X2 and MCE

[dwdty9]

I just recently bought the X2 3800+ CPU and it works great, however when using MCE 2005, the program stutters terribly and pauses every 25 seconds and I have to change channel and go back to view again. It stinks!! I have installed the AMD driver, Microsoft hotfix, what else is going on? Has anyone else had this problem? What should I do to fix it? Thanks for the help

 

[MDE]

Try updating the drivers for your TV card and video card, also make sure you have any updates available from Microsoft.

 

[dwdty9]

yah, i got the latest drivers for both the tv card and the video card.

 

[dwdty9]

but it still hangs up after about 30 seconds of viewing. should I format and reinstall?

 

[Markbnj]

Lots of threads on the board on this general topic. Make sure your BIOS is flashed to latest ver. and supports dual core. Make sure Windows shows perf graphs for both cores in Taskman. Install the latest AMD drivers for X2 on XP. Install the MS Windows XP SP2 performance hotfix for multiprocessor systems.

 

[dwdty9]

bios is flashed to latest version. task manager shows two graphs, one for each core. latest AMD drivers have been installed and so has the SP2 hotfix!!

Still hangs/stutters!

 

[Duvie]

Interesting....I have not seen anyone complain about this one yet.....

I know that hauppage drive support has been downright terrible and henc why I would never buy one///Also that model has been out for ages....I bet they dont have driver support for it possibly.....

 

[dwdty9]

i'm going to do a format and reinstall and let you know how it goes. wish me luck

 

[Furen]

good luck, and do tell how it does after you reinstall.

 

[L00PY]

Sounds like a decoder issue to me. Probably better fixed by checking out graphedit / gspot and adjusting their merits.

 

[dwdty9]

well i formated and reinstalled. seems to work ok now! keep my fingers crossed.

 

[groebuck]

I had the exact same problem - it turns out there is an issue with MCE2005 and the AMD implementation of dual core - basically both CPU's try and handle the recording and playing of tv and it scarfs the machine - Mine would lock up every three days - Drove me nuts - all I did was upgrade the CPU from a 3000+ to the X2 3800+ - I put back in the 3000+ and the system is rock solid again - except - any shows that were recorded while the X2 was in there are hosed. Which sucks as I have lost about 7 shows of the seasons (Lost, Medium etc...).

p.s. I tried everything to fix it - full re-install - cpu driver update, MCE rollups nothign fixed it until I put the old cpu back.

 

[dwdty9]

everything has been a disaster with MCE!! And even with SageTV and such. I have decided to forego it all and get a PowerMac G5. Enough of my problems!!

 

[glugglug]

I had the same problem, found a fix today, works so far <knock on wood>.

The problem is as follows:
The AMD CPU drivers for dual core change the behavior of the Windows API calls QueryPerformanceCounter and QueryPerformanceFrequency used for high-resolution timing so that they return the CPU cycle counter rather than the 3.54MHz chipset clock counter. This causes problems because a) CPU clock speed varies with Cool n' Quiet and b) The 2 cores cycle counters may not stay 100% in sync, which can cause negative time measurements and overflow errors when a process switches between cores.

To fix it, add a "/usepmtimer" switch to the end of the line specifying your MCE install in boot.ini to make it go back to using the 3.54MHz clock.

For example, if your boot.ini contains

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut

change it to

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut /usepmtimer

Reboot and the problems should go away.

BTW, the "hosed" recorded shows will play smoothly in Windows Media Player 10, however it will think the show is longer than it is, and scrolling the time bar to skip commercials won't work exactly how you would expect.