TV Wonder card freezes up comp. after 30-60 min....

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

I have had this tuner card from ATI for over a year and it has worked
fine in my old Compaq 566MHz Presario. I recently built a computer
with the ABIT VA-20 mobo (VIA KM400A + VT8237 chipset) w/ the AMD
Sempron 2500+ CPU (not overclocked, running 1.74 GHz). The software
works just fine for a time.... anywhere from 20-60 (max) minutes.
Then suddenly the screen freezes, the keyboard and mouse don't
respond (incl. CTRL-ALT-DEL!!), and I am forced to do a hard reboot.
Another strange thing is that I still hear the sound from the channel
I was watching.

An earlier reply to a similar post suggested a weak PSU. The card
worked fine in the Presario, which only had - brace yourself - a 145
watt PSU (and it was powering 2 HDDs, a CD rom, LAN card....) The new
computer has a 300 watt supply, more than enough for the demands I
place on it.

The symptoms seem to resemble possible cooling problems but in
addition to the stock CPU and PSU fans, I have added a 12-volt
exhaust fan to the case to keep things extra cool.

Any ideas on how to solve this would be greatly appreciated. I am
considering just buying a small TV for the computer desk, but I do
miss my on-screen TV.

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

>> tuner card from ATI for over a year and it has worked
>> fine in my old Compaq 566MHz Presario. I recently built a computer
>> with the ABIT VA-20 mobo (VIA KM400A + VT8237 chipset) w/ the AMD
>> Sempron 2500+ CPU (not overclocked, running 1.74 GHz). The software
>> works just fine for a time.... anywhere from 20-60 (max) minutes.
>> Then suddenly the screen freezes, the keyboard and mouse don't
>> respond (incl. CTRL-ALT-DEL!!), and I am forced to do a hard reboot.

I tried each of these with a p-iv gigabyte motherboard (8ipe1000.. i
believe), yet continued to have problems extremely similar to yours. Every
change i made showed 'slightly more stability', but never resolved the
problem to satisfaction.
I've read lately about P IV compat problems, perhaps there is some with
sempron as well.

Definitely should (you may have done some of these options originally)
a) update your video card drivers as suggested by another poster
b) try a different pci slot.
c) uninstall the tv tuner drivers and software, and use the ones from the
website www.ati.com
--you can still install guideplus from the cd, not avail as download
d) update your motherboard bios
e) put it back in your old system and consider another make

from:
http://geek.pricegrabber.com/ratin [...] /id_type=M
Will not work with RealTek audio chip, common on NForce 2 based
motherboards.
Compatibility issues w/ P4 HyperThreading, random picture freezes, mediocre
and bloated application design, software mpeg encoder.

jo