VISTA 64 Media Center -- occasional "issues"

[BonzaiDuck]

I have a C2Q system -- shown to be rock-solid in periodic Linpack tests for Q6600@ 3.0 Ghz -- running for three years on VISTA-64. It includes an AverMedia 780 Combo HD/Analog tuner-capture PCI-E card. I'm moving slowly and carefully to add either a very large monitor or an HDTV as "second monitor" to a 2-monitor setup, planning eventually to upgrade my analog-cable-TV subscription to HD -- currently getting over-the-air HD broadcasts through an HD antenna connected to the HD input.

With an average frequency for occurence of once-weekly, the system will lock up while manipulating VISTA-64's Media Center with the Windows/USB infrared remote with its stick-on wire-to-cable-box features.

I want to isolate the cause of this problem before I spend money on the second monitor or HDTV. At this point, I had suspected a software conflict between Iolo System Mechanic's "Total Care" or "Active Care" feature when MC is running. The tendency has been to leave the MC-TV on and running almost 24/7.

I noted somewhere that somebody had mentioned a problem derived from not running the coax-inputs through a surge-suppressor, and I THINK this mention was associated with MC causing the entire OS to lockup and require a hard "reset" re-boot. I am NOT running my cable inputs through my battery-backup, but I CAN, although I'll need an extra short coax cable to do it.

Any thoughts about this? Are the symptoms I describe consistent with problems that could occur without the surge-suppression?

 

[Modelworks]

It isn't a problem related to surge protectors. You have a hardware or software problem. To find the problem I would disable any utility or application that runs at startup or stays running all the time except the ones that comes with windows. Things like system suites that are supposed to make the computer run better often cause more problems than they are worth. Also if you have installed codecs or changes to those settings that can cause WMC to behave badly.

 

[Emulex]

touch the avermedia 780 processor chips , you can shutdown the system first - de-static. and be prepared for fiery burns. that is your problem. its a sucky card. i switched to the ip based hdhomerun and likewise been stable ever since. i'm suprised the avermedia's don't just melt down

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Thank you both for your input.

Before I pursue other options for Media Center TV, I may try and throw in a kloodge to cool down that card -- like a fan. When I built the system, it was a careful tradeoff between N of fans, fan-size and other things. Lately, as I've been tracking this, I considered replacing the 780 Combo card with a Hauppauge 2250 or something like it. But these days -- the purse-strings are tightly controlled . . .

Emulex may have just pinpointed the problem. SoCal had a cool spell this last week, and there was a reprieve from this occasional crash. So that may just be the problem.

Didn't know whether to post this on OS, video hardware, or Windows software forum. So I'm glad I got some responses, and I'm grateful.

EDIT: I also just got a look at the SiliconDust product you mentioned. It looks like a better way to go. I'm going to deliberately pursue it.