think it is compatible with Windows 7.  Any ideas?  Maybe just a driver upgrade needed?

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

Some things that crossed my mind were overheating, bad drivers (as you already said), or a bad codec.  Considering that their official drivers have not been updated since 2008, it may be that it doesn’t work with Windows 7.  Even though MS installed a driver for you, it may not be a fully compatible one.

[mikinho]

If you have the latest firmware for the tuner, it is not W7 compatible.  The 1 version prior is but fairly unstable.  So if you had it running on a Vista machine previously good chance you have the latest incompatible firmware.

[htpc_user]

Mikinho, you are saying there are different firmware versions of the VistaView card?  I didn’t see anything on their website about firmware updates, only drivers.  I didn’t try the latest drivers.  I just wanted to see how the card performed, and I thought the installed driver would be good enough for that.  I didn’t think it was going to bring the system to its knees, LOL.  I may try the most recent drivers just to see if it does the same thing.  Or I may forget it all together.  I probably won’t watch a lot of TV outside on the projector any way.  The last time I used this card was when I was using XP and SageTV on my HTPC.  I “think” I might have used it when I tried out Vista, but I’m not sure.  The strange thing about the VistaView card when I used it with SageTV was that the digital tuner worked, but Sage gave an error whenever I tried to use the analog portion…even though it was supposedly a card supported by Sage, and I think Matt said when he reviewed the card that it worked in Sage as well.  Just not for me.

[mikinho]

VistaView removed a lot of their driversfirmware around the time W7 was released.  They are a small company and I don’t think they had the support to update their drivers and firmware.

I’ll see if I still have the firmware in my archives.

[htpc_user]

Tonight I got a chance to mess around with this.  I updated to the latest drivers after Windows auto installed its drivers.  Restarted the PC and check the CPU useage and it was at 100%.  So I shut it down and changed the card to another PCI slot.  After I turned it back on, I checked the useage again and it was down to 10% or so.  I tried playing a bluray and it played smoothly.  It must’ve just been a conflict with the slot.

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