FIXED !! - Hauppauge PVR 150 - output looks snowy

[WT]

I just bought a Hauppauge PVR 150mce card and any output looks like crap. It resembles a TV signal using the old rabbit ears antennae pulling in a far off distant station ... snow everywhere !!! Here are the specifics:

CARD:
Hauppauge WinTV 150mce white box OEM with only card drivers installed - low profile (I had to mod it by bending the backplane and using a second backplane folded and taped to the low profile backplane)

RIG:
AMD 2500+ Barton PC, AOpen AK79D 400 NF2U MoBo, 512 DDR RAM, 80GB WD SE drive, MSI 5900 vid card, SB Live! Value

So far, I have downloaded every driver update and utility update from Hauppauge's website. The problem exists in both WinTV2000 and GBTV. My cable line comes into the house at the wall, where I then use a Radio Shack cable splitter to send the output to both my card and the TV. I've tried using the TV's cable line as well as the other output going to the TV with the same snowy results. The TV output is crystal clear. I'm fairly certain I didn't damage the card by modding it; I simply bent the top of the plate over, then insulated it with electrical tape before wrapping the second bent plate on top of it and taping that with electrical tape as well. I've even tried newer Nvidia drivers for my primary card, going from 53.03 to 66.12. I did not receive any other CDs with the package so might I be missing a codec or some other valuable software ? Any ideas ??? I'm stumped ... other than to jack it right into the cable line from the wall.

 

[WT]

Wow .... have I stumped the AT:V forum gods ???

 

[Matthias99]

(I had to mod it by bending the backplane and using a second backplane folded and taped to the low profile backplane)

I don't understand what you mean by this. Which 'backplane' are you referring to? There are normally not any backplanes in a home PC (this term normally refers to a device that you plug hot-swappable SCSI drives into...)

If you modded your card(!), there is an excellent chance you screwed up its grounding and/or shielding.

 

[WT]

Which 'backplane' are you referring to

The metal plate upon which any card is mounted so that it may be screwed down into place after being inserted into the board.

Dunno how else to describe it. I highly doubt its borked since all I did was bend the shortened top (since it was a low profile card) upwards !!

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: WT

Which 'backplane' are you referring to

The metal plate upon which any card is mounted so that it may be screwed down into place after being inserted into the board.

That would be a 'bracket' or 'slot bracket' or 'PCI slot bracket', not a "backplane". I agree that you are unlikely to have damaged the card by bending this bracket (unless you accidentally flexed the PCB while doing so, in which case you could have damaged it).

I don't know what to tell you. I have two PVR150s, and use one with the RCA video in and one with the coax in (on a splitter with the other half going to my cable box), and both look excellent. You have this card in a low-profile case? Is it possible it's too close to something (like the power supply) that is causing interference?

 

[WT]

Thanks for the correction ... I was stuck on the proper terminology of the bracket. I know for a fact I didn't flex the card too much, so I'm pulling it out of the PC its in and trying it in another PC. I can even remove the second bracket I have taped to it to ensure I'm not grounding somewhere and fuzzing out the signal. I've tried it in the 4th and 5th PCI slot, with just a SB Live! card near it. The SB Live! was at first in the 3rd slot but I moved it to the 4th slot later. I'll report back once I get a chance to yank it and try it in the other PC.

 

[BlackAdam]

probably just crappy reception from your cable... might need a signal booster on the line.

 

[WT]

FIXED !!!!!!!!!!

Sure enough, where I had added the second bracket to give enough 'length' to be held firmly in place, it was touching the top of the tuner on the card, or actually just a few 1/16" long solder prongs that stuck up past the tuner. Now I had thought ahead, thinking that would be an issue and I had added electrical tape to the underside of the bracket to keep from metal to metal contact. That apparently did not do its job. I swapped the card out to a second PC and let it sit precariously in the PCI slot without any proper bracket in place.

So now, its 'fixed', but I'm not sure how to correct it, unless I cut out a new bracket and punch a few wide holes in it to accommodate the coax lines ....

 

[beatle]

Technically, you don't really need a bracket for the card to function. It's just to give it some stability when plugging things into the card. It also helps keep the card planted when moving the box. If you really don't want to make a new bracket, just take extra care when plugging things into the card and moving the computer.