Installation problems - Leadtek DTV2000 H

[Mechanics Fan]

Having bought the above TV tuner card, I set about installing it and the associated software.

I seated the card in the PCI slot and connected the CD-In lead to the motherboard. I also connected the Remote sensor lead and analogue ariel cable before booting up. Then I popped the first of four CDs (the bundled driver and utilities) into the DVD drive and installed the driver, rebooted when requested and then installed the utilities. The Winfast PVR2 system tray launcher brought up the Status Window which was blank. Then the system froze and I had to hard reboot it, at which point XP wouldn't load nor would it boot in safe mode. Through the BIOS I restored the default settings which allowed me to uninstall all the drivers and software. Finally, I removed the tuner card to restore the PC to its original state.

Perhaps someone can walk me through the installation, seeing as how I made such a mess of it.

Thanks

John

[system7]

I believe our Jonny used to be happy with this card. Not sure you need the CD-in lead. That's a legacy thing.

Newest drivers and updated control software available from Leadtek:
http://www.leadtek.com/eng/support/download.asp?downlineid=162&downline=WinFast+DTV2000+H

Worth looking in device manager after driver install to check no yellow marks.

That's where I would start.

FWIW, my own different TV Tuner card has issues with remote.exe process hanging, which relates to the unconnected remote control infra-red, I believe.

[Jonny2Bad]

I have this card no such problems, install from the driver cd, then reboot, you then have configure and tune the card, not had any of the problems your experiencing, dont use the newer drivers 1st it complicates the whole process, installed a number of these cards but not had this happen, so maybe try again if the same could be a duff card always possible. completely uninstall and try again.

[Mechanics Fan]

Thanks Jonny, I've seated the card, installed the driver, rebooted and installed the PVR2 software. i assume that now i have to plug in the TV ariel and remote sensor lead. How do you configure and tune the card? Sorry for appearing to be thick, but I obviously am :!:

[Jonny2Bad]

Go to the spanner icon which is settings i think, then tune, set to england, the the city to other, then long search not a short 1. Then click on scan and all your channels should load up takes about 5-10 mins.

[Mechanics Fan]

When I launch the PVR2, either from the desktop icon or the system tray, the egg timer appears and then disconnects after a minute - frozen.

[Mechanics Fan]

Just had a look in Device Manager, there are 6 Winfast items under Sound, video & game controllers, but there are no warning signs against them.

[Jonny2Bad]

Yeah there is about 6 drivers for it all in all, mmmm puzzling to say the least, never had any probs installing any of the mine or the ones i have done for other ppl.

[Mechanics Fan]

I sent an email to Leadtek Technical Support who advised me to uninstall and try another PCI slot. Having already tried it in both PCI slots I will try another install in Safe Mode (this has worked with other software that seemed to conflict). Just one more point, at what stage should I plug in the TV ariel and remote sensor leads?

[matz]

read the manual usually you install the drivers then plug it in but double check

[Mechanics Fan]

Matz, the manual is rubbish imho.

By installing in Safe Mode I was able to launch the PVR2 without crashing but 3 of the 6 drivers did not install. I could enter the Configuration settings (spanner icon) and select UK, Manchester and Winter Hill (my local transmitter) but unsurprisingly the scan brought no results.

Then I loaded XP and through Device Manager uninstalled the 3 drivers, installed all 6 drivers using the Found New Hardware wizard and received the new hardware installed and ready to use message. But as soon as I launched PVR2, it crashed again.

Next stage was to download the latest version of the PVR software and drivers. After uninstalling everything and installing the latest versions, both in Safe Mode and normally, the end result was the system hanging and crashing. By now one of my drives sounded like a field full of crickets.

After uninstalling all the Winfast software/drivers and removing the tuner card, I opened my Firewall and deleted all the entries for the applications that were no longer installed, ran a registry scan, defragged the hard drives and ran a full AV scan. The unwanted noises appear to have gone and the system seems to be back to normal.

I will email the Tech Support at Leadtek for further advice but cannot see any way forward with this card, unless anyone knows better. :wink:

[Mechanics Fan]

:idea: :idea: It just struck me that my online security is pretty tight, Spyware Doctor with Antivirus, Threatfire, PC Tools Firewall Plus as well as the Windows firewall; this could be causing a conflict? In addition I have PC Tools Desktop Maestro with active registry monitoring. If I remove the Netgear USB adapter and disable the various AV, firewalls etc, would the tuner card and software install? In Safe Mode without networking it at least loads without crashing :!: What do you think fellow forummers :?:

[system7]

Indeed, Mechanics Fan, you may be onto something... :)

Since you are having endless horrible problems, you gotta wonder if you it's not time to simplify everything. Is the Internet so scary, that you need all that protection stuff? 2 Firewalls is simply NOT recommended. I would lose ALL the antivirus and just use single free Comodo firewall which is probably more effective than all of them put together, especially with an image backup. It has an installation mode that will allow your Leadtek tuner to install without issue.

You might also check your sound drivers are shipshape too. I don't run an ATI card with built in sound so this is not familiar to me, but I certainly wouldn't install 2 sound chips. That is asking for trouble. The more I learn about computers, the more I apply the KISS principle. Keep It Simple for Stupid. :lol:

Life is too short to mess around with endless issues and software conflicts.

[Mechanics Fan]

Thanks 7 :)

I can't get to tinker with it today as my son needs more reliable access to the internet (streaming NFL from the USA) than my old system gives. However, I am off tomorrow and I will try my new rig with just Comodo (I presume it is a simple download) to see if I can install the tuner card.

[Mechanics Fan]

Well I've installed Comodo and uninstalled PC Tools Firewall Plus, Spyware Doctor with Antivirus and Threatfire. I've also switched off Windows firewall. The Leadtek tuner card installed without fuss when using the Installation Mode and Winfast PVR2 launched without crashing but the scan revealed no services. Fortunately that is another issue.

[Jonny2Bad]

Very odd all this ive installed a good few of these cards and never come across this at all. Not sure you need all that protection 1 decent firewall and av will do, the spyware programs are not something i entertain as your microsoft os is the worst offender of spyware ever and we dont delete that lol.

[system7]

I suppose that was a bit of a scorched earth approach to installing it. I had the notion that most add-on firewalls disable Windows firewall when installing, but could check that. In hindsight, it probably would have been good enough to quit most of the running programs for the install. AV is a notorious wrecker of installs, and something that protects the registry needs some particular management too. Some of those AV programs could now go back on really.

But it's nice to get all the hardware and installed and working before adding software complexity on top. I really ought to tackle my own TV Tuner issues properly. My PC is permanently a work in progress! :P

[Mechanics Fan]

I've reinstalled Spyware Doctor with Antivirus, in future I will just disable it whilst installing new hardware/software and use the Installation Mode with Comodo.

With regards to the TV tuner card, I was wondering if it was my ariel connection but when I hooked up a TV it worked just fine. I've tried all 3 speed settings (sensitivity), my local transmitter Winter Hill and Others. Still the scan shows no channels, switching to FM mode finds nothing either. It looks like I'm not destined to have a tuner card on this system. :(

[system7]

For an ex-telecommunications engineer, I'm singularly clueless about my wretched Packard Bell (aka FlyTV Prime30) TV Tuner. I run a RF feed off the Virgin cable box for picture, and a SCART to phono then a headphone plug adapter into the blue socket on the motherboard for sound. Had to bump up line feed or something in sound control panel to get sound. I should really dig out the manual, but somehow channel 90 or thereabouts gets me a fairly low res picture... :roll:

[system7]

Good news, Mechanics Fan. As Coops would say, I have been able to reproduce your issue. :P

My own tuner will not install correctly with SP3. It fails to scan channel 90 correctly. Hence it plain don't work.

Under SP2 everything is hunky dunky. Therefore, I reckon you may need latest Leadtek PVR and drivers for a result, or use SP2 and all the 100 or so updates, I reckon. If you don't run Windows Genuine Advantage, updates will leave you with SP2 I believe.

My own driverguide drivers may be more problematic, being June 2007! These TV cards keep breaking under Windows updates. :evil:

[Jonny2Bad]

Ive tried not to run sp3 on 2 installs so far, had so many probs with it, sp2 was perfect, sp3 is just horrendous, like ms wanted to mess up xp to get us over to vista, god did i type that out load lol my conspiracy theories can run away with me sometimes lol.

[Mechanics Fan]

Thanks 7, I've got the latest PVR software and drivers from a download that I did the other day. I will try to install these in the next day or two.

As far as XP is concerned, I bought a copy for the new rig which incorporates SP3 and I had to validate my copy when upgrading to WMP 11, so returning to SP2 may prove problematic.

[Jonny2Bad]

Yeah tried that too and it was very problematic lol Dont try it.

[system7]

There are funny things going on with SP2/SP3. We seem to get quite erratic 3DMark06 scores depending which you have. SP3 is meant to be about 10% faster, but may be less stable if it's cutting corners somewhere. I still haven't picked out the pattern. I'll do some more testing.

I reckon the newest Leadtek PVR will be OK. It's only a month old. :)

[system7]

I was reminded of this thread today by something elsewhere, Mechanicsfan.

I think I've finally got my ancient Packard Bell/ Phillips chipped TV Tuner analog card working properly.

What I found was that windows XP was disabling part of the device in device manager after basic working SLI image restore. Enabled it, rebooted and installed drivers. Rebooted and installed control software.

Now I don't keep getting "Remote.exe has stopped responding" message at boot. Happy days. I have no idea why windows kept disabling part of the device. Awful things, flaky TV Tuner cards! :roll: